(crossposted to our junior classes’ blog)
Perhaps you can tell from our title (or perhaps it’s just appeared as those boxes that occur when we use emojis) … this week’s challenge is about emojis. It’s the first time the Student Blogging Challenge has used emojis for one of the topics, and I’ll admit I 🙄 when I saw the title in my inbox.
However, visual literacy is a part of reading and comprehending texts, and emojis are one of the fastest growing “languages” in the world, such that 😂 was the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2015. Different emojis combined send different messages in the texting world (and translating those messages is not something restricted to teenagers, by the way; more adults than you might prefer know the various combinations). We’ve learned a lot about some pretty key aspects of blogging in the past few weeks, so although emojis aren’t something you want to include in more formal posts, it may be fun to play around with them this week. (Besides, knowing your audience is crucial as a writer: knowing when and when not to use emojis can be part of that.)
For this week, therefore, you may choose from one of the below tasks, or you may post a more traditional post on a topic of your choice. Blogs are places to explore ideas and make arguments, so if you have something important on your mind, take this week to share it with us if you would rather that than playing with emojis.
If not, choose one of the tasks below:
Find detailed instructions at the Student Blogging Challenge post, and remember to post your URL to this form when you’re done.
A couple of reminders:
- I may not comment on every post, but I am reading them, and I do expect to see all of them complete (and I’m keeping track of whether or not you’re posting your URLs to the challenge as well, by the way). If you’re behind, you need to catch up this week, before Saturday. If you don’t have time to this week, you can stay after school the following week until you are completely caught up.
- Also, please keep up with your reading and commenting, and make sure to respond to the quality comments that are left on your blog. (If they don’t provide you with anything to which you can respond, that’s one thing, but if they’re asking you questions and engaging with your post, part of your responsibility as a blogger is to reply.)
