How many words do you write in a blog post? Have you ever counted?
My students write on a blog site, Fanschool. (Some are doing the daily Classroom Slice of Life Challenge.) One of the cool features on Fanschool is the word count. I usually tell my students that 200-300 words are the best for blog posts. I use word count to encourage my young ones to elaborate on their topics. I also tell them that no one really wants to read more than 300 or so words at one time. Without my priming them, students will sometimes get competitive with themselves and others over word count. I’ve learned that while word count doesn’t really matter, it is something I can leverage if I need to. “Let’s set a goal for at least 100 words today.”
Chance didn’t need a word count limit or a competition; he was ready to pour out his heart and soul on the blog in the first quarter he landed in my class. He had things he wanted to share. At 4th grade, he’s not real adept at punctuating complex sentences, but when he writes, words flow. I was thinking of him when I wrote this poem.
The Space He Needed
On the blog space,
he wrote
and wrote.
I asked him “What are you writing?”
He said, “1000 words about my brothers.”So many words, like a dam had been opened
to his life, his words.A space to write
away from the constraints
of a paragraph about the Declaration
of Independence. The blog
opened his independence,
his need to tell the world
all he had been through.For ten long years, he held
inside who he was, all his secrets,
waiting for this space
to declare his freedom.
Margaret Simon, draft
Reflections on the Teche 