Why Blog in the second grade?

Blogging in elementary school is not very popular, YET! My goal is to have my second graders blog instead of keeping a traditional marble composition book to write with a pencil daily. The objective: simple- to give students an audience to write for. Students want people to see and view their writing not just me on my couch with my red pen. Student voices should be heard no matter how young. Encourage: my hope is that those students who do not like to write will enjoy blogging because to a young child (hopefully) they will not see it as "writing" in the traditional sense. I found a great article from Education World in favor of student blogging.

What is the research evidence on writing? This PDF has some great information about what does effective writing look like, the gender gap in writing and attitude towards writing. I will admit the reading is kind of boring BUT informative. Now, we have all this research about why writing is important, how to teach it best and why. So now my experiment is can we use those best practices using a blog instead of paper and pencil? 2015-2016 will be a year of  anecdotal notes and gathering evidence to show that young students can learn to write through blogging. 

Getting Smart- list the top 10 reasons this person wants her kids to blog. Very fun and quick read in support of blogging for elementary students.