Photo credit: Michelle Bui
By Karen Trinh
Mr. Theriault and his sophomore students celebrated the best student blogs in an awards ceremony during lunch on June 6.
Mr. Theriault planned the “OC Rising Talent Blogging Awards” ceremony for his tenth grade Honors English classes. Student blogs were nominated and presented with awards. Categories included, “Best Post”, “Best Promotional Campaign”, “Best Blog”, etc. All of Theriault’s sophomore students were able to nominate and vote for which blogs they believed deserved the awards, and then the winners were announced during the awards ceremony.
“Because my students put themselves out there so much, because they worked so hard at it, I just felt that I needed to put myself out all the way, and set up the awards,” Theriault said. “If your students are going to do something amazing, you needed to kind of go a little bit above and beyond as a teacher to support that.”
Many of Mr. Theriault’s students attended the event, which took place at the stage by the history buildings, to support their friends and favorite blogs, as well as enjoy pizza that was available.
These student blogs are the result of an assignment in Mr. Theriault’s English classes. His students were to create their own WordPress blogs, and maintain them for the entire second semester.
Each week, a student in every group had to write a “re-framed post”, in which he or she compares and incorporates a lesson learned in class to something else, such as a movie or book. Besides that, the students were generally given creative control over the content and design of their blogs, an idea which appealed to many.
“ I think the blog awards was a nice thing to do for the classes…the people who worked the hardest on their blogs, got the awards. They got awarded for their creativity, and that’s a good thing,” said Zara Mann (‘15), whose group won “Best Blog” and “Best Re-Framed Post”.
Ashley Masuda (’15) felt that the blogging assignment made her a stronger and more creative writer. “Also, I think for some people it was a new, innovative way to put their opinions and views out there, like for the people who are very shy, or don’t really like speaking out loud,” she stated.
Although only a few blogs received awards during the ceremony, Theriault’s students still enjoyed the event as a way to conclude their blogging experiences and the school year.
Cindy Wong (’15) and her group won “Best Post.” “I think the blogging awards assembly was a wonderful idea to end the blogging experience with, because the students get a reward for keeping a wonderful blog updated throughout the year,” she said.
