Confluence of Rule of Blog and Debater Role (from Literature Responses)

The tack that I've chosen to pursue this year in everyone's classes is the following (in this order):

1. Question Types (with an especial emphasis on Open-Ended Questions)
2. Engaging students in blogging in-class using the Rule of Blog
3. Explicitly teaching them the Toulmin method of argumentation that I've streamlined into the Debater Role from my Literature Responses
4. Incorporating the Debater Role into brainstorming and pre-writing for persuasive essays

This doesn't include workshops for reading strategies, Guided Reading, Literature Circles, Literature Responses, and specific concerns for the students in your classes, but it is, after much deliberation on my part, a PD paradigm that will allow everyone to start addressing AMS's new SMART goal.

I can't overstate how important it is that everyone take a lock-step approach to the four strategies/activities that I have listed here.  Briefly stated, if students haven't mastered OEQ (Open-Ended Questions) then they won't have anything of substance to respond to for the Rule of Blog activity; if they haven't responded to teacher- or student-generated OEQ on the Rule of Blog activity then the Debate Role (Toulmin method of argumentation) will just seem pointless to them and, most likely, you; and if students haven't mastered the Debater Role, then their persuasive essays aren't going to be nearly as effective as they'll need to be come Spring of 2012.

For now, I wanted to proffer some student exemplars--fairly decent for first tries--of the Rule of Blog, one of which had an impromptu OEQ based on responses to previous student-generated OEQ, the second of which had been prepared ahead of time...