Can Tumblr be Used Productively in a First Year Writing Course
that uses the New York Times?

After using Tumblr for a whole week, I was surprised to realize that you can use Tumblr as a tool to help teach students while incorporating the New York Times. Tumblr is a great way to connect the classroom since it’s a growing site and easy to use. After making posts every day, you get more involved and engaged with the New York Times because you are search for more and more articles to write about. The set up I used was a picture from the article, or related to it, a quote that caught my attention, and a paragraph about what I thought about the article while I read it. With each post you got to speak out your voice.

During our WRD 103 class, we discuss articles that we read from the New York Times or anything that we want to talk about that revolves around the news. Yet not all students are talkative and pretend like they‘re invisible. I’m one of those kids, why? Because sometimes I feel like if I say anything it will end up coming out wrong and making myself feel embarrassed. With Tumblr, you can post which article you read and give your two cents about the article. I felt more comfortable speaking what was on my mind and how the article I read affects the world and the class.

If Tumblr is used in future classes, the professor should  make it mandatory for each student to make a Tumblr account specifically for this class and also follow every student’s blog. Then during class everyone could bring up their Tumblr’s on their phones or computers and talk about other student’s posts that they liked, agreed, or disagreed with. These Tumblr posts are similar to what my professor in WRD 103 does, where every morning he sends out an email about what was interesting in the New York Times paper that day. Instead with Tumblr, we can add pictures and our favorite quotes from the article. Since social media sites are just growing every day, and our lives are connected through these sites, I don’t see why we couldn’t use Tumblr as a tool to help teach students while incorporating the New York Times.