Developing a culture of commenting in a first-year seminar

In the context of diversifying college enrollment and rapidly evolving technologies this study explored how an interactive blogging community developed within a first-year seminar for low-income students (N=66) at a four-year public urban college. In collaboration with administrators and faculty, the researcher integrated a blogging activity into the first-year seminar. Four times during their first six months of college, students posted narratives reflecting on their transition experiences and were also encouraged to read and comment on peers' blog posts. The current study examined why some posts received more peer comments than others and how these trends changed over time. Using narrative analysis, the researcher measured the rates of specific evaluative devices in students posts. Multiple linear regression was then used to determine that psychological state evaluative devices per post predicted a small amount of the commenting variance at the beginning of the study. By the end of the study intensifying and psychological state evaluative devices per post predicted over 50% of the commenting variance. These findings illustrate how over time first-year students used the interactive writing platform to make sense of their college transition and develop a culture of commenting. First-year low-income students blogged about their transition to college.A narrative analysis identified psychological states and intensifying expressions.These evaluative expressions predicted the number of comments per post.Students responded to evaluative expressions increasingly over time.The blog became a tool for connecting with peers during the challenging transition.