Arab Educational Information Network

The use of the internet, as a powerful communication tool has spread throughout the world since it was discovered. It has become as one of the most important means of communication among individuals, peoples and nations. Functional writing often turns a complex subject into something that is more understandable to the reader. Teachers can help students master this type of writing by assigning various functional writing activities. After dealing with the review of literature, observation and interviews, the researcher stated the problem of the study. Objectives, importance, questions, hypotheses, tools, delimitations, sample, terms and references of the study were mentioned. Questions of the study were: 1) what are the functional writing skills that are important to second year secondary school students? 2) What is the effect of blogs on developing each one of the functional writing skills which are important to second year secondary school students? 3) What is the effect of blogs on developing the overall functional writing skills which are important to second year secondary school students? Participants were chosen randomly from Beni-Suef Secondary School for Girls Procedures included administering the questionnaire to senior teachers after achieving validity and reliability. According to the results of the questionnaire, the researcher started designing a program to help students develop the functional writing skills. The skills were: Punctuation, Book Reviews, Business Letter, Event Posters, Community Banners, and Giving pieces of Advice. Before administering the pre-test, the researcher submitted it to some juries for validity, then reliability was achieved. Students' scores were low. Afterwards, the researcher started teaching the program to train students through the use of blogs. Students took the instructional materials. The students were post tested. The findings revealed that using blogs had a positive effect on students' functional writing skills. (Published abstract)