| Since the year started I have made some progress on at least two of the projects I had in mind for improving my life and my teaching. Thanks to Nutella, the first one — eating more chocolate for breakfast — has been fairly easy. Although I have to say I anticipated this, the second one, expanding my students writing experiences with online publishing, has not produced such obviously sweet results. Still, between myself and my students, we have made some progress. In terms of this writing goal, the first set of challenges has revolved around relationships; teacher to student, students with each other, students and their writing, and between students and technology. The first is weighted with expectations. The second, with histories and different teenagers’ preferences regarding peers and peer groups, the third with mysteries of the unknown and confusions of purpose, and the fourth with the need for technical competence. I may be wrong, but the critical questions, that the students need to find affirmative answers to in order for the craft of writing to have meaning is, “What do I have to say that other people will want to read?” and that question’s inverse, “What are other people saying that I might be interested in reading?” Here are three examples showing different levels of success that my students have demonstrated in terms of how they have answered these questions with online publishing assignments. The first, the video at the top of this post, is a sample from a project done in Poetry class. It speaks for itself, I think. The second, one of the ELA 11 group blogs in which, in the middle of their latest post, the students seem to have had a flash of inspiration about writing for an audience, and yet seem not to have recognized the possibility that they could expand on this idea or fully commit to it. room1322ctpbsstc.weebly.com The final example also speaks for itself, unfortunately. It is another ELA 11 group blog. In spite of the fact that I conferred with students in this group more than once about the need for them to compose a post related to our classroom activities and discussions, what they produced is the embodiment of my teacher nightmare about online composition. While I am being harshly judgmental, I do recognize that this project of theirs shows a certain creativity, especially in terms of gathering and posting materials. In fact, I’m pretty certain that at least one of the members of the group responsible spent a decent chunk of time outside of class working on it. This is more than I can say about pretty much any other of the ELA 11 sites. prettypinkpanthers.weebly.com I know that kids communicate in the digital world all the time: Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr seem to be the most popular platforms right now. I am not ready to draw any conclusions at this point. In the formal classroom assignments we do together, my aim is to teach a creativity that both rewards and demands. As we move into the second semester, there are some steps I plan to take to expand students opportunities to experience these demands — and, I hope, their rewards — through their online publishing. Not fully detailed, these plans have to do with taking advantage of the fact that the groups responsible for the blogs in the first semester have now been broken up with the same students spread across different hours due to schedule changes. I would definitely say I'm in a learning stage as far as teaching my students about writing in a digital environment. That is to say, I'm learning more about what I need to teach them about audience, purpose, and craft, than actually teaching. The links to all their blogs are off to the right. As for what most of them show me, these are topics for other posts. Like breakfast, this online writing is only one part of our collective day. For now it may be only about making choices in the hopes of finding in them the things like bring us joy. Like chocolate. |
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AuthorA classroom teacher, rides his bike from home to work no matter what the weather. Writes poetry and stories. Archives
Poetry, Art, Fiction Links
Links to Student Blogs
http://room1322nfahmirr.weebly.com/
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