Engaging Writing in the Classroom

Engaging Writing in the Classroom

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Wow. That was neat. I just clicked a "share this" deal on Will Richardson's blog and it posted for me. So now I'll add my two cents.

This touches on something that was mentioned in that cute little promotional video below. Connecting to existing skill sets in our students in order to enhance learning is something that seems obvious, but it isn't always. My students can text in the middle of class, nearly blind as they attempt to hide the phone from me, and still wind up with information getting through to someone, somewhere. Now that information may not be educational (or it could be the answers to my test), but it is still information. One of Georgia's writing standards deals with writing in different genres. So the connection there is a "duh" moment, but why can't we make the jump as teachers?

I think it has to do with values. What I value and what the kids value are often totally different things- this holds true when talking about format. But when we look at writing and we evaluate for purpose and audience, we may have a crossover there. An essay and a text message are the same in purpose sometimes- to inform if we're talking expository writing. So we can connect to the students' abilities to inform- code switch and transfer the information from "txt" to actual formal writing and we're halfway there. Audience can also be a crossover when we deal with certain types of essays, again-expository works here. Our kids already know how to write to inform and how to change their languages to fit their audience, so why can't they do it when we get down to essay time?

Because they don't know that they know. That's the simple answer, not to get into a "whose on first" style discussion, but that's the nuts and bolts. Students don't always make the connections between what they live and what we try to teach. That's the true barrier to learning. Connectivity. They are plugged into their world and culture and are ploped down in our classroom culture. They don't own it. They don't see how it matters to them in the "real" world that they live in and we try to infiltrate with novels and literary terms and quadratic equations. So what, who cares, what will this do for me after graduation-I'm not going to college? These questions are always in the minds of our students, we can either deal with it and address it, or ignore it and let it keep cutting us off from our kids.

So how do we do this? How can we harness their raw writing power? How to we turn txters into formal writers? How can I plug my kids into the classroom?

Honestly, I don't know. But I'm willing to talk about it and see what you, the blogosphere, have in your portfolio or rabbit's hat. How do we deal with this? How do we plug our kids into the classroom? I think this is a great question to start with for our discussion groups at SI.

Bud's Blog and links

Reading through chapter 2 again, I found a mention of Bud's Blog Experiment. That is "sleeping" at the moment, so I linked into his real blog. Right off, I saw a post that made me click through. It was a posted video about new literacy and 21st century learning. His video link was dead, so I clicked through to another website that still had the video posted.

Go watch the video please, then return. I'm going to re-watch it to make sure I was listening! (Short-around 6 minutes he says).

Here are some notes I took:
-Schools = factories
-Current school format locks out the knowledge that kids have in technologies
-"Technology isn't a choice."
-Students live in the "nearly now"
-We have to build bridges between what they are doing outside the classroom to what they can do/use to learn inside the classroom. In other words, use what your kids have and know
-Emphasis on a worldwide community of learning
-Teachers need the tools first but we're missing a clearing house of info on that
-New literacy = Do you know how to find info? Validate it? Use it to solve novel problems? Collaborate with it?

Now if you read that person's commentary, you may agree with a great number of things that he says. I don't want to make the value judgement for you, just present the ideas. Reading the comments to this post was even more enlightening, so scroll down and make sure to have a look through there.

Now back to Bud. He maintains that it's not a group hug kind of video that we should all just imbibe and walk away from- we should watch and then talk. Check the comments, you'll know a name listed there!

As I've scrolled down his current blogs, he seems to be a thoughtful kind of guy. His blogs are current, topical, and written in a conversational tone. I like that his blog is approachable and not too techy or high handed in its treatment of information. He also has a sense of humor, see the post about buttons. For an educator who is thinking, planning, and reflecting on his or her craft, I'd say Bud's is a good place to start thinking out loud with like-minded adults.

Graphic Novels In the Classroom

Stanford students try writing a graphic novel

This article, posted in the San Francisco Gate, explores the emerging college focus on graphic novels. Highlighted in the article is the (free, online) grapic novel from a collaboration at Stanford Universtiy. After reading the novel, I can say that it was powerful. The message is heartwrenching and heartwarming all at the same time. It follows a young woman who is influenced and wrapped up in a love affair with a married man and punished by his wife with acid. At times, the drawing is very Japanaime and at others, very sketchy and primitive. This is an excellent collaboration although it may not be appropriate for high school students.