A sexgenarian Reflects on Blogging....

Before I talk about my blogging experience, I have to voice my reservations about some of the unintended (or maybe indented) consequences of the new literacies. Can everything be expressed in abbreviated form? On my first tip to youtube I found this clip--Flutter has been downsized! LOL! Except, it hits close to my concerns. The JD 12th grade Writing Media English class reads Feed by M.T. Anderson. If you aren't familiar , it's about a future world where people have a direct feed to the Internet implanted in their brains. When I read the book, it didn't seem far in the future or far fetched to me! Now about blogging...

One of the many benefits of this class has been forcing me to try blogging. I say forcing because no way would I have tried this on my own! I have not really figured out how to link with other blogs...and this is partly because commenting on classmates' blogs was not a required part of the class. If I'd been forced to figure it out, I would have! In January, I wouldn't have been able to say that with conviction...so I'm personally grateful for being dragged into the world beyond email. I found blogging more stressful that writing journal responses on paper. I don't believe this is entirely due to the technical challenge; it's because when you push the button "publish" you've put something out there that anybody can read. It's broadens your audience, and increases the pressure on the writer.

Other personal pluses:

• Some understanding of how literacy is changing. Those of us who are generations older than our students may not grasp the speed and especially the interactive component that kids (and adults too) find through blogs and facebook, etc. The process of blogging underscored class readings on multiple literacies and the importance of audience.
• Increased comfort level with the Internet. Caveat: I never did figure out how to download a video to the blog. Had my son or daughter still been at home...I might have made it. Oprah "Ahahh" moment: you really do have to learn by doing and experimenting on computers. Fear of making a mistake is an enemy of progress !

A personal minus:

• I didn't fully do the blogging experience because I didn't check my blog for responses. This was partly due to anxiety with the technology and the content. I didn't want to think about the interactive part, so I just treated it as mode of writing journals. I shortchanged myself, but I'm going to correct that by posting a comment on your journal this week!
• Blogging makes you spend more time on a computer...when parent's say they can't tell if their kids are doing homework or facebooking, I have a better understanding of what they mean!

Professional Reflections:
I would try blogging in my classes IF I WAS CO TEACHING WITH SOMEONE WHO BOTH UNDERSTOOD THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGES AND HAD A CREDIBLE PLAN FOR AVERTING PITFALLS. After finally visiting youtube and reading the vindictive comments, I would never have students blog for class unless the blog community was limited and a teacher screened entries prior to their being sent. I believe blogging would encourage students to be more prolific in journaling and force the ones who slide by quietly in class to interact with the material and with the ideas of other class members. I anticipate that blogging would increase student interest and make assignments more authentic. Since kids are comfortable connecting through facebook and other interactive forums, I think blogging also has the potential to foster tolerance and understanding between students who might not otherwise share ideas and perspectives (a bit like the performance opportunities and critical partners in our class).

I would like to find a professional blog where resource teachers share new ideas, frustrations, successful strategies. Putting your thoughts into words does help you organize and articulate them. It makes you accountable in some way, and lets you give and get the support of a virtual community.

Overall, the blogging component of this class was a hassle for me, but very worthwhile. The only suggestion I would have, is requiring us to post a comment on at least one other blog per week. Making it an explicit expectation would encourage (force) reluctant "textors" like me to explore the community aspects of blogging.

Barb :)

Spoken Word Communities.....

Wow! After reading Writing in Rhythm and Bronx Masquerade I am in awe of how writing can change students lives--not just individually, but in creating a community that can break down barriers and misunderstandings among students. I have to be honest, though, I don't see myself in this creative, truth-based environment. The roles of Joe Ubilies and Mr. Ward (the, I'm assuming, fictional teacher in the latter work) seem under-emphasized in favor of the process. But when students are composing from the heart and soul, what a responsibility to respond effectively and supportively! I don't know if I would have even understood what the significance of many poems quoted in Writing in Rhythm. I was certainly grateful for Maisha Fisher's comments and the connections she made for me to literacy and the student's lives. The idea of "feeding" the authors seems very delicate to me. The students were very positive with each other and showed mature insight into what the author was about. I felt, though, that without Joe's special ability to inspire the trust and committed hard work a power writer's group might not be successful. I just fear that botched up, it could be seriously destructive. Don't you need to be part social worker to have the confidence to tread into deep waters?

Maybe not. A wonderful teacher, who is my TA this year, has a fantastic relationship with the "at risk" kids in our school. Every morning, they crowd around her desk for help with assignments and accepting conversation. They tell her about the tragedies in their lives and swear her to secrecy; they share family concerns, jailed parents, drug-selling siblings, suicides, new boyfriends, future plans. I think someone like Gayle could handle a Power Writer's
group. I'm fairly sure, I could not.

These readings and others in this class have made me recognize the importance of audience and voice. When student's care about their audience, their purpose, and their product...they are willing to invest in improving writing skills. I loved Joe's emphasis on the importance of literacy and switching between Bronxonics and more standard English. When students see themselves as "a Jedi of words" and care about "catching words" and owning them--what a far cry from the lists of vocab words that get looked up, but are never really mastered because they never really matter. Genuine opportunities for students to express themselves generate a focus and excitement about writing that I've never seen surround a literary essay assignment. I went to a garage sale once just after I began teaching Special English. A long time middle school teacher was giving away writing books that she had accumulated through her 25 year career. As she helped me carry some to the car, I told her of the struggles I was having getting my students to write essays about characterization and symbolism in The Pearl. "You have to start with what they know," she told me; "when they write about themselves, what they care about, what they think and feel, they will want to learn to write." I though about her advice this week. Writing is about having something to say, and then learning how to say it so others will understand and respond. Composing is about expressing and communication--as this week's readings show. I don't see opportunities for this type of written expression in typical Regents English classes in my NYS school. You have to take Creative Writing, or compose on your own time! At least in 9th and 10th grades, I believe we need to make space for creative expression through writing.

Barb

Digital Stories...some thoughts about text....

The new minister at our church entitled his first sermon "Who and I?" He entitled his second sermon "It's not about me." In that spirit, I am going to take a wild leap and move past my personal stumbling block regarding technology. (I'm referring here to the fact that being required to do anything beyond word processing causes my sweat glands to open, my heart beat to accelerate, and my brain to sound a frantic "Mayday, Mayday!" alert.) It is the 21st century; the world is digital. The "new literacies" may not be just using technology to present the old literacies in innovative ways. Our students need to learn to "navigate information networks," locate, evaluate, and synthesize information, and communicate their conclusions to others. The world they inhabit is also multi modal. Images--graphs, charts, pictures, video--are not just enrichments or illustrations but part of the messages we send and receive. What does it mean to be literate in today's society? Mulling this over in the light of this week's readings, I decided that literacy now involves audience feedback and multimodal approaches.

When Erica Boiling studied the reactions of her graduate students to integrating technology and literacy in the classroom, she found that many of her students initially thought of technology as a way to spice up their traditional practice with high interest motivators rather than as a pedagogical strategy to engage and support student learning in fundamentally different ways. Boiling's graduate students/teachers had concerns about safety on the internet when blogging, the revelation of personal information on blogs, the time and planning such projects would take, etc. Like the guest speakers Boiling invited to speak to her classes, the articles in Newkirk's book showed how teachers have integrated technology into their practice. Sara Kajder, Dave Boardman, and Lisa Miller wrote about how blogging, podcasting, wikis, and digital stories (there were more!) could be used to motivate students to become real writers in the real world. The readings placed two words before me: feedback and multi modal.

When writing for podcasts, blogs, or wikis, students felt that they had something to say and cared about how they said it because someone was listening and responding to their work. Not the teacher only, but other students. They got immediate feedback on their work--something that rarely happens when typed assignments are turned into a teacher who has a hundred essays to grade. I was surprised that students cared about revising their work before publishing--and independently edited their work before reading it for the podcast or making the final selection of text for a digital story. It seemed that student's attached more meaning to digital assignments--not just because they got to use technology, but because it allowed them to express themselves in ways more meaningful to them. This is so difficult for me to really "get"--sending messages and images into cyberspace, sharing personal thoughts with people you've never met...these are inhibitors, not motivators for me. But my students were not raised in 1960, and the world they inhabit is a virtual world. Using interactive technology in the classroom gives teachers the opportunity to directly address internet safety and copyright issues. Change comes at lightning speed...this is the world kids live in and write in as well. One thing this course has make me realize how literacy is changing in the "flat world."

The second word from these readings is multimodal. I ushered for a lecture by Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi on Tuesday. Her "defense" of graphic novels and comics, of the power of the blend of image and text, of the difference between "illustrations" and a melding of two modalities was eloquent. Lisa Miller's and Dave Boardman's articles highlighted the rewards of having students composes digital stories--using images, video clips, voice overs, and text. Since every word counts in a digital story, it is similar to poetry in that it requires editing and careful word choice. Images and text must be closely linked to create the final project. This teaches imagery and literary techniques, the emotional affect of words and images...and since students are composing for an audience, the importance of voice. It forces students to refine (edit!!) their work because they care about the message and how it is received. I had a very different understanding of multimodal. Multimodal meant adding a "visual" to a speech or using powerpoint so the audience has a point of visual focus and reinforcement. When I think of Jane Austen, I think of curling up in a chair with a book, not renting a movie from Blockbuster. But as Marjane Satrapi said Tuesday night, a movie is fundamentally a different artistic expression than the book. Images and the thousand other decisions that go along with text and dialogue create a unified experience to which we respond. I guess I am ready to admit that students expect to experience and learn new things in a multimodal way; they want to express themselves in this way as well.

I can't close without confessing that the Miller article was completely intimidating. I skimmed the overwhelming parts, as there is no way that I could ever comprehend, let alone support others, in interfacing the programs needed to create a digital story. I can't imagine having the time to do that in a high school classroom setting. So personally, I'm reversing my "wild leap" as I know my limitations and digital stories are beyond my reach. But I do see the potential of really integrating technology in the classroom; it will be essential if schools are to meet our students in the "real world" and prepare them to be successful in the "real world." In many ways, while I wasn't looking, the "virtual" world has become the real world.

Barb