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

"How to Write When You Can't"

Cynthia and Andrew Sheehan's article was really helpful. The mother's frustration didn't surprise me; so often, when students with LD get to high school the parents are exhausted and beyond frustrated by the long battle to advocate for their children. But that's another blog. Andrew's portion on the article really put a cognitive/socio-emotional face on the challenges faced by students with dysgraphia and ADHD. Andrew shared specific strategies he uses to be successful--and the one I'm going to chose to focus on in this blog is technology.

Those who have only known me a few months--nay, those who have only known me a few days--are painfully aware of my limitations in the technological arena. Right now our building is struggling with getting the Kurzweil reader up and running. Last Friday we had a conference day; Special Ed devoted the morning to fine tuning the Kurzweil system which has nominally been in place since October. At the end of three hours, half of us teachers/TAs hadn't been able to log on: some of us had figured out how to scan things in but couldn't figure out how to get them into Kurweil form.....you get the picture.
"It's just easier to read to the kid!" I heard.
"It's not going to be good for Mark and Evan, anyway," I heard, "the computer isn't going to discuss the readings. They won't understand what they're reading."
"This is a complete waste of my time!" I heard.

What I found most interesting was this: I wasn't making those negative comments. Was I frustrated? Yep. Could I think of more productive ways to spend 3 hours? Yep. But Andrew Sheehan's article had highlighted the benefits of technology for students with learning challenges for me. Andrew has good reading comprehension; some of my students don't. This technology won't be a panacea for every student with reading challenges. Yet Andrew's comments helped me see that technology can bring the possibility of independence...the "level playing field." So, I'm all for the Kurzweil. We just have to figure out how to make it work!

Barb

The pitfalls of conferencing with Struggling Writers

OK, this is why I signed up for this class--how can I better help struggling writers? Circling mistakes in red doesn't work...either the students merely copy the teacher's corrections into their papers, or (more likely) they don't even read them in the first place. I am a big fan of conferencing with students--but reading Glasswell's article opened my eyes to bad practices of which I am guilty.

Most important--interruptions. Because of the resource setting in which I work, I am constantly interrupted by students needing direction, asking for clarification, etc. while I'm conferencing on a writing piece with a student. The weaker the writer, the longer it takes to go through his paper--Glasswell is right, I do tend to take care of small problems with others and then come back to the writer. Now that I am aware of this, I will make it a priority to minimize interruptions and give the writer sustained attention. Interruptions are not as much of a problem in my Coteach English 9 class, as one teacher can concentrate only on conferencing while the other supervises/answers questions for the rest of the class.

Glasswell found that teachers conferencing with struggling writers tended to focus on lower levels such as mechanics, word choice, and punctuation rather than higher levels such as goals of the writing. Once again, I see this as an area where I can definitely improve. I can see that it is important to help the student see his writing as a way of communicating ideas, not just a sequence of sentences which contain mistakes.

Mrs. Marilyn Shelton, who teaches creative writing and 12th/10th grade English at JD, uses a technique where she marks grammatical errors with a red check at the end of the line. That just means that there is some error--the student is responsible for figuring out how to correct the sentence. This is very time consuming for her and for the students, but it forces a student to think about his own revision; the student becomes stronger at spotting and fixing the errors he/she tends to make.

Late for work--I'd save the draft and publish later, but I don't trust that I'll get the post back. Please forgive my "mechanical" error...no time to double proof!

Barb

Quindlen Author Update :)

As I was putting away my "Quindlen" stiff (alright, I did file some of it in the circular file!), I came across some essays that I had thought to use in my "talk." Some of them seemed pertinent to those with families and teachers, so I thought I'd use my new found skills and provide a link (!!). These are all from her Newsweek column:
"Write for your life" (1/22/07) is about journaling both in and out of a classroom setting, a respose to Freedom Writers.
"Playing God on No Sleep" was one I wanted to read about Andrea Yates, the mother who drowned her five kids in a bathtub; it was very controversial, but honest.
There are two that I really like about mothering "The Good Enough Mother" (2/2005) and "Doing Nothing is Something" (5/13/2002). The latter harkens back to the days before the scheduled childhood...

The nice thing about essays is that they are short!

Barb

Finding Voice

In preparation for my author's talk this week (Anna Quindlen) I have spent a lot of time thinking about voice. If you knew my history with "voice," you would find this ironic. "How can they take off points for "voice" they can't even explain what it is!" my 15-year old daughter would complain staring at the red circles on the graded essay rubric. I commiserated with her...How indeed?! T o me, voice was some undefined, elusive quality to which I responded without analysis. This class on composing has definitely made me more critically aware of "voice" in writing, as well as the inner and interconnections between what is being said, who is saying it, how it is being read, and who is reading it.

Two of the articles we read for this week, "'Speaking Up' and 'Speaking Out' " by Annette Henry and "The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Conference" by Donald Murray caused me to reflect on the importance of a student writer finding his/her voice and the role of the writing teacher in facilitating this to happen. In both cases, but in different ways, Henry and Murray moved toward the importance of listening to the student, validating his/her concerns and manner of expression, helping the student communicate his/her thoughts and voice in writing itself. Henry, interested in designing a writing workshop that would help ESL, African Carribean 14 and 15 year old girls find their "voices." Her interest was in supporting freeing those girls speak up for themselves. She did a lot of prewriting activities (drama, problem-posing circles, discussion--great ideas I will use) to prepare them to write. She did create a space that empowered them to write. Yet as her students "came to voice," they challenged some of her assumptions. Some girls assumed traditional female roles in their writing; one raised issues private areas of morals and sexuality the Henry had not foreseen exploring. Henry found a "commitment to student's voices" and "collective curricular" decisions necessitated allowing her "research aims and agenda to be reshaped or even die off" (Henry 248)

Murray did not have an activist agenda--his article speaks about the value of conferencing. Like Henry, he created an environment where students were encouraged, actually required, to find their voices. His writing class is non-directed...the students write with their own voices. He models what questions they should ask themselves; they figure out what their writing will become and how to make it stronger. The teacher is first of all a listener...and he listens for the authentic voice and purpose of each author. I was struck by the fact that Murray respects the author's authorship. He says that you can't help edit until near "the end of the process, until the author has found something important to say and a way to say it."

After reading these articles, I will ask more questions of the author in a writing conference, rather than assume that I know what he/she wants to express. I realize I am guilty of this. I will try to remember that "it is not my mind's eye that is looking at the subject" or "my language which is telling me what the eye has seen" (Murray 17). Most of our writing conferences, though, are really about editing; the subjects have not been chosen by the students; the ideas to be expressed often have more to do with the task designer than the author. Expressive writing is not a big part of our curriculum at my high school except for a creative writing elective that can be taken repeatedly. At the high school level, we don't consistently create opportunities and spaces where students can find their literary voices. It's hard not to say, we should.

Barb