Blog Entry #4

Blog  Entry #4

Student Choice versus Mandates

          As literacy teachers, we are constantly reminded of how important student choice is to motivation and success in writing.  Yet, as we all know, today’s schools require students to write “on demand” (Hicks, 2009, p. 15).  State exams ask students to produce written expository text on any number of subjects, without allowing them time for preparation.  We learned in Tompkins that the prewriting stage in the writing process is where students should spend 70% of their writing time (Tompkins, 2008, pg. 8).  According to Tompkins, students may use this time to consider topic, purpose, audience, form, and ideas.  There is little room for this approach in today’s curriculum. 

          People gravitate towards subjects that interest them.  Students are no different.  When we ask them to write a five paragraph essay on a topic of the teachers choosing, and include requirements and demands on the content, we are essentially taking away their right to write and learn about something that is truly meaningful to them.  I know the word “right” in the previous sentence may sound a bit dramatic, but I think that everyone has a story to tell, and we all have the right to learn how to tell that story in a meaningful way.  How does a teacher find the balance between academic literacy demands on students and fostering a love for writing in a heterogeneous classroom?

          To add to this dilemma, the current technological advances in publishing capabilities have changed the demands placed on students and teachers alike.

Digital writing tools such as RSS and social bookmarking have changed the rules of the writing game.  Some things remain the same, but the technology used today has truly changed the way we write, what we write about, who we write for, and why we write at all. 

As an information consumer, I am constantly inundated with data from a number on self-inflicted choices J.  I find myself filtering, screening, and scanning more than I actively read for comprehension and reflection opportunities.  After reading Hicks’ chapter on these digital tools, I now have a new way to organize and hopefully assess this information.  I hope this leads to a new, improved, and more efficient system of writing for me.

As a literacy teacher, I struggle with how to introduce these new literacies and the tools that come with them to students that are already struggling with reading or writing.  It’s not enough to use these technologies to do the same activities that can be done within a classroom environment.  This is harder than it sounds.  There are some obstacles to overcome.  First, teachers must learn and use the technology themselves in order to be able to teach it in an effective manner.  While I can’t speak for everyone, I myself am not a fan of technological change.  It frightens me because it changes so quickly and has lasting effects.  I’m sure someone, somewhere, at some time said the Internet was just a trend.  Schools should give teachers as much technology training as possible.  Their student’s future success in a technological world depends on it.

The second obstacle is about providing students with a digital environment in which they can truly collaborate rather than using the digital tools to do the same old things they’ve always done before, except now they use technology to do them.  Students need to learn the value of a blog, or a wiki as literacy tools.  Tools that not only let the student create content, but also to publish and gain feedback on their ideas. 

This is the way in which students grow as writers and as people.

References

Hicks, T. (2009).  The digital writing workshop.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann.

Tompkins, G.E. (2008),  Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (5^th ed.).

          Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.

Reading/Writing Entry 3

Blog Entry #3

Journal Writing

          I love journals.  I use them personally, professionally, and in my classes.  Before reading the text on journals in Tompkins, I had only thought there were only one or two types of journals and only a few activities that could be introduced to students to help aid in their learning.  But as I read, I not only thought of how my students could benefit from journal writing, but how I, myself, could use journal writing to aid my own learning.

          For example, I often have a hard time gauging my learning after reading narrative text.  I usually write about whether I simply liked the text or not or I may write about other meaningful items I encountered during reading.  Tompkins provides a number of prompts on page 99 that would help out my journal writing after narrative texts.  My favorite prompt from those on the list is, “how does this story make you feel.”  I don’t get to read much for pleasure these days, but even when I do, I rarely ask myself how I feel after reading something.  I usually concentrate on the things that I have learned or questions I may still have, but very rarely do I check in with my feelings.  As a student, I think that writing about emotions that one feels after reading, can be stressful, because you always know that a teacher is going to read it.  But in my own personal journal, I can be free to write about the emotions that were brought out by the text.  Engaging narrative texts should bring emotions out in people.  Journal writing is a good way for me and for my students to check in with our feelings. 

          There is a flip side to allowing students to journal about feelings.  Tompkins says that “sometimes teachers learn details about children’s family life that they may not know how to deal with” (Tompkins, 2008, pg.104).  I never considered this issue until I read about it.  I am one of those teachers that would be really uncomfortable in reading something related to the safety of my students.  As a teacher, I have a responsibility to tell someone about a possible issue, but as a human being, I would feel very uncomfortable in sharing my student’s private journal with a third party.  That sends the message that they can’t trust me with personal information.  Some student’s may include such personal items in their journals as a cry for help, others for attention, and still others just want someone to listen.  It will be hard to decipher which voice needs what.

References

Tompkins, G.E. (2008),  Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (5^th ed.).

          Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.

Reading and Writing Entry 2

Reading/Writing Blog

Entry 2

          According to Hicks, teachers of writing should consider the three main elements in the framework of a digital classroom; the students, the subject of writing, and the spaces in which the writing is done.  As a teacher, not only of literacy, but of other subjects as well, the thought of a digital classroom entices and excites me.  Unfortunately, my experience in the classroom consists of my days of observation and student teaching during my undergraduate years.  The prompt for this blog post asked us to think about our classrooms, keeping in mind the three elements mentioned above, and answer the following questions:  What was there already in place to begin a digital workshop and what else was needed in order to create a successful digital writing workshop?

          I am a business educator, teaching computer applications, accounting, economics, and a number of other business/computer related courses.  These courses and classrooms have more technology available within them than most other high school courses do.  During student teaching, I was charged with teaching the computer applications and accounting courses.  During my time at this particular high school, I taught a group of students that were computer savvy in certain regards but lacked the skills needed to navigate many computer application software programs, such as the Microsoft Office Suite programs including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  Looking back on this time, very little time was devoted to reading and writing in these courses.  Pew Internet and American Life Project (Lenhart et al. 2008) confirm most [teenagers] are more adept than their elders at particular digital skills like texting, blogging, uploading photos or videos, and using social networks such as Facebook—they do not necessarily possess the capacities that make them critical and creative digital writers (Hicks, 2009, pg. 127).

          The classrooms that I taught in contained certain elements that I believe made a good start to a digital writing workshop.  The rooms were equipped with computers loaded with word processing programs.  The room had comfortable chairs and tables for the children to work at.  Each student had their own computer and therefore their own writing space.  Besides the computers, there was a Smartboard in the room and a digital projector.  The students within these classrooms had chosen to take these classes as their high school electives; therefore, I believe that their motivation level was higher than the average student who was required to take the courses. 

          Even though these classrooms were well equipped technologically, there are other things that could be integrated within the courses that would aid in the development of a digital workshop.  As Warschauer (2006) argues, a combination of new mind-sets for teachers, administrators, students, parents, and other stakeholders must accompany substantive change in literacy practices enabled by technology.  Understanding when, why, and how to use different forms of media to convey a particular message requires a working knowledge of the mode—that is what an audience expects from a piece of writing in order to be moved to action—and how to effectively manipulate the media in which it is composed (Hicks, 2009, pg. 127).  This new mind-set that Warschauer refers to was lacking in this classroom.  Skills were taught with regards to manipulating software programs, but nothing new was done with this technology.  Students read the textbook for homework the night before, so when they came to class they were ready for a hands-on lecture on the reading, then they were asked to create a template using the skills they had just learned.  They were never asked to take those skills and create something meaningful for themselves. 

References

Hicks, T. (2009).  The digital writing workshop. 
     Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann.