NEW LITERACIES!

It feels pretty funny to read about new litearcies in an academic context, because the researchers are describing my teenage life: I was always playing around with Photoshop, reading fanfiction (yikes! embarrassing!) and joining forums for things I liked to discuss with other people the things I liked. It was never something I thought about on a metacognitive level - it was just something I did to naturally entertain myself and dive into my interests.

I like new literacies because I am comfortable with them. It seems to be a natural way to teach, because it is the natural way I explore new ideas. If I am curious about a time period, I will watch videos about and from that time period (you know, barring the medieval era). If I am interested in a book, I go to Amazon to read what other people think about a book or watch interpretations of scenes on YouTube. I like to interpret the way music videos change the text of music and how comments on videos or newspaper articles shape the meanings of texts.

HOWEVER! I see two problems with new literacies that I'm sure can be solved in a think tank. First of all, there is a bit of a danger in publishing and interacting on the world wide web (and I know not everything has to be published on the Internet). I know I'm sounding a bit like Mom here, but students need to be taught the way to publish and be safe. My goodness, there's still some things I published as a nine-year-old online because I used my full name.

Second of all, there's the problem with the participation gap. Not everyone has access to the Internet at home, or even stable access at their schools. Some schools do not have enough computers for stable access for each student, much less access to audio or video equipment or editing software. It's good for students, but there are drawbacks we must consider.

LINK OF THE WEEK: http://savedelete.com/10-best-and-free-online-video-editing-software.html

Here are ten links to video editing software for different types of videos from mashups to short films. These videos are usually saved in the cloud so that students can work on them in both the class and at home. This also helps with the lack of access a school may have to video editing software and equipment, because this is editing software and students can create mashups from online videos. Maybe they'll even go viral!

Conferences and Choice

Ahh, middle school. When I was in 8th grade, my English teacher assigned us a research project: pick a president. Any president. Research his life. I chose Richard Nixon because I had no idea what that whole scandal thing was about.

For some reason I cannot figure out to this day, my teacher denied my proposal. He was, as far as I could tell, a president of the United States. Why did it get knocked down? Was he too controversial? I have no clue; I settled for Jimmy Carter instead, which other than the history of peanut farming, was not very interesting. I had a prescribed way to organize this paper (early life, presidency, post-presidency) and do the research (notecards). I understand students need to learn how to write in certain genres, but is there a better way to do this?

Doing the reading this week brought me to this idea. Why can't we put more support into our students' choices for writing topics? I think we can scaffold this idea and then bring their ideas together through peer and teacher conferencing. Not only does this allow the student to own his or her writing more, but it gives students answers if their topic is "too controversial" or not well situated for the paper prompt. This also gives the students the opportunity to write about controversial issues in an objective and appropriate way. If you just tell them no, they will have that looming over their heads. Give students respect.

Finally, I wanted to post a question to my fellow English teachers. The issue about grading still doesn't sit well with me. Yes, the Dornan text talked about it, but it basically said "Grades shouldn't matter." That's nice, but that's not really the reality of our future teaching jobs, unless we are teaching a night class on creative writing. What are your opinions about grading? I have such difficulty applying an arbitrary grade to a piece of fluid work, but, in the end, I have to.

LINK OF THE WEEK: ProCon.org - If your students are writing a speech, argumentative paper, learning about multiple perspectives, or are just very opinionated students, here's a great website that has a variety of pro and con arguments for many controversial topics. This resource is also useful for creating a database of controversial topics to explore. The Teacher's Corner has ideas for lesson plans, lists for resources on critical thinking and examples of how other schools are using the website.

Feeling a Little Inadequate Here.

Yikes, okay, I picked up a lot of good teaching tidbits this week, but I'm feeling inadequate in my grammar knowledge right now. Appositives? Parallel structues? Participial phrases? Okay, I get the idea on most of these (except appositives. Please, someone explain those to me) but it's no wonder that traditional grammar education is met with groans, moans and little results (that was not parallel structure, BY THE WAY). I guess this brings up the question, though, is how important is it for students to be cognizant of the grammar they are using? For example, I might be using appositives, but does not knowing if I'm using this grammar matter? Can I still be a good writer if I can't articulate what I'm doing?

The other part of this week's reading that stuck with me is the idea of the writer's toolbox. I can see myself teaching the tools used in the article and adding more. I do want to add, though, that the toolbox method can work for a lot more than just writing. For example, I have a great interest in teaching film production. Film production is a little like a visual form of writing, but these tools can easily transfer to the pre-production (and even production and post-production) processes. When reading, everyone uses tools to look more deeply into texts. When speaking, people use tools to convey their messages better. Acting, too, I'm sure has this. Maybe even baseball. Everything can have a tool chest, especially in Language Arts.

Website: The Secondary Language Arts Educator's Toolbox Do you think the toolbox article was too based in middle school? Do you hate middle school? Do your students hate to draw little symbols? Read this article (and click next at the bottom, because the good stuff isn't on the first page!) and learn how to mature up your toolbox if that's your thing.

Week Two Blog Entry

Alright, I'm just going to start this off by saying I don't have too much to say about Romano. I enjoyed the entire book; I'd love to teach multigenre papers, but the entire reading just seemed like an activity I can store in the back of my mind and can pull out one day. What I was more interested in was what he had to say on unity (and I think most of the readings tossed this around).

Unity really stuck with me as an important thing to teach students this week. With unity, you can not only emphasize a logical argument, but you can also emphasize cohesiveness, audience, and a lot of other merits of good writing, like clarity, grammar and other polishing. I think it's easier to shout "Unity! Unity!" to students instead of listing off all these other substrands.

Pre-writing activities also stood out as a way to not only improve students' writing, but also make your life and your students' lives a lot better. During our Crosswinds unit, it was so hard to get students to write, but I believe it's because we included writing as an activity in itself instead of a an activity that will be built upon. I know I've written so many essays where I had no idea what I wanted to say and what did it always lead up to? An uninspired, incoherent essay that was boring for me to write and boring for my instructor to grade. Having students reflect on expository writing or other pre-writing activities proves to them that they have some inspiration for their writing, even if they were pretending to be interested in the topic.

Exciting Link of the Week: In a bind for a rubric? Did you backwards design a unit and not know how to score your summative project? Feeling lazy? Visit Rubistar! This website contains a plethora of rubrics in most subject areas (and sub-subject areas). These rubrics can be altered based upon the reality of your classroom. You can insert your own text into the rubrics or borrow text written by others. If you feel like being more creative and a much better teacher who does not rely on others to deem how students should be assessed, you can use the rubrics for inspiration or a formatting tool. Feeling like a democratic teacher? Have students make their own rubrics!

Week One Blog Entry

I had to actually check the copyright day for Within and Beyond the Writing Process in the Secondary English Classroom (phew! what a title). All the of the information seemed so common sense to me, yet the authors seemed to pose it as revolutionary. But, as I thought about it, the only time I have ever experienced writing instruction as a process has been in either a college-level creative writing course or one of the U of M's writing intensive courses. In thinking back on those courses, though, they are the ones that have stuck out as courses that have really improved my writing. I am not the type of person who will automatically revise my paper or even think much about how it will look or sound before I write it. You can say that I'm a very lazy writer. I usually procrastinate until the last moment, write it, turn it in and never look at it again. Yikes! However, with workshops, I have actually been proud of my papers and I put a lot more love and dedication into them when I am forced to collaborate and revise. Now if only I could just make that a part of my natural writing habit....

I suppose the point I really want to make is making writing a process instead of a one-chance assignment seems like common sense, but it's not as wide of a practice as we'd like to think. If we add multi-genre papers and student-chosen paper topics, we can argue as to whether those help students become better writers or not. Teaching writing as a process, though, doesn't seem like an argument to me. Plus, it makes grading easier and more enjoyable.

This Week's Link: National Writing Project's 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing - this is a bit of a jumbled list of 30 ideas, but it is a list of 30 ideas of writing activities and units. The ideas come from teachers in state-level writing projects across the US.

La Linea Book Review Podcast

Click here for the podcast book review of La Linea.

Annotations

Bradbury, Ray. (2009). Ray Bradbury’s fahrenheit 451: the authorized adaptation. Ill: Tim Hamilton. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. 080905101X.

This graphic novel is an authorized adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451. The story of Guy Montag, the firefighter who lives in a world where firefighters start fires, still follows Bradbury’s original character through his search for something more in his book-free world. Readers will enjoy the quick, deep read and beautiful illustrations that portray the ugliness of Guy’s world and the decisions he must make. All readers can enjoy this book as it does not require a previous reading of the original novel, yet it provides a new perspective to those who have already read it in its word form.

Bray, Libba. (2003). A great and terrible beauty. New York, NY: Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers. 0385730284.

Fans of fantasy will enjoy Libba Bray’s first book in her Gemma Doyle trilogy. Set at Spence, a boarding school in Victorian England, this book follows Gemma, a spirited 16-year-old who spent her life in India, and her adjustment to English society after the death of her mother. Behind the prim, wife-making façade of Spence hides a magical world, a lost order and an old diary that helps Gemma understand her mystical visions. Readers will enjoy Gemma’s humor and courage in a school that teaches women to be quiet and subservient.

MacLeod, Elizabeth. (2008). Royal murder: the deadly intrigue of ten sovereigns. New York, NY: Annick Press. 1554511275.

MacLeod brings the history of more than ten murdered sovereigns to life with interesting text, authentic pictures and informational side panels. These stories span across more than 2000 years and dispel myths about some of the most famous and infamous monarchs that have ever ruled. Each story, however, ends with a fascinating, detailed account of the royal murder. MacLeod’s writing brings personality and character to each of these sovereigns and ensures their tragic ends will not become just a footnote in a history textbook.

San Souci, Robert. (1992). Sukey and the mermaid. Ill: Brian Pinkney. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. 0027781410.

Bright, colorful images frame this traditional Caribbean and West African folktale about Sukey, a black girl who lives on an island off the coast of South Africa. After escaping from her abusive stepfather, Sukey runs to the beach, sings a traditional song and calls forth the mermaid named Mama Jo. Mama Jo grants Sukey’s wishes about money, love and a safe place to live. Readers will enjoy the compassion and determination of Sukey along with the rich, rhythmic vernacular.