Blog Post Requirements.
Discussion Board Requirements.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Monday, March 7, 2011
Digital Literacy Project Reflection
The accompanying video to this essay is “Tempting”, a short film I directed in May 2007. The initial version was written by Stuart Thomas, shot by Philip Briggs, and edited by Sam Cunningham. On completion, I was overall fairly happy with it. It was a solid short that encapsulated a lot of the loony-toons sort of comedy I was shooting for, combined with a slight sense of morbidity. I liked it.
There were, however, a few minor problems I had with the film as it was. It used a few takes I wasn’t completely happy with, and a few shots were present that I wanted, in retrospect, taken out. The music also wasn’t quite right. I used Franz Liszt’s Totentanz and while it’s still there, it’s slightly remixed to fit the movement of the frame better. I also altered the ending in a tiny way: I added the sound of the actor choking back into the mix.
Since I’m already fairly familiar with this mode of literacy and this edit didn’t really “teach” me anything new, it’s hard to approach a reflection from those angles. Similarly, it’d be somewhat disingenuous to illustrate how composition with film and video differ from conventional writing. I won’t say those differences don’t exist, nor will I claim that I didn’t learn anything new in re-editing, since the very nature of creating is a learning experience.
But it would be a lie to approach it as something completely new. So, instead, I’d like to focus on implications of using this in education.
To be blunt, I think it’s a mixed bag, but certainly not something to oppose. A week ago, I agreed with Jack Nilles when he questioned teachers who taught something like this rather than traditional literature. I certainly agree with him; although the same sorts of critical thought is used in all of these modes, there is something real which is lost when the focus moves entirely away from literature.
It’s certainly important to consider student needs. The most interesting analogy I’ve heard so far is in dealing with the students who don’t know or care about literature, and never will. But, “say you’re in a business meeting and you’re making smalltalk with your boss or co-workers. Are you going to bore them with job-related conversations, proving that you’re so singularly-focused that you have no other interests in life? Or will you talk about a great book you once read, and the two of you can find some common ground?” Traditional literature has a place, and it’s rightful to consider its place to be at the forefront of language arts.
But modes such as video production can’t be ignored or shuffled aside. Let’s look at an area I love, and someday want to coach again: debate. The principles of argumentation and composition are vital to the field, and it’s an area that students need to know in order to succeed. The best way to understand a field (in this case, argument) is to understand it from multiple viewpoints. Consider the student who’s learned how to formulate a written argument, and an oral argument. The student can graduate into using multimedia or video production to learn a new avenue for argumentation.
From another perspective, there’s always adaptation. I obsess over this. It’s a wide field in which we look at how the stories which have been told for thousands of years become unique because the person telling the story is different. While traditional literature is great for one perspective in this, video production is a great second perspective.
I do have a great deal of experience in film/video production, and I won’t claim it should merely be an extracurricular. It has a vital place in our core classes. The video accompanying this isn’t just a piece of fluff; it’s an examination on the popular conception of junk food and health-consciousness. It’s a satire and a deconstruction. Asking students to take a similar broad idea and make a short movie about it is a key and valid avenue to understanding it.
The problem is in overcoming the luddite ideas against using it in school, or (even worse) using it with so many limitations that it becomes more harmful than beneficial. Last week in class we were talking about how many schools don’t have computers for all the students, and how many sites are blocked in so many districts. The implications to policy-makers is clear: there is an absolute benefit to using it as a large-scale educational aid and, quite often, the supposed down-sides are nothing more than unfounded fears on behalf of those setting the rules. It’s a real pity, because I’d love to teach narrative video production to students. Whether it’s a secondary course focused on production, or a unit within traditional language arts, there is a tremendous benefit to making use of it.
There were, however, a few minor problems I had with the film as it was. It used a few takes I wasn’t completely happy with, and a few shots were present that I wanted, in retrospect, taken out. The music also wasn’t quite right. I used Franz Liszt’s Totentanz and while it’s still there, it’s slightly remixed to fit the movement of the frame better. I also altered the ending in a tiny way: I added the sound of the actor choking back into the mix.
Since I’m already fairly familiar with this mode of literacy and this edit didn’t really “teach” me anything new, it’s hard to approach a reflection from those angles. Similarly, it’d be somewhat disingenuous to illustrate how composition with film and video differ from conventional writing. I won’t say those differences don’t exist, nor will I claim that I didn’t learn anything new in re-editing, since the very nature of creating is a learning experience.
But it would be a lie to approach it as something completely new. So, instead, I’d like to focus on implications of using this in education.
To be blunt, I think it’s a mixed bag, but certainly not something to oppose. A week ago, I agreed with Jack Nilles when he questioned teachers who taught something like this rather than traditional literature. I certainly agree with him; although the same sorts of critical thought is used in all of these modes, there is something real which is lost when the focus moves entirely away from literature.
It’s certainly important to consider student needs. The most interesting analogy I’ve heard so far is in dealing with the students who don’t know or care about literature, and never will. But, “say you’re in a business meeting and you’re making smalltalk with your boss or co-workers. Are you going to bore them with job-related conversations, proving that you’re so singularly-focused that you have no other interests in life? Or will you talk about a great book you once read, and the two of you can find some common ground?” Traditional literature has a place, and it’s rightful to consider its place to be at the forefront of language arts.
But modes such as video production can’t be ignored or shuffled aside. Let’s look at an area I love, and someday want to coach again: debate. The principles of argumentation and composition are vital to the field, and it’s an area that students need to know in order to succeed. The best way to understand a field (in this case, argument) is to understand it from multiple viewpoints. Consider the student who’s learned how to formulate a written argument, and an oral argument. The student can graduate into using multimedia or video production to learn a new avenue for argumentation.
From another perspective, there’s always adaptation. I obsess over this. It’s a wide field in which we look at how the stories which have been told for thousands of years become unique because the person telling the story is different. While traditional literature is great for one perspective in this, video production is a great second perspective.
I do have a great deal of experience in film/video production, and I won’t claim it should merely be an extracurricular. It has a vital place in our core classes. The video accompanying this isn’t just a piece of fluff; it’s an examination on the popular conception of junk food and health-consciousness. It’s a satire and a deconstruction. Asking students to take a similar broad idea and make a short movie about it is a key and valid avenue to understanding it.
The problem is in overcoming the luddite ideas against using it in school, or (even worse) using it with so many limitations that it becomes more harmful than beneficial. Last week in class we were talking about how many schools don’t have computers for all the students, and how many sites are blocked in so many districts. The implications to policy-makers is clear: there is an absolute benefit to using it as a large-scale educational aid and, quite often, the supposed down-sides are nothing more than unfounded fears on behalf of those setting the rules. It’s a real pity, because I’d love to teach narrative video production to students. Whether it’s a secondary course focused on production, or a unit within traditional language arts, there is a tremendous benefit to making use of it.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
03/03 reading reflection
Here's a guy who gets it.
I chose to read chapter six of our assigned reading this week, "Poetry Fusion: Integrating Video, Verbal, and Audio Texts." After a few previous readings on digital literacy and seeing just how woefully inadequate their very understandings are of what they want to use, this is a guy who gets it. Honestly, I think I may use a lot of his layout as information for designs on video production units I'm thinking of. Would I use it all? I dunno, I'm not a fan of podcasts, but the way he's using them here makes an incredibly convincing argument in favor of them. We've all had those teachers who said "read the poem out loud to yourself or your classmate." Who's ever done that? Not me. Not worth it. But here, the author manages to get that same effect our teachers were shooting for, but in a FAR more authentic and useful way.
Ted, Leigh, and Dan all remember it, they were in the class with me. Linguistics. "The History of English", a woefully outdated doc that had some great information in it. My favorite part was the guy who put the Old English Beowulf to music and sang it. What this chapter espouses is something similar to that - it creates a poem that you hear and appreciate for its original style. You break away from the density of the language in reading it.
In terms of video and multimedia, he brings a similar versatility. And, while it's largely left unsaid, the implication to me (at least, I hold to it) is that students with an intrinsic understanding of multimedia literacy begin to connect the dots...again, between what they know and what they don't know. We see that in a huge way about halfway through the chapter, under the "video as text" entry, where a student who began the project with no reaction to the piece is able to develop a real appreciation for what's going on. The main reason, I know, is that the student has taken what he/she knows (how a movie looks) and has been able to marry it to what he/she didn't know (the deeper interpretation of a poem), and a huge part of this has been in learning the essentials of how to make a movie. The teacher had the student break a script, basically, in order to shoot it. The beauty here is that in breaking the script, all of the students have been textually digging into the poems and uncovering deeper meaning from a large variety of angles.
Assessment - again, full honesty: I've taught aspects of this to college kids. I largely assessed/graded completely informally based on the idea of "do they have a plan and did they execute it?" I really like the breakdown of how he laid out his rubric, and what I love most of all is that the students have a hand in grading.
This entire post feels un-meaty. The problem is that I not only don't disagree with anything here, but I just love it. Again, this is a guy who gets it.
My link of the week:
Adobe's video production curriculum
I really like this area for the same reason I liked the chapter I read: it's a good, solid starting point to looking at how to teach the subject.
I chose to read chapter six of our assigned reading this week, "Poetry Fusion: Integrating Video, Verbal, and Audio Texts." After a few previous readings on digital literacy and seeing just how woefully inadequate their very understandings are of what they want to use, this is a guy who gets it. Honestly, I think I may use a lot of his layout as information for designs on video production units I'm thinking of. Would I use it all? I dunno, I'm not a fan of podcasts, but the way he's using them here makes an incredibly convincing argument in favor of them. We've all had those teachers who said "read the poem out loud to yourself or your classmate." Who's ever done that? Not me. Not worth it. But here, the author manages to get that same effect our teachers were shooting for, but in a FAR more authentic and useful way.
Ted, Leigh, and Dan all remember it, they were in the class with me. Linguistics. "The History of English", a woefully outdated doc that had some great information in it. My favorite part was the guy who put the Old English Beowulf to music and sang it. What this chapter espouses is something similar to that - it creates a poem that you hear and appreciate for its original style. You break away from the density of the language in reading it.
In terms of video and multimedia, he brings a similar versatility. And, while it's largely left unsaid, the implication to me (at least, I hold to it) is that students with an intrinsic understanding of multimedia literacy begin to connect the dots...again, between what they know and what they don't know. We see that in a huge way about halfway through the chapter, under the "video as text" entry, where a student who began the project with no reaction to the piece is able to develop a real appreciation for what's going on. The main reason, I know, is that the student has taken what he/she knows (how a movie looks) and has been able to marry it to what he/she didn't know (the deeper interpretation of a poem), and a huge part of this has been in learning the essentials of how to make a movie. The teacher had the student break a script, basically, in order to shoot it. The beauty here is that in breaking the script, all of the students have been textually digging into the poems and uncovering deeper meaning from a large variety of angles.
Assessment - again, full honesty: I've taught aspects of this to college kids. I largely assessed/graded completely informally based on the idea of "do they have a plan and did they execute it?" I really like the breakdown of how he laid out his rubric, and what I love most of all is that the students have a hand in grading.
This entire post feels un-meaty. The problem is that I not only don't disagree with anything here, but I just love it. Again, this is a guy who gets it.
My link of the week:
Adobe's video production curriculum
I really like this area for the same reason I liked the chapter I read: it's a good, solid starting point to looking at how to teach the subject.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
reflection for 2/24
I'm going to be honest here: this post is going to be more of a rant than anything. If I can remember I'll try to cite a bit, but mostly I'm going to be riffing off the general vibe, especially from the kadjer piece.
I've brought this up before, in Tracey's class a few weeks ago during the new literacies posting, but it's something that genuinely bothers me. In this case, it starts immediately in the article as a sort of cautionary tale: the principal claiming his teacher "gets" tech with kids, only to see them using laptops in such an absurd way they'd be better off with notebooks.
As far as I am concerned, much of the computer use in/around classroom activities isn't too far off from this, no matter what is claimed. And it's really a matter of understanding language/culture. That is, there is a definitely online culture. The people who get it, get it. The people who don't try to accommodate the culture into their own understandings. It...it just doesn't work.
In the case of 5481, we read a short article (guy's last name was Gee, forget his first name) who advocated using video games as a teaching tool. OK. He's running off of a false premise in not recognizing video games as skinner boxes (i've said it a hundred times and i'm sure i'm not alone), but his general idea was sound enough. it's certainly a game attempt to make his materials relevant to his students, and i won't fault him for that. but he was so out of touch with the entire jargon-structure and even the ethos behind gaming that i just know it would fall flat with him.
And there's a similar attitude at work in this week's readings. Please note: I DO NOT VIEW THEIR EVERY ARGUMENT AS INVALID. I definitely don't want to be misunderstood, as if i'm ignoring everything they say as somehow worthless. I just think that they're doomed to fail, because they don't understand the beast, as it were.
Now, in the case of the Kadjer article, I won't claim that the recommendations on using blogs are invalid. They're not. But they're entirely based on a mode of communication incompatible, in many ways, with blogs and netiquette in general.
I guess the best way I can describe it is this: we have a mutually accepted code of conduct in a mode of writing. Let's use journals as an example, because it's handy for the purposes of this. We have a general variety of tones, a general type of "respect" that we, as journal-writers, by nature afford to the reader. These aren't instinctive by a long shot. They're learned behaviours and they're subtle. They're based on very old principles of communication tied into cultural norms. As an emotional example, something like sarcasm takes a radically deferential tone in something like a journal. To this day I have to continually look at my print writing when i'm doing a first-person view, and try to figure out where my net-ingrained sense of hyperbole and sarcasm is causing misconceptions. and in my speech? fugedduboutit.
Net writing is different. Net writing is based on its own culture. I ask you this: if by some fluke you're one of 50 americans who gets letters in the mail, compare the language and tone to an e-mail. NOW, if the person writing the e-mail is someone with an online life, they're going to be radically different in a dozen different ways. some will be superficial, some will seemingly affect the very tone. those without that online life, those who accommodated their view of this kind of personal writing into e-mail, will have messages very similar to an actual letter. very little emotion, very precise language, etc.
Email's just different than print writing. "printing it out" doesn't change it. you need to remember: the idea of an internet with rules is new. the net was built by geeks like me...except they were smarter and had patience to deal with hardware. while print etiquette is built on a certain "code of conduct", netiquette has its own structure, and it shows its face in different senses depending on the format. im's are different from texts, texts are different form email, et al. it's all built on the old internet, the one built by those geeks. geeks are generally aggressive, rude, and sarcastic. i don't mean this as an insult, nor do i mean it as a universal. geeks are also problem-solvers, and we take any sort of "rule" as an invitation to bend/break/move around it. communication on the net is built upon this kind of aggression and subversion. most kids these days with internet access live in it and are versed in the rules. it's why this message is laden with a lack of punctuation, is occasionally sarcastic, and is filled with rhetorical fallacies i wouldn't dare approach in an actual print format.
Wanna know why hacking exists? because it's a puzzle to solve. screw "legal", it doesn't apply. the fact that rl society is attempting to impose law and order on it does not, for now, mean that those laws will be followed.
and teachers, such as we see here, are attempting to put their rules onto it. i do NOT mean this negatively. i just mean that their students are more well-versed in the conduct than they are, generally speaking, and they know how to operate it. so well-meaning teachers such as those in the kadjer article throwing out assignment blogs are wasting their time. they're trying to put a shiny hat on a journaling technique, and their intentions are admirable. but they should stick to journaling with a notebook unless they're versed enough to make an online assignment actually different. look at my post here. i'm REALLY trying to make this non-internet in tone. not sure how successful i am. based on lack of capitalization and complete lack of pronouns in otherwise complete sentences, i'd bet it's more net than print. and if this were an actual paper, it wouldn't look anything like this. I'd also use punctuation more.
My reason is simple: the language and deference for online writing by this teacher, as an example, is antithetical to what the students already operate on when online. the article, like the gee article from a few weeks ago, is the modern equivalent of saying "golly look at this here television-box, it's newfangled. we need to get that into class." yes. the intention is admirable. but the language and mode of thinking is outdated. can you teach a student when the student knows more about the medium than you?
another fairly superficial example: raise your hands if you know what it is to be trolled. or rickrolled. either/or. similarties between the two.
again, again, again - it is admirable. he's trying to spur interest by introducing a fun piece of equipment that the students want to use. but they use it differently. it's also admirable for administrators to mandate their teachers keep up to date on it. but if the very mode of thinking is still set to pre-internet, it's only going to go so far. i don't mean this universally, obviously. my cooperating teacher's great with it in a lot of ways, and he also has a view i share on it: it's all part of a toolbox. use what's needed where it's needed.
my link for the week:
it's a recent "blog" post with imbedded video asking, "is the internet really an amplified for youth deviance, bad behaviour, and risk?"
My answer: no, and you're comparing apples to oranges.
I've brought this up before, in Tracey's class a few weeks ago during the new literacies posting, but it's something that genuinely bothers me. In this case, it starts immediately in the article as a sort of cautionary tale: the principal claiming his teacher "gets" tech with kids, only to see them using laptops in such an absurd way they'd be better off with notebooks.
As far as I am concerned, much of the computer use in/around classroom activities isn't too far off from this, no matter what is claimed. And it's really a matter of understanding language/culture. That is, there is a definitely online culture. The people who get it, get it. The people who don't try to accommodate the culture into their own understandings. It...it just doesn't work.
In the case of 5481, we read a short article (guy's last name was Gee, forget his first name) who advocated using video games as a teaching tool. OK. He's running off of a false premise in not recognizing video games as skinner boxes (i've said it a hundred times and i'm sure i'm not alone), but his general idea was sound enough. it's certainly a game attempt to make his materials relevant to his students, and i won't fault him for that. but he was so out of touch with the entire jargon-structure and even the ethos behind gaming that i just know it would fall flat with him.
And there's a similar attitude at work in this week's readings. Please note: I DO NOT VIEW THEIR EVERY ARGUMENT AS INVALID. I definitely don't want to be misunderstood, as if i'm ignoring everything they say as somehow worthless. I just think that they're doomed to fail, because they don't understand the beast, as it were.
Now, in the case of the Kadjer article, I won't claim that the recommendations on using blogs are invalid. They're not. But they're entirely based on a mode of communication incompatible, in many ways, with blogs and netiquette in general.
I guess the best way I can describe it is this: we have a mutually accepted code of conduct in a mode of writing. Let's use journals as an example, because it's handy for the purposes of this. We have a general variety of tones, a general type of "respect" that we, as journal-writers, by nature afford to the reader. These aren't instinctive by a long shot. They're learned behaviours and they're subtle. They're based on very old principles of communication tied into cultural norms. As an emotional example, something like sarcasm takes a radically deferential tone in something like a journal. To this day I have to continually look at my print writing when i'm doing a first-person view, and try to figure out where my net-ingrained sense of hyperbole and sarcasm is causing misconceptions. and in my speech? fugedduboutit.
Net writing is different. Net writing is based on its own culture. I ask you this: if by some fluke you're one of 50 americans who gets letters in the mail, compare the language and tone to an e-mail. NOW, if the person writing the e-mail is someone with an online life, they're going to be radically different in a dozen different ways. some will be superficial, some will seemingly affect the very tone. those without that online life, those who accommodated their view of this kind of personal writing into e-mail, will have messages very similar to an actual letter. very little emotion, very precise language, etc.
Email's just different than print writing. "printing it out" doesn't change it. you need to remember: the idea of an internet with rules is new. the net was built by geeks like me...except they were smarter and had patience to deal with hardware. while print etiquette is built on a certain "code of conduct", netiquette has its own structure, and it shows its face in different senses depending on the format. im's are different from texts, texts are different form email, et al. it's all built on the old internet, the one built by those geeks. geeks are generally aggressive, rude, and sarcastic. i don't mean this as an insult, nor do i mean it as a universal. geeks are also problem-solvers, and we take any sort of "rule" as an invitation to bend/break/move around it. communication on the net is built upon this kind of aggression and subversion. most kids these days with internet access live in it and are versed in the rules. it's why this message is laden with a lack of punctuation, is occasionally sarcastic, and is filled with rhetorical fallacies i wouldn't dare approach in an actual print format.
Wanna know why hacking exists? because it's a puzzle to solve. screw "legal", it doesn't apply. the fact that rl society is attempting to impose law and order on it does not, for now, mean that those laws will be followed.
and teachers, such as we see here, are attempting to put their rules onto it. i do NOT mean this negatively. i just mean that their students are more well-versed in the conduct than they are, generally speaking, and they know how to operate it. so well-meaning teachers such as those in the kadjer article throwing out assignment blogs are wasting their time. they're trying to put a shiny hat on a journaling technique, and their intentions are admirable. but they should stick to journaling with a notebook unless they're versed enough to make an online assignment actually different. look at my post here. i'm REALLY trying to make this non-internet in tone. not sure how successful i am. based on lack of capitalization and complete lack of pronouns in otherwise complete sentences, i'd bet it's more net than print. and if this were an actual paper, it wouldn't look anything like this. I'd also use punctuation more.
My reason is simple: the language and deference for online writing by this teacher, as an example, is antithetical to what the students already operate on when online. the article, like the gee article from a few weeks ago, is the modern equivalent of saying "golly look at this here television-box, it's newfangled. we need to get that into class." yes. the intention is admirable. but the language and mode of thinking is outdated. can you teach a student when the student knows more about the medium than you?
another fairly superficial example: raise your hands if you know what it is to be trolled. or rickrolled. either/or. similarties between the two.
again, again, again - it is admirable. he's trying to spur interest by introducing a fun piece of equipment that the students want to use. but they use it differently. it's also admirable for administrators to mandate their teachers keep up to date on it. but if the very mode of thinking is still set to pre-internet, it's only going to go so far. i don't mean this universally, obviously. my cooperating teacher's great with it in a lot of ways, and he also has a view i share on it: it's all part of a toolbox. use what's needed where it's needed.
my link for the week:
it's a recent "blog" post with imbedded video asking, "is the internet really an amplified for youth deviance, bad behaviour, and risk?"
My answer: no, and you're comparing apples to oranges.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
reading reflection for 2/17
So, I posted a little bit of this in a response to Jack's blog, but I'll restate here just for the sake of flow.
I really responded to the Van DeWeghe article in ways I haven't responded to anything else so far. We've had a few really practical and solid guides (the dornan text as a whole is incredibly practical, as an example), but none so immediate to me.
A few weeks ago, the English 9 group had to come in with 3-4 ideas for what they wanted to do their research papers on. The general topic they had was simple: pick someone in your life who had to undergo a huge change of some kind. document the social aspects. some people chose medical crises, immigration, etc. their primary sources are personal interviews.
My cooperating teacher had them all in groups of 3-4 and they each had a simple worksheet on which they'd document their peers' ideas and how "good" they thought said-ideas were. while they were working, he came up to me and said, "it's a good idea to always do, but don't be surprised when they don't do the kind of critique you want." So I asked him a little bit about why he did the group critiques/revisions, what he meant by different kind, etc. He pretty much said, "you can give them very specific lenses to look through. ask them to answer specific questions, etc. but no matter what, they're going to default back to either saying 'i like it' or 'fix comma here, capitalize here, i like it!'"
That day, his third hour also had assigned groups for the same sort of thing. 11th grade honors, in this case. same thing. he said no matter how smart the kid is, what grade they're in, it doesn't matter. only 1 in 20 will, in high school, be able to do it. the rest will default to the more shallow stuff we often complain about, and Van DeWeghe comments on. it's just, in my cooperating teacher's opinion, a matter of maturity, strength of ability/confidence as writers, and social dynamics.
Why do them? That was my big question. His response: "eventually they will be strong enough and mature enough to use them in a more productive way, without a teacher's intervention. When that comes to them in a few years, they'll already be in the habit of doing it. It'll be familiar to them and productive."
he combats this whole thing when it comes to actual draft revisions by using turnitin.com, which has a feature that will send out each student's essay, anonymously, to X amount of students (you tell it how many: in his case, it goes out to 3 others). students are then required to comment on the papers...again, anonymously. the website also has a feature in which, the teacher, plug in questions. when it turns around and sends out the anonymous papers to students, it attaches the questions in terms of a minor worksheet that they have to answer. the anonymity helps for a bit more truthfulness.
I had a thought about a way to combat this, stolen wholesale from the girlfriend.
groups of four. assign each person a role: this person praises, that person critiques. another person looks specifically at grammar/spelling. she apparently uses it a lot for draft revisions and it works well.
i have to admit, it's kind of interesting to look at the praises for "teaching higher level thinking" vs. the more pragmatic view that my cooperating teacher has. but i do see a lot of abilities for common ground in there, especially when you take into account the idea that it models good habits that they'll hold onto and use more effectively at later points.
My link for the week:
this is a peer editing form. I actually quite like the questions. they're pointed, but open-ended. I plan to use something similar in teaching the research paper to the 11th graders.
I really responded to the Van DeWeghe article in ways I haven't responded to anything else so far. We've had a few really practical and solid guides (the dornan text as a whole is incredibly practical, as an example), but none so immediate to me.
A few weeks ago, the English 9 group had to come in with 3-4 ideas for what they wanted to do their research papers on. The general topic they had was simple: pick someone in your life who had to undergo a huge change of some kind. document the social aspects. some people chose medical crises, immigration, etc. their primary sources are personal interviews.
My cooperating teacher had them all in groups of 3-4 and they each had a simple worksheet on which they'd document their peers' ideas and how "good" they thought said-ideas were. while they were working, he came up to me and said, "it's a good idea to always do, but don't be surprised when they don't do the kind of critique you want." So I asked him a little bit about why he did the group critiques/revisions, what he meant by different kind, etc. He pretty much said, "you can give them very specific lenses to look through. ask them to answer specific questions, etc. but no matter what, they're going to default back to either saying 'i like it' or 'fix comma here, capitalize here, i like it!'"
That day, his third hour also had assigned groups for the same sort of thing. 11th grade honors, in this case. same thing. he said no matter how smart the kid is, what grade they're in, it doesn't matter. only 1 in 20 will, in high school, be able to do it. the rest will default to the more shallow stuff we often complain about, and Van DeWeghe comments on. it's just, in my cooperating teacher's opinion, a matter of maturity, strength of ability/confidence as writers, and social dynamics.
Why do them? That was my big question. His response: "eventually they will be strong enough and mature enough to use them in a more productive way, without a teacher's intervention. When that comes to them in a few years, they'll already be in the habit of doing it. It'll be familiar to them and productive."
he combats this whole thing when it comes to actual draft revisions by using turnitin.com, which has a feature that will send out each student's essay, anonymously, to X amount of students (you tell it how many: in his case, it goes out to 3 others). students are then required to comment on the papers...again, anonymously. the website also has a feature in which, the teacher, plug in questions. when it turns around and sends out the anonymous papers to students, it attaches the questions in terms of a minor worksheet that they have to answer. the anonymity helps for a bit more truthfulness.
I had a thought about a way to combat this, stolen wholesale from the girlfriend.
groups of four. assign each person a role: this person praises, that person critiques. another person looks specifically at grammar/spelling. she apparently uses it a lot for draft revisions and it works well.
i have to admit, it's kind of interesting to look at the praises for "teaching higher level thinking" vs. the more pragmatic view that my cooperating teacher has. but i do see a lot of abilities for common ground in there, especially when you take into account the idea that it models good habits that they'll hold onto and use more effectively at later points.
My link for the week:
this is a peer editing form. I actually quite like the questions. they're pointed, but open-ended. I plan to use something similar in teaching the research paper to the 11th graders.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
oh, my link for the week!
The online english grammar guide
i like it because i'm on the kids' side: i hate memorization. i hate repetition. books exist so you don't have to remember. same with the net. this is a good breakdown of everything. hit ctrl+f and look for what you want.
there are several that i use in addition to this, depending on what i need. this is just one of the "nicer" ones.
i like it because i'm on the kids' side: i hate memorization. i hate repetition. books exist so you don't have to remember. same with the net. this is a good breakdown of everything. hit ctrl+f and look for what you want.
there are several that i use in addition to this, depending on what i need. this is just one of the "nicer" ones.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)