technoreflection

I was pleasantly surprised with how well the peer writing groups worked with each other.  I let them set their own rules, citing the fact that some people view negative feedback as the most useful, while others need to hear the positive in balance with the negative.  Each group member needed to be respected when feedback was being given; each group had to tell each other what they wanted and needed.  This was much more effective than me dictating how they interacted.

We spent a few weeks in the classroom and at the lab working on various stages of rewriting and revision.  Rather than attack all the layers of the redrafting process at once, first they worked on content, on characters, on the development of their story arcs.  Then they worked on their spelling, mechanics, and word choices.  Having the stories accessible outside of class time made the editing process easier, as well as making the students more motivated on checking the pages frequently for new feedback (and feeling more invested in giving feedback to their peers).  I was impressed at the caliber of their work, and I believe the bar was raised because they were writing for each other and not just for me.

The only place the project fell short was the last phase.  My plan had been to do a bound collection of all the stories.  When it came down to it, the students didn’t want a collection of stories.  They had already read the ones they wanted to read.  Even knowing that the PrimaryPad sites will eventually time out (once the school year and the free trial period is done), they weren’t invested in keeping the stories beyond the Microsoft Word versions on their computers.  Whether or not the format (a book) was the issue could be debated.  I’ll look for new avenues for publishing next year.

I really enjoyed this process, trying out new tech tools, rolling over the ideas of what 21^st Century classrooms could be.  As the Dobbs cohort taught me, there’s no one right answer.  We each come to our own paths, each path suited to our specific student population and to us, as individual teachers.  The unifying threads are the journey and the desire to change, to grow, to add new tools to our teacher boxes.  Thank you, 21^st Century Cohort, for being on this piece of the journey with me.  I’ll still be walking the path, sometimes circling back, probably wandering off on side paths from time to time, but you can expect requests for your insights and for updates on your journeys as well.

This marks the beginning of my final reflections on the writers’ workshop I did this year as my culminating artifact for Dobbs.

Before I can explain the project, I have to provide some background information.

Issues

Kids at our school are not given email accounts until the seventh grade.  In addition, parents sign waivers giving permission (or not) to access outside sites during school or having their images or work posted online.  This posed a few challenges.  I had to find a free site, one that did not require a personal email to log on.  I had to have something that was user friendly, as some of the kids are not super computer savvy and some are VERY savvy.

In Practice

The technology piece built off of an earlier writing workshop they did in the winter co-creating stories.  We started with a letter.  Each child had to write a letter (in proper letter format) in role as a character to another fictional character.  They got to decide the tone of the letter, whether it was between two friends, a complaint about an enemy, or a business letter.  I collected those letters.  After checking for proper formatting, I put the students in pairs and trios.

The next step was to distribute the letters.  The recipients had to assume the role of the addressee in the 1^st letter and respond.  Several letter exchanges ensued.  (I sincerely hope by now that they are all very familiar with proper letter formatting.)  The letters were collected for the person who sent the first letter.

The next stage was to generate a story.  Each student had to reread the collection of letters he or she had.  Each had a choice to make.  The goal was to write a short story.  The story could be the backstory leading up to the letters.  It could fill in the gaps between the letters.  It could start where the letters left off.  They had to write a story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end for a reader who was NOT in their letter exchanges.  I collected them, gave some basic grammar feedback, and asked for one more draft.  Those drafts were tabled in a file while our class play took center stage, and our computer lab time went to short terms classes in the high school.

In the spring, I usually do some kind of a writing workshop.  (This year, I had started earlier with the stories with the spring extension and technology in mind.)  Sometimes, it’s been a poetry workshop.  At other times, it’s been a process of writing and revising a short story with me as the reader.  This time, I wanted to incorporate peer response into the process.  How best to do that is where the technology piece fit in.

During the Dobbs program, one of the tools to which we were introduced was Primary Pad.  It had some major pluses.  I could create pages for each of the kids.  The addresses are pretty private, as you have to have the URL to access each pad.  It allows more than one person to log on, read, and comment.  It took a while to create a page for each kid and get an active link working on our class wikispace.  After a bit of trial and error, the links were working, the kids were assigned peer “pods” in which to work, and the process was underway.

I decided it was easier to facilitate the computer and group times with half groups rather than the whole class.  This made even more sense, given that our computer lab times are in half groups as well.

to be continued…

for writing tools and ideas.  (in no particular order)

1.  For Writing Prompts:

Writing Fix: Home of Interactive Writing Prompts

2.  How to Write Different Kinds of Letters:

Letter Writing Guide

3.  Graphic Organizers for Story Mapping

4. An annotated Bibliography on Collaborative Writing

5. Four Collaborative Writing Tools  (covers GoogleDocs, ZohoWriter, WriteBoard and Thinkfree)

http://www.techlearning.com/article/8906

6.  Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum

http://www.thecreativeeducator.com/v05/stories/Digital_Storytelling_Across_the_Curriculum_03

7.  Using Storybird

http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/talkowski/2010/01/31/storybird-for-collaborative-writing/

8.  PicLit  (I might use this for story starting next time…or poetry)

http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx

9.  Writing Organizers (especially for students that like having masters to look back)

http://www.writingfun.com/

10.  Plot starters for those who can’t get it going…

http://words.bighugelabs.com/plot.php

I found this article online by Pamela Flash from the University of Minnesota on Peer Response and Writing.  Since one is sometimes asked “what are they supposed to ‘get’ from this process as opposed to another choice?”, I found the list here relevant, despite the fact the model I used was different than the author’s.  To summarize on her rationale, the author stresses there are 5 benefits of an effective peer response writing group:

1.  ”Opportunities to improve drafts before it’s too late.”

2.  ”An expanded idea of audience.”

3.  ”Practice in reading for revision.”

4.  ”Enhanced communication skills.”

5.  ”Increase confidence.”

Happily, I think my students got most, if not all of these pieces.  The ones that struck me most significantly with this batch of writers were #2 and #4.  I knew the kids were used to having me as a reader, but it was exciting to see the dynamic of how these interacted with each other.  I watched one child, who wrote a war narrative references weapons and attack formations for which he was well versed, but for which his peer writing group had no frame of reference.  They pushed him to explain more, to not assume they knew the same information he did.  While this was frustrating for the child in question, his story was much richer in detail as a result.

I watched students realize they had to explain to their peers what they found confusing or why they would or would not include a detail or a character.  If it wasn’t forthcoming, their peers demanded it of them.  And, they listened, in a way that was distinctly different from how they listen to me.  It was exciting.

I’m asking the kids to do a self evaluation this week.  I want to know what they think about Primary Pad.  I think it was an excellent tool to use for our writer’s workshop, but I want to know their side of things.  I’m also curious as to how successful they felt in the workshop in general this year.  I set it up differently, with the story writing in the fall and the collaborative/feedback bits in the second semester.  It began with letter writing, which had never been a starting point for me as part of the process, but it was practice that they sorely needed.  The digital component was also new, and, I think, it was met with some mixed success, mostly because some didn’t buy in to the process….and the digital bits made it harder for me to snag them as quickly as I could in my classroom when I could see a lack of engagement and work with a group member one on one, rather than having a group flounder a bit longer, or a member slack on feedback.  I’m still figuring out those bits.  Next year, I am thinking of having the kids fill out a survey online after each session (and including a bit on who is being helpful and who isn’t participating) on that survey.  That feels easier to track than, perhaps, 29 different primarypad pages.  Any input, y’all?

I am thinking that the game plan must change.  It’s a question of timing.  My room is getting netbooks in the fall, and we are doing a new curriculum next year.  I will be swamped/I am swamped right now, and I don’t have enough extra time to write grants this spring.  I just don’t see the Nintendo DS plan fitting in.  So…..my artifact is going to be my writer’s workshop.

I found this great post from the National Writing Project:

30 Ideas for Teaching Writing

I was excited to see that my preliminary project meets many of the suggestions.

*I’ll be back later Mon to explain more in depth…

Edit:  My project actually began last semester.  After I noticed my kids were still having trouble with writing letters in proper format, I had them create two characters.  One was a letter writer, the other the receiver. Instead of having a conversation between two characters, written by the same author, the letters were exchanged.  Several times the process was repeated. They knew they’d have an audience (item #11 modified).

From that point, they were given time to meet and chat about the (now 4) characters.  Each author took his or her original two characters and used the letters as a starting point for a short story.  The letters didn’t have to be included in the final product, but that option was there.  They did all this before I even came across Primary Pad.

I held onto to their drafts until about a month ago.  I set up Primary Pad links for each student.  They are in “writing pods,” where each pod comments on the writing of the other pod members.   Each group met to draw up a contract of norms for their interaction and peer feedback.  Primary pad gave them a chance to respond to each other in writing (Item #17).

This week, they are mostly finishing up another set of revisions.  We’ll be working on a reflection piece (Item #8).  I’m going to use Primary Pad in a slightly different structure after this, but I want to know what they think worked and didn’t work.  I’m interested to see where they see the gaps and successes.

to reading James Gee’s book.  I’m still wavering on the whole project on gaming, mostly because I still don’t have a handle on funding.  Personally, I hate being up in the air.  I’ve been using primary pad on a writer’s workshop in the meantime.  It’s been going well.  I’ve got the kids in “pods” based on skills they each bring to their group (an imagination team member, a grammarian, etc).  They’ve given me feedback that they love it.  (One boy who is often not engaged has asked me if we were going to keep doing it all year because he’d like to make a collaborative story.)  I’m definitely keeping this again for next year.  I’ve got the chance to have a guest writer come in to our room in April.  We’re looking to have an in class book published.  Any recs on gaming funding or writing sources would be appreciated.  I’m not on break (won’t be til April) but I’m still reeling from the time change.

Kind of an exciting headline, given the last post about a tech school that includes video game design as part of the curriculum.  Apparently the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers has created a new category of art award for video game design in the national Scholastic Art awards process.  It’s part of new partnership with the AMD foundation.  I’ll be posting more about them later.

In the meantime, here’s the annoucement:

http://allianceforyoungartistsandwriters.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-grant-boosts-video-game-category-of.html

a space holder for the moment.  I just got back from vacation and have hit the ground running and then some.  I’m working on 2 pages on my class wiki (one on the Iliad and one for a writing workshop I’m doing with the class).  It’s taking all the time I have…oh, as well as trying to get the kids in my math class online registration done for World Math Day on Wed.  Eep.