Category Archives: Writing

What It Might Be- Authentic Student Blogging

I started writing, blogging, whatever you want to call it nearly seven years ago. I started with some important questions,

What if we are English teachers and we talk all day about why writing is important and we want to prove that by actually doing it? What if we tell or students that writing helps us learn how to think? It helps us break down the world and recreate it in a way that makes sense to us? What if we believe that writing is the last form of communication, and that the freedom on the Internet and Blogging may help us connect with ideas we never knew possible? What if we believe in the honesty of the Blog as a venue to connect and share? What if we are tired of cynicism? Read more

I’m not sure if I’m closer to finding any answers, or if I have become lost or more deluded. Sometimes it feels like I have been spewing the same sermon for nearly a decade? Perhaps, but I still believe– I still believe in the power of Internet; this power of sharing. I still believe in fostering creativity, empowering students and creating spaces where they can shine and share and connect and grow.

The problem is that student blogs don’t always achieve this utopian wonderland of blissful connected learning. As a matter of fact, blogs often become dull, boring, dead spaces weighed down by the institutionalization of school environments. Dumping grounds for forced reflections, glorified worksheets, and poor writing no one but the teacher reads– these potentially vibrant spaces are transformed into vacant shells of what they might have been. So how do we create authentic spaces for students to reach their potential? This is a question I have been trying to answer for seven years, but never more urgently than now, as I prepare for a webinar later this week and a presentation next month on this very topic. I hope this post helps me narrow my focus and gain some clarity for myself and for you.

As soon as I saw the potential for in blogging as a tool for myself, seven years ago, I began experimenting with student blogs. I began under the tutelage of Kim Cofino and since then I have worked with Edublog, WordPress and now Blogger in a variety of schools and platforms. But not until this year, have I felt so excited about where my classes are heading. Things seem to be happening. I am not sure what is happening exactly, or where we are headed, but something feels different this year. I don’t want to jinx it, because like a young sprout our program is still very tender and potentially susceptible to failure, but many people have been asking me what is different about this year.

This post is meant to highlight some of what we have been doing and why it seems to be working. The following ideas are not ranked by importance and may not even be fully thought out or accurate. This list is that I came up with as I brainstormed the reason why we are finding success this year.

We Are A Team On The Same Page

I chose the word we, when I referred to some of the things we are doing intentionally. I have been on teams before, all wonderful in their own ways, but this is the first time in a long that I am in a group of teachers who are not only passionate about online sharing, digital citizenship, blogging, but skilled and well-versed as well. What’s more we understand that we, as a school, are at the early stages, at least when it comes to blogging, so we are not encumbered by system-wide guidelines or restrictions. We are free to experiment and let the dog loose on the leash so to speak. Furthermore, our skills and expertise are spread out across the school. Some of my most successful bloggers have had exposure to many of the ideas and values surrounding blogging earlier in their schooling. They were taught things like Creative Commons, design principles, and online etiquette by Keri-Lee and Louise in our Junior School. When they get to us, they are well versed in the basics. I cannot overstate how important this early exposure is for students, if you want them feeling comfortable sharing online.

Here in the middle school, I feel blessed to work closely with Paula, as we begin to lead the vanguard forward. It is crucial to have a few peers with whom you can exchange ideas. We also have Ian, who is new to blogging, but along with his enthusiasm brings a critical eye to help make sure we are blogging for the right reasons. I have spent so much time being the only person on a team trying to change minds and convince others of the value of blogging. It is so important to have a few team members who get it and are ready to push the possibilities. We also have an amazing librarian resource in Katie who helps us both on and off line create a literate and text rich world. . Add to this mix a tech coach who is not only on board, but can make things happens with the higher ups, and one who allows you the freedom to run, unafraid that you might trip up once in a while, for that we have Jeff! Finally we have an administration who trusts us and is steered by the excitement and potential of blogging and not held back by the fear or anxiety. I could go on and on, (Sorry if I forgot anyone) but staffing and like-minded teams really help.

It is difficult to succeed when you are the lone voice in the wilderness. A supportive vertically spread-out team and a supportive administration are key components to a successful student blogging initiative.

Personal Experience

I get blogging. I know how to do it. I understand the purpose of commenting. I know the value of RSS and can set up 22 feeds in reader with my eyes closed. I understand design. In short, I have been doing this for a while. At any given time I am administrating four to five blogs at a time. This experience comes with time. It is difficult to build organic student blogging environments, if you don’t have at least a few people on your team with this experience. I am not saying you can’t do amazing things when you are just starting out, but it takes time to get to a point where the small hiccups do not become major obstacle to your success. It takes time and practice to to gain this invaluable experience.

The best way to mentor others is to do yourself. If you want to create a student blogging environment you HAVE TO blog yourself. Write, read, immerse yourself in the blogosphere and play. The fact that you are here is a great first step, now join the conversations. Leave a comment, get involved. Your students will not blog successfully if you yourself do not blog!

Expectations vs Possibilities

Don’t start with what a blog must be or what it can’t be, but focus on what it might be. Give students freedom at first, let them drift and open up and build faith and trust. Don’t even mention the word portfolio. Instead exploit their natural tendency to share in other social network sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I explain to my kids that a blog is just a deeper version of what they already do. Teach them to take time in explaining why they share photos or video clips.

Blogging is about trust. Trust takes time. Students must feel safe to become vulnerable and open up. This trust is not built online, but in your classroom, when you are together, as a group, face-to-face. It is built through effective classroom discussions at the table and understanding the power of commenting and conversations. It is building offline spaces that are fun and creative and open to new ideas and projects. It is built by sharing as much of yourself with your students as you can. Share your music, your ideas, and texts that move you. Share your contacts and friends and model what you teach. Use your network to show the power of networks. Before you know it your students will be writing about all kinds of things:

Home– a poem by Myra
Blogging is Like Minecraft– by Kaymin
Illustrations– by Wendy
Japanese History– by Keito
F1 Fever– by Ananya
Focus Africa– by Max
Slam Poetry and another one on Imagination – by Aditi M
What Am I Doing With My Life– by Aditi P.
Basketball– by Glen
Music is My Life– by India
Sharks– by Pavitra
Mad Dogs (Book Review)- by Shashu
Food Questions– by Rohan

If you want your students to blog effectively, give them the freedom to experiment and write about what interests them. Stay away from portfolios and forced reflections on their learning, at least until they get the hang of it. Wait until they find a voice, find an audience, and become involved in the conversations around ideas, before you push your agenda of meta-cognition and reflective learning.

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Daniele Rossi

Playground vs Classroom

Kids play on playgrounds. They take risks out there– jumping off monkey bars, going down slides on tummies. They bully each other and form friendships. They get dirty. They have fun. They learn to stand in cues or get in fights. They learn not to go up the slide. It is not always easy being out there, but they stretch and learn and grow. Kids need playgrounds. Sometimes these spaces are supervised. Sometimes they are not.

I see social networks as digital playgrounds. Our students are out there. They are playing and experimenting. They are learning social norms: bullying and forming communities. They are sharing with positive and negative results. Sometimes these spaces are supervised. Most often they are not. Just as we need “real world” playgrounds, we need these online spaces as well. Kids need to have places where they socialize and learn without supervision. They need to jump off the monkey bars and figure things out on their own.

But they also need a classroom space to unpack and articulate their playground lessons. I see the blog as this space. While they play on cyber-playgrounds like Tumblr and Facebook, they need a middle ground to process what they do. I try and convince my students that they need a space of their own to explore their thinking and get constructive feed back from the community we are trying to build. We all play with our own friends out in the playground, sometimes crossing paths, but we meet in the classroom. We share, expand and really open up on blogs.

Students need to understand that there is value in an online space where they can have some structure in order to learn how others socialize online. A place they can practice lessons on digital citizenship and build community. They need to understand the role of the blog before they are asked (forced) to share. I find this playground and classroom model is a good way to get my head around it.

Space of our Own

Student understanding of the why of blogging is vital to successful student blogs. They will often think that blogs are just another school chore they must complete to appease the teacher. Another hoop to jump through. Another place to dump homework. I mentioned earlier that we did not start with portfolios or reflections or anything mandatory this year. Instead we are selling the kids on the values I have mentioned above. We are trying to build an understanding of the value of constructing an honest and authentic digital footprint. I think Jeff P. said,

We visit other places online, but a blog is your home where you invite people on your terms. You decorate and entertain and store yours stuff there. You live there. Without a blog you are cyber-homeless, simply wondering or couch surfing.

I love this image. We have found that helping students understand the homely feel of a blog has been invaluable. We encourage kids to share and find their voice and to house it on their blog–a place they hopefully feel comfortable.

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by herefordcat

There you have it. I am by no means an expert, but experience has taught me some lessons that I have shared with you. I am not sure where our blogs will go this year, but things are happening and we are excited. I just hope we don’t over-think them. I feel like they are young saplings at this time, I just hope we don’t over water them.

What have you done to create authentic student blogs or online spaces? What questions do you have? Let’s start a conversation and see here it goes. See you in the comments.

If you are interested in this topic, please join us this week at , Authentic Student Blogging: Empowering Student Voice in the Social Media Age. I could not be more honored and humbled to be presenting with Alec, Jim, Bud, Melanie, Alan and Howard. I am thrilled to be involved in this event with my heroes and mentors. You want experts? I am sure they will have a lot to say on this topic. See you there.

Hope That Helps

5 Replies

I recently received the following email from a student I taught in eighth grade a few years ago. She is at university now.

Hey Mr.R!
Long time no talk. How are you? How’s the family? Hope you’re all doing well. I’m going into my second year now at the University of Waterloo in Canada. I sort of hate it, but I’m learning to deal with it, so I guess that part’s okay. I wanted to ask you for some advice – I’m in a weird place right now. They really don’t prepare you for college in high school… Well, anyway, I’m kind of stuck between wanting to be an English major and struggling with what my odds would look like career-wise, and trying to pick something more “practical” like Psychology and going to med school etc. I’m so confused and it’s so unbelievably frustrating to be debating myself about my entire future… please help!

My response:

Dear…

You find yourself in a familiar spot for anyone who has ever been entranced by the word. For every person who’s been tricked into believing that perhaps a living can be made from prose and metaphor and creation and bliss.

The reality, and I really hate to be the one to tell you– as perhaps I was the one who lit the fire, or at least fanned it early in your life, is that there is nothing practical about literature or writing. It is a dead end road obstructed with angst and pain. Forget about careers and security and normality.

You may be one of the lucky ones who has the tenacity, talent and verve to become an actually writer. A tattered creature scraping by enough money to make what they call a living, but the reality is more likely that you will fill your head with the magic of words and find yourself powerless to exist in a world that seldom values them.

Maybe you will become a teacher who spends her life hoodwinking others into believing that art and beauty and dreams are more a human act that working and careers and money can ever be.

You ask me advice about practicality? I know little about the subject. Follow your heart and what you love, the rest will fall into place. Do what you believe will make you happy. Think of what has always made you happy thus far and stick with that. Do not be led by practicality. There are more than enough people following those pursuits. There is nothing wrong with Med school or psychology, but do it because you love it and you feel you have no other choice. Do not allow your decisions to be made based on what you think you should do. Make them based on what you must do.

Whatever you do, will be the right choice. Life is long and simple and pleasant when you do what you love.

Hope that helps.

Mr. R

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by aroid

Do you have any advice for her? What would you say?

Come Down (calm down) From The Crazy

Paths Towards Articulation

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Do you ever have one of those lessons, where everything goes as you planned? Better yet, things work-out beyond your expectations? Kids leave your room a buzz with excitement and inspiration? You feel you have somehow added to the betterment of humanity, through the enlightenment of the best minds of the next generation? Today was not one of those lessons.

I had this last minute whimsical idea, but it didn’t really provide much visible fruit. Although, I was disappointed by the product, the process has been ripe for reflection. As always, nuts and bolts first, followed by reflection.

A seed has been planted in my heart, ever since I first saw Caine’s Arcade a few days ago. If you haven’t seen the film yet, take ten minutes to watch it below.

All year, we have been exploring the idea that poetry need not be confined solely to text. We have tinkered with film and photography as methods to capture the poetic experience, so here was a great example of visual poetry. I wanted my students to feel the emotional tug created through Caine’s Arcade. I wanted them to consider the depth of possible themes, and finally I wanted them to write a poem based on their experience with the film.

We discussed the context of East LA, as a low-income area of Los Angels before we watched the film. I asked them to jot down emotional observations as they watched, which we shared after the film. I was impressed by what they shared:

Feelings/Emotions:

Caring
Hope
Dreaming Big
Never Say Never
Innocence
Joyfulness
Determination
Passion

They got the film. This was clear. On a surface level, they connected to emotional baggage being presented. Next, I asked them to take these themes, unpack them and write a poem based in what they found inside. Yup, I threw them into the deep-end just like that. It was not pretty. There was a lot of staring at blank pages, a lot of empty looks. They were drowning and drowning fast. A few of them were okay, but the majority were overwhelmed by the freedom. They need more scaffolding. This is a Language A class of some pretty high flyers. I know they are working on an advance level as was evidenced by their great films. I did not want to offer them a pair of “water wings” if they didn’t need them, but at this point they needed something more from me.

Next, we explored some deeper themes and ideas.

Odds against you
Cardboard/reuse
Boredom versus creation

We talked about the idea of the arcade itself being a gamble. It is designed to cheat the player, much like life. They mentioned that it was interesting that this place of hope was created from reused cardboard boxes. I presented the idea that it was important to notice how like the boxes themselves, Caine had been abandon too. That maybe this film was the filmmakers way of reusing him and his story to create hope. We discussed the act of creation and how it stems from boredom. We had some great talks.

They went back to writing. They still struggled. I failed.

Well no! This is my epiphany. So many times we expect perfect little products after we “teach” kids how to do something. I will teach you about poetry (as if that is even possible) and you will write a poem. Here is your A! Isn’t school fun? It is never that easy. Sometimes maybe the struggle is the point. Maybe exposing kids to frustration and forcing them to keep at it is what we should be teaching. Expecting grade seven students to write great poetry is a difficult challenge, but teaching them how to recognize the poetry which surrounds them and offering them paths towards the articulation is a great first step.

We began the journey down this path today. We identified the poetry in a simple short film and allowed it to play with our guts. We examined the results and became frustrated when we couldn’t easily create art from our experience. This is not failure. This is a beginning. This is learning. I won’t be able to assess this or put it on a rubric, but I hope that my students will be the better for it. I hope they will explore their emotions, spend quiet time with their hearts and see what comes pouring out. It will be messy and jumbled and possible incompressible, but it is my job to help them sculpt a poem from it.

I asked them to watch the film again at home and spend more time with it tonight. I asked them to simply write what they think and feel. Forget about poetry. Do not think. Just write. I shared this little nugget:

Poems are not written. They are excavated from pages of notes, scribblings & emotional detritus. A poem is not written it is sculpted.

Tomorrow I will show them this and see where we go next. I am not exactly sure where we are headed, but that is okay. We are on a journey. We are together. This is enough for now.

During the writing of this post, I received this tweet from Narvin, the creator of the film.

Who knows, maybe he will have some ideas of where we go next…

Young Grasshopper

1 Reply

We have been working on Haiku in my grade 6 Language B (low-language level students) class. I have been trying a new scaffolding assignment that I would like to share. Before I continue, let me state that I understand that poetry in general, and Haiku in particular, are best enjoyed alone and outside. Let me save you from your own argumentative voice, that is begging you to scream:

“What? Using computers to write Haikus? Get those kids outside and let them feel the nature!”

True. I agree, but I am dealing with grade six students who lack the vocabulary, the motivation, or the life experience to sit like the Buddha under a tree and see the universe in a dew drop. So I am using media and technology to help them get to that mental head space, by building their skills and knowledge of language. This assignment is not meant to replace authentic poetic experience, but to help students understand it, and hopefully by the end of the unit be able to write a decent Haiku after spending a meditative period outside with nothing but a scrap of paper, a pen or pencil, and the wisdom of a silent moment beneath a tree.

Let’s start with the nuts & bolts. We have been working with images all year. After their daily shoot assignment for our last unit on film, students should now be familiar with the basic idea of capturing a poetic moment through images. The hope is that making the jump to capturing a poetic moment through text will not be too difficult. We have spoken a lot about how poetry is the art of of recognizing and naming the unnameable. We can do this through the lens of a camera or through the power of language.

In addition to taking their own pictures, they have used Flickr and the pool of amazing Creative Commons photographs there to supplement their language, so it was with Flickr that we began.

I asked each student to find four Creative Commons pictures from Flickr that embrace and celebrate nature. Choose one from each season and try to include each element: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall + Earth, Water, Fire and Air. I thought these images would be conducive to Haiku later. They were reminded to cite each photo and keep track of the URLs for later use. This has become a habit I am proud of.

Next, I created a Google Presentation as a place to pool our images. This way, I could keep track of who was doing what and comment on their choices in one place. This also allowed them to see what types of photo their peers were choosing. They added their name and the URL of the image to each slide.

Then, they were asked to brainstorm a list of words that came to mind when looking at these images. I walked around and sat with kids to help the ones who were stuck. Next we did a quick lesson on parts of speech and discussed Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs. I asked that they create a three-column table on the slide and separate their list into the correct part of speech. We discussed how most of them lacked verbs.

But there are no actions in nature? What can a tree do?

Ah young grasshopper, this is the soul of the Haiku! But I didn’t say anything yet. Next step, I asked that they find some synonyms for the adjectives. Take a look:

Yesterday, we began to discuss Haiku. We spoke about the 5-7-5 structure of the lines, syllables, and I gave them this format to get started:

First line- Describe an object or scene (Adjective +Noun)
Second line– Give this object or scene an action (Verb)
Third line– What is the lesson?

I have been impressed with the quality of images and words they have been using. As you can see, by using tech I was able to give these kids the skills and language they need to connect to Haiku. I hope that next week, we can leave the laptops behind and go outside to observe. I hope that we can sit near a flower, make a list of words, separate them into lists and begin to write. Better yet, I hope that they begin to see the Haiku hiding in their everyday lives.

In closing, we are hoping to create a class collection of Haiku to publish in a book and perhaps a short film in which students read their Haiku over the pictures with some sound effects. Will keep you posted.