Notes from Kajder Chp 6

Chapter 6: Writing Together: Participatory Media, Collaboration, and the English Classroom

Often teachers attempt to move traditional English assignments into a technological realm, but Kajder argues that isn't really helpful.  Instead, "we need to make these changes with an eye to how authentic writing in new media spaces actually differs from traditional work" (p. 86).

NCTE says writing and collaborating with new media

• requires continual learning and identity development
• helps create points of connection between what it means to create and collaborate outside of school and inside the more traditional English classroom
• provides opportunities for relevant, purposeful work

For example, the Internet allows publishing work to be immediate and to have an audience that goes beyond the teacher or class peers.  This can dramatically change the way students perceive writing.

*I wonder too, if the Internet is changing the writing process.  Since publishing can be immediate and constantly changed/updated, I wonder if the nature of revision and editing are changing.  


Reinventing the Character Journal: Megan, an eleventh grade teacher, always has her students keep character journals as they read The Great Gatsby and she appreciates the way they encourage students to construct meaning throughout their reading.  However, she says she hates grading them and they feel so inauthentic-- so "schoolish."  Megan noticed how much her students were into pictures-- taking photographs, changing their profile pictures, decorating their binders, etc.  

Megan revised the project to be steeped in visual content.  She created a "15-Day Visual Character Journal" where students would capture one image for each day of reading, from the point of view of their character, but now summarizing how the photo demonstrated a key moment in the novel.  The class posted their photos and summaries to flickr.  

Students then had to comment on the photos, which created a sense of audience and community. 


Writing Collaboratively: Later in the year, Megan created a project to go along with the class's study of the play Othello. Megan used a class wiki to launch three levels of the project.  Level 1 was a repository in which students posted their assignments and participated in discussion. Megan also posted a FAQ page and video clips of a modernized scene.

For the next stage, Megan posted several video clips of Desdemona's final death scene and students engaged in a robust online discussion and analysis of the differences in the portrayals. 

In the final stage, Megan found a collaborating class in Missouri (through GlobalSchoolNet) for her students to work with.  The other class was going to use Megan's class's wiki to help them as they read the play.