Linda Davis and a meme set

Dear Writing Project,

I've got to be honest with you.  I've started this post three times already and just can't seem to get it right.  I'm not sure what block I keep hitting.  I think I've hit the backspace key more than any other on my keyboard since I first started typing this post about 45 minutes ago.  There was once a time in my life when I would have got so frustrated when the words weren't coming that I would quit. But I know better now.  I know that if I step away for a minute and do something else that it'll all come to me.

Maybe if I make a meme, it'll come to me.  I've been meaning to make one for the clmooc, and I bet if I do, then my writing ideas will start flowing.

So I guess if nothing else, in attempting to write this post I created my first meme.   Now, to get back on track....

Nothing.  Maybe more meme making will do the trick...

Nope..maybe something smarter...

Still nothing.....maybe my daybook might give me some inspiration...

Sat down to write blog daybook in hand. Wrote paragraph on being stuck.  Clicked view blog and read old posts.  Switched over to type on blog.  Wrote sentence that didn't make sense. Held down backspace, rewrote, backspace again.  Opened up Google Plus in a new tab.  Felt bad for lurking in #clmooc.  Realized I never made a meme. Wrote how thought that meme making would generate writing but that was a lie.  Just wanted to make meme because writing was hard. Made meme and felt bad for lying in blog post. Inserted memes in blog anyway and didn't delete lie. Decided to leave in first Dos Equis Meme even though stupid. Thought about deleting the failed starts collecting at bottom of page.  Put down computer. Walked around coffee table twice. Went to find powercord because battery was at four percent.  Got beer from the refrigerator. Plugged in power cord and read #unccwp twitter hashtag. Took sip of beer. Reread writing and decided it sounded lame. Thought Foucault and a Pencil sounds real-time but was likely written after fact. Wondering if I am right. Continued writing to trick self into writing but stopped and thought that blog post may work after all.  Reread failed starts at bottom of page. Resisted the urge to rewrite to sound smart.  Rearranged memes to show progression of thinking. Re-saw Dos Equis meme and failed starts and was excited. Resisted urge to wake up Tiffany to read breakthrough blog post.

ahhh.  Perhaps this may just be one of those nights that writing wasn't meant to be for me.  But I did write, and that's important, right? I remember advice for writers that in order to be a writer you must write every day, even if it is garbage, just write.  I don't remember anyone every saying anything about publishing this garbage, though. This is probably the stuff that's best kept as a draft.   Maybe that's what I need...to take the pressure off of myself.

What has been most valuable for me this week is the time and the space to write.  There is just always so much to do, and I guess that part of me understands why teachers, particularly English teachers, aren't writers themselves.  It's difficult, time consuming, forces us into a vulnerable spot.  I would just get up I think that
part of me may be a little nervous....the finality of a final post, the need for the post to capture an experience that, if words were able to capture, would need more space and time then this task allows.  I don't think that I write well under
I looked back over my old posts and was amazed by both how much I have written this past week and how coherent some of my thinking was. I still don't know what to say. I looked back over my post from last year during SI and

I still don't know what to say.

I appreciate the space provided

Dear Writing Project

It's been an exciting few years.

uhhhh

We're going on four year now since we first met, and even though we always wobble...

Growing as teacher wobblers

I had a blog post started in response to the thinking that had been working it's way around my head.  It wasn't anything genius...heck, I don't think that even what ends up being my best writing even starts out that way.   My plan this evening was to do some reading and commenting of fellow SIer's blogs, then go back to wrap up this post that I had gotten started.

I'm not going to finish it, at least not tonight, for the reason that I've grown to love reading these blogs every night.  I came accross too much awesome thinking, now fresh in my head, and my blog post tonight needs to grow out of it.

Sarah S and Wendy were the writers' who did it. In both of their posts, they brought up their own ongoing wobbling through SI and their inquiry. Sarah said a few things that I completely connected with.

In her post, Possibly Getting my Mind Boggled, Sarah wrote about SI and finding this flood great ideas, feeling unsure because of new and challenging ideas, and at being loss about how all of the experiences in SI will translate into her classroom teaching this year.  I know exactly how this feels. I've felt it before, and I'm feeling something like it right now.

I'm sure that I don't know exactly what Sarah is feeling, but reading her post got me reflecting a little on the way I felt when I was wrapping up my first year of SI.  I remember this feeling stressing me out a bit.  I was anxious about some replaning that I know needed to happen.  I was wobblying in so many spots that I was worried about feeling less sure of myself and my practice. And I guess that I was also a little worried about loosing all of these great ideas and the connections to a community with whom I had grown so close.

I'm not feeling right now this same type of overwhelming anxiety, at least not to the same extent.  And it's not because I'm not wobbling, either.  The thinking, writing, and connecting with great teachers has got me all sorts of wobbly....I'd say even more so than when I went through SI as a student a few year ago.

It Wendy's post, Minds Converge,  that got me thinking about what it was exactly, that has changed in me.

 "...I'm growing in my wobbling," wrote Wendy.  As I mulled over this words, it started to come to me.  A brief statement, but a huge paradigm shift.

Growing in wobbling...

This seems so different than how we look at the school model and our positions as learners in general.  Wobbling is something that is seen as temporary, that we work to get past.  We encounter an area we know little about, wobble through figuring out some answers and arrive on solid ground.

Growing in wobbling....

Not growing at finding answers, finding the solid ground.  But in wobbling.  Growing in being off balanced, finding the questions that put you there.

Maybe it was in this areas that I have grown....I feel pretty sure that's the case.  But I was still a little stuck in thinking about what exactly this meant.

I left Wendy's blog, still thinking, and came across a tweet from Sarah, tweeting out the link to her blog:

Sarah Stadler ‏@SarahStadler202h

I think I'm getting mind-boggled? Getting more questions then answers? I don't think I'm doing this right? #unccwp http://sstadler.blogspot.com/ 


I noticed right away a new layer of wobbling in her tweet.  She was wobbling about wobbling, wondering about the value of the place she had put herself in.   Wondering if she was doing it right.

I typed up a reply that said "Yes!" but decided to delete it.  How am I supposed to know if she is doing it right when I am always asking myself the same thing as I'm wobbling through my own mess of loose ends and conflicting ideas?

Perhaps it's this feeling of not knowing if you are doing it right that is the best indication you are.

I need to keep thinking on that one.....

"Getting" formula writing in a new way

There were a few places today during Sarah's demo where I felt like my mind was going to explode....in a good way.  So many pieces that just worked for me.

Entering into her demo, I was coming from a place strongly opposed to formula writing.  I wrote about it in this post here from a few days ago, and in my class I work hard to get students into a writing community and out of the formula and structure mindset. So, in a lot of ways, I wasn't feeling too wobbly about structure and writing, about where I stood on the hamburger outline, the five-paragraph artificial school-genre piece, and the rubric-defined model of good writing.  I had an informed stance against it.

 I guess that my feelings against using formulas to teach writing isn't based in my experience writing with them (though I have....a lot time ago).  It was based on what I have come to understand good writing is and the way writing works.  Thinking about how I write, what writers say about writing, and what the scholarly literature says, I'm led to the conclusion that the hamburger approach isn't what writers need.  What I see from my students verifies this, as well. When I used the outline, the structured right way to write model, my students' writing sucked and they hated it. When they had space to write and read good writing, write for an audience and be assessed on process, students enjoyed writing and came up with some brilliant work.

But some stuff happened to me in Sarah's demo that I didn't expect. I re-saw some areas and found new wobbly spots in others.   What did it was the act of experiencing writing in this paint-by-numbers sort of way.   Juxtaposing these authentic SI writing experiences with this Oreo structured writing assignment organizer about persuading someone to eat worms, it hit me, more clearly than ever, just how destructive this type of writing could be.  

As groups went around sharing their outlines and writing, I heard over and over again the ideas of feeling limited, not creative or thoughtful.  One group didn't have an outline and reported difficulty in figuring out what they would say and how they would organize it.  "I hear that," I thought.  It was what I had to do every time that I sat down to write.  I usually have to really wrestle with the words on the page to get them to make any sense, but I do it because the struggle matters.  It's where the meaning is made, and it's a struggle worth engaging in if my ideas can then connect with other minds, or heck, even make more sense in my own.  And it made me realize, again, the importance of my experiences with writing in realizing what writers need and why some approaches don't work.

The formula isn't about the struggle.  It seems to be a way around it, in fact.  A way to make our teaching of "writing" easier. Making assessing "writing" simpler, faster.   This has made me think of all the writing that kids do in this format.  All of the well-meaning teachers who assign it, thinking it's what kids need to learn to actually write well.  And I have a much more clear understanding now of where a student is coming from when they say they hate writing or ask me how much they have to write.  When they ask me to read their paper and tell them what they need to fix. Today I got to feel it, re-see it, and worry even more about it.

And through it all, I also got (way stronger than I've ever gotten it before) that nothing will change if teachers of writing aren't writers themselves, if teachers don't have the space to write and share ideas with other teachers in safe places.  

I'm really appreciating Summer Institute today, the people, relationships, and thinking that has grown in and out of our shared spaces the past two weeks.  This work really matters.

Digging into complexity

Last week some of work that Lil and Lacy did around the idea of complex readings of text got me thinking more about the area of text complexity... it's value in school, how it's commonly perceived, and what it really means.

So, I've been thinking about it, but other than thinking that text complexity may be more complex than commonly assumed, I really wasn't sure to what to think.

But then came Erika and Sarah's awesome demos, along with Lil's lunch conversation on assessment, and I feel like I found a few answers, or at least new layers to consider. I'll try to use this blog space to work though some of my thinking.  No promises about coherence.

There has been plenty of talk about complexity over the last few years.  I'm sure that the language of the CCSS has been a driving factor in that.  I know that the CCSS appendix devotes some space to defining what it means by complexity.  But a piece of this that I keep thinking about today, throughout the demos, is that the CCSS also defines different types of texts and writing, and I'm feeling like that this act of categorizing works against engaging with the complexities of any text.

In doing things like calling a text argumentative or informational, listing characteristics that define good writing in those genres, and saying that students need more exposure to reading information texts, we are narrowing our focus of reading and writing instruction.  But from both of the demo's today and the reading activities from last week have shown me that it is engaging with a text in broad and diverse ways that bring out the complexity in the text and in our thinking about it.

So, I'm wondering if the standards get complexity wrong or at least do it a disservice by attempting to define it.   Or if we, the readers of the standards get complexity wrong and apply it to our reading of the standards to think that it means something other than what it really does.  Or if we Maybe it's neither, or a little bit of both. If there is a way to engage students in real complex reading and writing activities that also fits under the CCSS umbrella.

Writing outside the hamburger

Yesterday, Erika wrote this insightful post, titled Questioning the Five Paragraph Essay.  This was my first visit to her blog, and I'm glad that I ventured outside of my group to check it out because her ideas have really got me thinking.

I'm in the same place with respect to her observations of formula writing in school. The five paragraph essay isn't real world writing nor the type of writing that real writers do. At least, I've never heard someones say, "I am a writer and I specialize in five paragraph essays." And like Erika also brings up, this formula-based approach to teaching writing serves to create a mindset in students that counters their identity development as writers.  Writing becomes nothing more than a formal task, artificial, with an image in place of what it should look like before the first word even gets written.

I know that good writing isn't taught with a formula, but Erika's post, along with with some of the ideas from Ben's demo yesterday, has got me doing some more thinking about why such an approach is even used at all.

My first thought was that practices like the five-paragraph structure, or the "hamburger outline," may have something to do with a combination of how we traditionally view learning in school and that teachers of writing may not be writers themselves.  When you write often, you learn what writers need, you see how writing happens and develops.   That the steps of the writing process happen in the order by which they need to happen and build on themselves.  It's sort of a mess, and it's a process that doesn't fit neatly into how stuff traditionally gets "taught" in school:

.....Teacher with the knowledge, the right answer, guides students in predetermined learning outcomes.....The whole broken down into more easily learnable chunks for teaching.... Rote, low level tasks must be mastered before moving on to the advanced....

It's a model that I think is built on a paradigm of right answers and linear progress.  The formula, and even the corresponding rubric, are pieces that make work together to support an image of good writing that is objectifiable, teachable.

But Nick's "bad writing demo" has got me wondering if the formula writing approach has more to do with creating a definition of bad writing than it is defining the good.  That creating this definably bad writing may be the piece that is most detrimental to teaching writing. Sure, I guess that the two concepts are polar and that one can't exist without the other...But when bad writing becomes something that can be defined, the formula enacts greater power and control.  We fear being told that our writing is objectively bad.  We steer clear of breaking the rules, making a mess, exploring new ways to craft meaning, and thus don't engage in the tasks of carving identities as writers.

I've been here before.  I've been the students Erika describes who asks for the minimum number of paragraphs. Actually, I've written so many formula essays that I got pretty good at them.

 It wasn't these experiences, though, that let me to say that, "yes, I am a writer."  It wasn't until years after I began teaching that I was able to say this.

I am wondering now not just about the conditions that writers need to grow, but also the practices that would against the years of fear created through formulas and hamburger outlines.

Unpacking grammar and rethinking conventions instruction in school

Lots of good thinking happening today, but Lacy's session on grammar at the end of the day really got my mind going. Actually, I don't think that I have ever been in a room of English teachers (or mostly English teachers), and didn't have an interesting conversation when the subject was grammar.  The point that started my line of thinking happened when as a group we were just saying aloud words/phrases that we connected to our thoughts and experiences with learning and teaching grammar.

Someone said that the word "overlooked." I'm not sure who. Nor am I sure what it was in reference to with respect to grammar or that person's experience with grammar.  The word brought to my mind, though, the countless complaints I've heard (from both teachers and the greater society) about students and their knowledge of standard gramatical usage:

"The grammar in these students' papers is terrible,"
"Students today just don't know grammar,"
"How are students able to get through school with such poor grammar?"
"Texting is destroying the ability to communicate."

Whenever any of the above comments are made, others in conversation agree.  They are simple statements, and usually those making them see truth in the words, plain as day.

But Lacy's demo got me to continue some thinking that I have already been doing around the subject of grammar and school, thinking that has let me to see that what on the surface appear to be simple observations about the state of language today by youth speakers, the reality is much more complex. Criticisms of grammatical usage are statements laden with beliefs about culture, language, and schooling.

The concept of grammar is huge, and when people talk about grammar I'm pretty sure they are referring to the rules that govern usage in our language.  And most commonly it's in reference to usage in the standard dialect, since any dialect of English has its own rules that govern usage.  I'd venture to guess that most people who hate on the conventions of people's language would agree with the unpacking I'm doing here about what is really meant by the "poor grammar" type comments I've mentioned here.

But I've got to wonder why, though, people tend to get so fired up about people not following the rules of the standard dialect.  Heck, this standard dialect only exists in written form, nobody speaks it perfectly, and even in it's written form, there are all sorts of disagreements about the rules, rules which get rewritten all the time.

You wouldn't think that something that is so fluid, diverse, and well...arbitrary would draw out reactions of much consequence, but in our society it's the norm to use the way people speak and write to draw conclusions about their intelligence, education, hygiene upbringing, and even morality.

And it may or may not be true that those who feel so strongly about grammar in school do so because they believe the connection between usage and intelligence.  Perhaps it is the good intentions of people who want children to have opportunity in life and to be free from these ridiculous judgements that causes grammar instruction to get the attention that it does in school.

I think that it's likely the latter, because as is often the case, our good intentions blind us to the possibility that our actions and beliefs may adversely affect our cause. Language is deeply personal, and  placing greater value on the dialects of some and devaluing others creates an injustice in opportunity and the conditions that feed marginalization.

So, here's where I am now. I'm not saying that students should leave school without a command of the conventions of standard usage.  That would be stupid. It's the dialect of power, politics, and academia...like it or not. That's reality, and it's generally agreed upon.  But when it comes to talking about grammar and taking a constructive approach to teaching grammar, I feel like the dominant narrative has much to be disagreed with.  I'm wondering now about what teaching practice looks like that gives students this command of standard conventions without devaluing their language practices or the intricacies and flexibility of our language.  Lacy's demo gave me an image of possibility where grammer offered a space to be inquired into, rather than preached, and I feel like that is definitely a step forward.

revaluing revision

Today pieces of my thinking in different areas began to converge, taking new meaning and form. Coming into today these were a few of the pieces that were moving around in my mind:

• My digital project, getting it right, feeling frustrated because I got to the end and realized that I should take what I have gained through the process and go back and redo the first pieces that I made, but I didn't have time. 
• I feel like my thinking about my own inquiry related to crafting digital writing as been on hold as I worked on other pieces of writing an thinking. 
• Thinking about the piece I was presenting today on revision. Wondering if I needed to revise the order of pieces in the session to make more time for conversation and discussion. 
• A draft of a resource that I had began writing for Digital Is, but never took much time to continue.  The work of the piece is important and needed to be shared, but what I had down didn't feel right, and I didn't feel a good sense of direction with it. 

So now, writing out of our session today, all of these pieces have come together around the point of revision, and through this converging I am taking a way new thinking on my writing and the act of revision. Experiencing the process of revision in my digital project has got me thinking about the craft and teaching of digital writing....that the digital composing process (including revision) is much the same as when we go about text-based writing, and adding new and/or unfamiliar tools to the composing process adds an additional layer of learning how the tools work through using them and revising based on that acquired knowledge.  I'm not sure how much sense I am making here....

That being stuck and stepping away from both in my inquiry and Digital Is pieces isn't necessarily a bad thing...that my time spent away working in "unrelated" spaces has informed the direction I need to take in these pieces, and it's likely that my writing time was more productive than if I had spent time forcing myself to develop my ideas in these pieces more fully.  As we revised this writing today I drew upon reading, conversations, and experiences that I've have had in the other areas.  

Teaching writing good

Loved the theme that went thought the day about responding to and evaluating writing. It was a planned thread, but like the first couple of days, today went even better than was planned.

I've been wrestling with this idea of assessment of writing the last couple of years in my classroom. I feel like I am at a good place with feeling the need to not correct every mistake that I see and giving students authentic feedback on how I am receiving the meaning of their words. This has had a huge effect on the environment of the class, students' engagement with writing and identity as writers, and my role in helping my students developing their writing.  It's plain as day, and I have no question that Peter Elbow's approach to responding to writing is far more effective than the red pen.

But it's weird.  Even though that students on some level know know that the environment of my class is good for them as writers, I still see that past years of 6-traits style rubric based writing instructions creates problems for my students with buying in.  Sometimes they'll say (especially at the beginning of the year....could you just tell me what I need to change and I will). Sometimes they'll judge me for letting someone post a blog post with errors.  Sometimes they'll tell me that we need to have spelling words.  And there are plenty of times where they cast jugement on my integrity as an English teacher because I struggle in front of them with my own writing as up work through my crappy first draft in front of them.

It's an evolving process...engaging my students not just as English students, but as writers, and creating a writing community as a class.  It's been a work in process, and even though I am feeling way good about what has been happening in my class and my ability to articulate the pedagogy that's driving my decisions as a teacher, the reality of my students' schooling and perceptions as writers is one works against them buying in. It creates doubt, and also the need for me to bring students into the process of not just writing but thinking about what they need as writers.  I've been playing with this component of my class a little more this past year. I'm pretty sure that a modified version of Kendra's demo will work it's way in :)

Crafting a narrative of teaching

I totally dug this morning's literacy dig.  The space to think about the portrayal of teachers, learning, and teaching through popular culture was a way important convo to have...it got us thinking more about how we are perceived by society, and it even got me thinking a little about how messages from different strands of media work collectively to create an image of teaching that fits into a political narrative that bashes teaching.

Specifically, I noticed that the bad teacher narrative that pervades the political conversation on a local and national level is based on the belief that teachers could be good if they just try harder, care more, and dedicate more of their life to teaching. That's crap....on a couple of levels.  For one, I can't say that I know of many teachers who are holding back, not completely committing themselves to the profession.  Burn-out seems to be the norm. I've grown to accept it.

And Second, it doesn't create an image of what good teaching actually looks like.  As I've come to see it, good teaching isn't about happy endings as it is as finding new beginnings through ongoing inquiry and questioning. And it's not an individual quest, it's collaborative.

These two points aren't huge revelations.  I'm sure that most teachers are aware of the truth in them on some level, and even though it has only been a couple of days, I feel like what has come out of SI both is evidence to the truth of these points and a statement to the kind of spaces that teachers need to thrive. Strict guidelines and competition stifles teachers growth as learners. Open space to collaborate and think cultivates it.

So, I'm left wondering how the image of teaching engaging as learners, collaborators, and writers gets worked into the mainstream. Crafting and sharing our personal stories, our counter-narrative is a big part of it, but it's just a part.  I'm curious about the other pieces....

Thinking about the craft of digital writing....

Three years ago with the Writing Project was when I first encountered the idea that when we compose just about anything, we utilize many of same processes as we do when we write.  This about blew my mind and,  given my other concurrent interest of technology, left me refiguring how learning would happen in my classroom.  .  

In the card featured below is my question from the crowd sourcing activity, in its most current form.  I don't expect anyone to be able to read it, so for the sake of clarity, I'll translate.  It reads, "I am wondering about teaching writer's craft through digital modes of composition."

I think that the first "yes, and.." response to my question is right on, that teaching the craft of writing is best taught in a process approach. That's where I am, too.  Digital composition, like writing, best grows in the context of a workshop that allows the recursive stuff to happen.  But what I want to figure out more about is how best I can go about teaching my students to compose digitally, deliberately. I want my class to give them the tools to decide on a mode of composition that best meets their communication purposes, and I want them to not just utilize, but have command of the features specific to that mode that serve to represent meaning.  That's what I'm thinking when I say deliberate. 

On a related note....

I'm excited to be involved this summer of making with the NWP's connected learning mooc.  I was a bit late to jump in, but I decided to just do it last night by using some of my daughter's toys and an iPad  app called ComicMaker.  I have never used it before, and while I have read a few comics, but I have  never really thought much about making them.  When I created this one, I was faced with quite a few questions that I didn't know how to answer. Like, where are the speech bubbles supposed to go? How much space should the image take up on the frame? Why are frames different sizes? And what about the filters--what effect to each create for the readers?

While my comic wasn't difficult to create (the app was totally user friendly), it did take me quite a bit longer than I'm sure it looks like it took.  And, creating it I became aware of just how much I didn't know about comic making.  

So what do I as a learner need to create this type of composition more effectively.  I think that the time and space to play was important, but I also think that having mentors to refer back to also would be a big help.  

It's inevitable, given the breadth of possibilities for compositions, that my students will be working in mediums where my knowledge doesn't extend much farther than it did with this Comic Maker app, but even so, I think that it is completely worth doing.  As can be seen in my case, the decisions that I considered are those that we want all student writers to be mindful of, and I'm pretty sure that juxtaposing these sorts of composition opportunities with traditional writing opportunities serves to grow students as writers. But, I'm still feeling a little stuck as to what my role should be in structuring and facilitating such experiences for my students.