Learning is Change

09.05.06

ELT:

  1. Write-Ons:
    • Why do you think that people act differently online then they do in real life?
    • How can we create a safe environment for everyone on our blogs?
    • What are the inherent risks of posting to a blog once a week?
  2. Explore the Discovery Blogging Rules websites looking for the following:
    • Creating a blogging environment without fear (of insult, of reprisal, of dishonesty).
    • Creating a scholastic blogging environment.
    • Creating a blogging environment based upon protection (of personal information, of identity, of unique thoughts).
    • Creating a creative, non-restrictive, tolerant, and sensitive blogging environment.
  3. Write down aprox. 5 Blogging rules in your category that you think should be a part of the Discovery Blogging Rules.

Cores 1-4:

  1. Ask for “Good Parts” from 5 students.
  2. Show the first fruits of The Weekly Authentic.
  3. Work on your own Weekly Authentic (adding pictures too) or work on book/web review.

The Ning Interview

 

Early last week I was asked by Yoz Grahame (a lead developer of Ning.com) to answer a few questions about how I was using web 2.0 tools (and specifically Ning) in my classroom to be used in a post for the Ning Blog. I was quite surprised and a little flattered that people are actually noticing what is going on in my own little digital bubble.

When he sent me the questions, however, I was impressed with the depth that they were calling for. So, I took on them as a challenge and answered them as completely and with as much cogitation as possible. The two questions that struck me the most (and produced a clear sense of focus for the year’s worth of teaching with technology) were about new tools that I want to use this year and new tools that I wish would be created this year. Because I found these two questions to be most illuminating for my own practice, I would like to challenge the greater Edusphere to answer them and share out all of the tools that they want to use and wish were available.

  • Are there new tools that you’re looking forward to using with students?

I’m looking forward to setting up wikis with my kids. I am also looking at geocaching as a way of exploring more authentic nature writing. More specifically I am excited about using the following websites to encourage content creation and a love of reading and writing:
1. Writely – For collaboration on writing dramas or stories.
2. Glypho – For collaboration on storytelling.
3. Quickmuse – To make poetry writing more transparent.
4. Trackslife – To track writing progress.
5. Standpoint – To create belief statements about reading, writing, and life.
6. Vaestro – To create an audio forum to talk about blog posts.
There are some others, but these are the ones I am looking forward to most.

  • How about tools that don’t exist yet, but should? Do you have any particular designs or wishes there?

1. I really would like rss to be more versatile. I would like to see any webpage that I want within an RSS reader and only see what has been changed since the last time I looked.
2. I would like my students to be able to create content in a fully functional word processor/video-editor/image-editor/webpage-editor and be able to post to any service that they wanted without having to log-in to their individual pages.
3. I would like blogs and wikis to become more like one another. (Blogs should be more editable, wikis should allow for more community.)
4. I want a way of controlling what all of my students see on their computer screens without having to buy remote desktop software. (In other words, I would like to have a live (and hopefully free) screencasting tool.)
5. I want podcasting software that uses voice recognition to create transcripts of each podcast to be read while you read.
6. I want a tool to discuss literature side-by-side with a digital copy of the book.
7. I want to be able to tag, put a sticky note on, or comment on/rate anything (pictures, videos, websites, blog posts) and have anyone with a browser be able to see these things without having to download anything or sign up with any service.

Yoz e-mailed me back about some of the items on my wishlist. He gave me a few resources (VNC, Coner.ning, and Castingwords), but none were really what I was looking for. If anyone who reads this knows about anything that would fill one of my wishes, please leave me a comment. More than that, however, I would love to see what you wish for in the coming year of creating classroom 2.0.

What a man is…

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A former male 8th grade student of mine has been e-mailing me consistently ever since he figured out that I really love to read my students writing. He has been sending me a few stories a month for about six months now. I read these really crazy pieces and say that I want more, always more, and he obliges. However, last week he e-mailed me a little writing assignment for me to complete. It was to write down my definition of man. You see, he had to interview an adult male about the “nature of men” and then write a response to whatever he got. I’m assuming he chose me because he knows that I can’t resist talking about gender roles and equity (a theme that we spent quite a bit of time on in our study of 19th century literature). So, I thought that I would share what I came up with and see if anyone else would like to take on this very interesting challenge from his English teacher at his (private) high school.

A man is fully understands his biases, abilities and shortcomings. A Man thinks. A man never uses his strength to make others feel weak. A man knows that there are differences between himself and a women, but sees them only as the completion of everything he can’t do. A man can see the truth in everything. A man is confident enough in his masculinity to not have to prove it every chance he gets. A man is tolerant. A man works hard and knows how to play with every thing he “has to do.” A man gets what makes him unique. A man is always trying to make himself better. A man is the manifestation of hope. A man is honest about personal needs and emotions. A man, from time to time, wears a devilish grin. A man is aware, both socially and personally. A man cares about what is important.

This is what he wrote in response for his English class:

As always Mr. Wilkoff gives an answer that makes me feel stupid in comparison, I really liked his. I think I agree with just about everything on his answer. I did note that he did not say a man has to have a penis or testicles, which maybe was just implied. I do think that most things stated could be done by a woman, but maybe that shows that men and women aren’t so different. Men and women obviously aren’t the same but we have our similarities. Really the question is really hard since it is so vague and everyone really has different and correct opinions. By definition all it takes to be a man is to have the biology of a man, but just looking back at our day shows us that men act different then women and it’s probably not a coincidence. Maybe it is just nurture over nature and we act like men because we were taught to, but it would take a hell of a experiment to prove that right. And lawsuits would come through your ears for trying to do a social experiment on a kid and give him make-up and purses.

I really like the fact that this teacher has now turned writing into a conversation. It strikes me as incredibly authentic and fun. I hope to do something like this when I come to my Study of Race and Gender.

09.01.06

Cores 1-3:

  1. Introduce the blog safety resources that we will be using to create our own Discovery Blogging Rules.
  2. Go over a few of the minor points of Posting to your blog with pictures.
  3. Explore the Weekly Authentic ideas and begin writing your first one.
    • If you haven’t set up your LearnerBlog yet, I will help you one by one to do that. Please come to see me at my computer.

Core 4:

  1. Model The Good Parts.
  2. Introduce the blog safety resources that we will be using to create our own Discovery Blogging Rules.
  3. Go over a few of the minor points of Posting to your blog with pictures.
  4. Explore the Weekly Authentic ideas and begin writing your first one.
    • If you haven’t set up your LearnerBlog yet, I will help you one by one to do that. Please come to see me at my computer.

08.31.06

Cores 1-4:

  1. Introduce the ELT reading strategies assessments (not shown here because we use them from year to year) and talk about the importance of extending advanced students and engaging struggling students in the “action” of reading. (Show CSAP Reading Growth 05-06).
  2. Introduce and model “The Good Parts” as a way of continuing to create a community of readers and writers in the classroom.
  3. Homework: Find a “Good Part” to share for next week.

08.30.06

Core 1-2:

  1. Share-On: Share your Authentic prompts with 2-3 others and select the best one or two to be included in the online resource for student generated authentic prompts.
  2. Discuss the great prompts as a class.
  3. With a partner and a laptop, sign-up for your learner blogs using my demonstration and this how-to.
  4. Explore your blogs and watch 2 videos on using WordPress blogs.
  5. Homework: Change your LearnerBlog password.

Core 3-4:

  1. With a partner and a laptop, sign-up for your learner blogs using my demonstration and this how-to.
  2. Explore your blogs and watch 2 videos on using WordPress blogs.
  3. Homework: Change your LearnerBlog password.

08.29.06

Cores 1-4:

I was at a G/T Langauge Arts meeting for most of the day, so here are my sub plans.

Core 3:

  1. Discuss any great reading that happened in the library today.
  2. Share your Authentic prompts with 2-3 others and select the best one or two to be included in the online resource for student generated authentic prompts.

Core 4:

  1. Discuss any great reading that happened in the library today.
  2. Show my first Weekly Authentic taken from one of Core 4’s thought heavy initial responses to “the worst prompt of all time.”
  3. Share your Authentic prompts with 2-3 others and select the best one or two to be included in the online resource for student generated authentic prompts.

Writing as Inquiry (A G/T Pro. Dev. Opportunity)

 
  • My questions:
    • How can we use our language so that our students become more metacognitive and reflective?
  • Others’ questions:
    • Is peer editing actually useful for students or only for teachers?
    • How would our teaching practice change if we were to consider all of our students as gifted?
      • Iquiry works for all students, no matter the level of giftedness.
  • Naming things makes writing more powerful (specificity is potent).
    • Food
      • Japon Spicy Tuna handrolls at the happy hour price.
      • My wife’s savved second breakfast of Lucky Charms.
      • Ordering Dairy Queen Blizzards with chocolate ice cream.
    • People/Pets
      • My wife as she picks at her stretch marks.
      • Charlie when he sees his red leash.
    • Places
      • The fear of never breathing again after the SCUBA gear fell out of my mouth.
    • Objects
  • My Quick-Write on the Naming:
    • Kara goes into the kitchin, stepping on the slightly-off new tile floor. She sets herself up for her first breakfast. Try number one at filling her stomach. Out come the rice chex and the two percent milk. Out comes a big spoon to get it all down quickly. She scarfs in front of a tivo’d family feud, sitting on the couch that she sinks into and hates because of it. She waits. She hopes. She knows. It is is all in vain as she heads for the toilet that she knows too well…
    • Intentionally use one craft that we discussed and that is present in the “professional writing” and use it in your writing piece.
  • Make your writer’s notebook special. Give students cool tools to do the mundane things.
  • All writing is personal. We need to make this fact more apparent.
  • Teaching sentence fluency through the use of commentary (Rick Reily, Leonard Pitts)?
  • We should be looking at professional writing and student writing side by side. Quick-Writes and imitations of short pieces can be great for this.
  • We can look at a genre, not by definition but by inquiry.
    • What is the author doing in this piece?
      • Are these elements of this particular genre?
    • Example:
      • Memoir Crafts (Murphy the Dog):
        • Short/Long sentences fluency
        • frames setting first
        • aides-voice
        • personal/universal
  • Writing workshop:
    • Getting ready to write
    • Writing
    • Making a little bit better
    • Celebration/Publication (making writing public).
  • Either you will share your writing in my classroom, or I will share you writing anonymously. I will never embarrass you or call you out on your writing, but we will share our writing in this class, otherwise we will never progress as writers.
  • Research:
    • Grammar in context.
    • Guided writing is more effective than free writing.
    • Modeling good writing of your own, published writing, and student writing is important.
    • Sentence Combining works.
    • Use scales for success in writing.
      • What is the target for your writing?
    • Inquiry in writing is powerful.
      • Asking questions as an author or a reader of authors is a virtue.
  • All writing choices are based upon data.
  • Resources:
    • Shakespeare Set Free (Writing prompts for each chapter of Shakespeare’s plays).
  • When kids are in a writing group there needs to be a good process for talking about writing.
    • Mark Overmeyer will be e-mailing us his classroom process.
  • The play-do protocol for revision.
    • Sculpt
    • Take Away
    • Add to
    • Write about other’s sculptures.
      • How is this like the process of revision?

Metawriting

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Today, in class, I asked my students to think of the best and worst prompts that they could be asked to write about (most authentic and least authentic). I was impressed by the sophistication of their responses, but I was particularly intrigued by one response in the category of least authentic prompt. It came from an identified gifted 7th grader (although, I’m not sure that it matters). He said the worst prompt would be to write an essay about the essay you are writing. I think that he put it better, though. It took me a couple of minutes to regather my wits after battling such wonderfully recursive logic. I kept thinking about how we use metacognition in writing (thinking about thinking). I was also taken with the idea of reflecting about writing as you are doing it. So, in honor of this fantastic premise, I would like to begin writing an essay about writing the essay I am writing.

I am writing about what I am writing about. The right wrists placed near the right keys. The longer I think and write, the longer I rightly think. I have no concept of content, a supposed constant companion in an essay. This essay, though, this one right now lacks all content, so what is left? Style, my friend, style.

The essay, as a way of making meaning about a topic, is so perfect. In this way, I am writing about nothing. I can’t write about anything but what I am writing about. I have no point, but to be pricked by potent words. This is the writing that is continually reborn, every syllable is eating itself, turning itself inside out, and becoming the same again and again.

Just as a sine wave crosses the x-axis infinitely, writing about the words themselves is the freedom to come home as many times as I want. I can go deeper into the crevices of every word, seeing them as open and hopeful, more so than any others because these are words about words. This essay is as closed and open ended as a circle. It can never be about what it isn’t about.

I find purity in writing this essay. in its unending and unbeginning. Truly, all of these words cannot exist. They can only be within my head. But they are at my fingertips too, and because they are there, I love them. Once I start writing, I have changed what I am writing about. How can I then write about it? I love my paradoxical essay, my potent words without a point.

So, these words must blur together and leave no residue in your mind. I have said nothing about something many times over. That nothing, though, is so savory, so stylish. I could write about writing about nothing for a very long time.

I’m not sure that my student implied all of this when he wrote it, but I hope that he did (we’ll see when I show it to the class tomorrow). I like this type of recursion and metacognition. With a little bit broader scope, this kind of writing about writing could be actually useful in the classroom. Let me know what you think about this “instantaneous reflection.” Is it useful? Is it important to reflect upon every action you do as you are doing it? Do we do this naturally or do we need inquisitive 7th graders to point it out to us?

Language Theory Class #2 08.28.06

 
  • Linguistics is a sub-set of Cognitive Science.
  • Linguistics is only a study of natural langauges (not like esperanto)
  • If Language is a mirror to the mind, unnatural language (created langauges) are like fun house mirrors.
  • The different schools of thought in lingustics define linguistics in very different ways (parsing the parts of a sentence vs. trying to figure out how the mind works with words) (surface language vs. deeper meaning).
  • What is the nature of language? (Innate? Arbitrary? Messy? Rule Governed? All languages use some aspect of word order (place holders, SVO (Subject/Verb/Object) or SOV) and/or inflection to differentiate meaning, Spontaneous? Recreated with every generation (generative)? Novel? *These are not really questions, but things to think about).
  • What is it that makes language possible? Context.
  • How does communication work? Physical, Cognative, Non-Verbal, Conventions/Social aspects of language.
  • Maxims of:
    • Quality
    • Quantity
    • Manner
    • And one more that I can’t remember.
  • Prescriptive rules vs. Descriptive rules. Generative Grammar is the best of both worlds. It is both at the same time.
  • Language is a preeminent trait that develops in a child spontaneously and formal instruction is not neccesary.
  • Children instinctually desire language (the art of langauge) (according to Darwin).
  • What is the difference between teaching language, vocabulary, and grammar.
  • Language is prior to undersanding symbols. Language is not a substitution for symbolic representation.
  • Black English Vernacular (BEV) – it has its own grammar.
    • Double Negatives are okay.
    • Deletion of verb “to be” and other unnecessary pieces of english.
    • Contracting auxiliaries.
  • The distinction between a language and a dialect is political rather than linguistic.