Why Blog?

I'm working on getting a blogging project approved at my school, so I've been playing around with an introductory post I would publish on my own blog to get them started. This week, I thought I'd share it with you!

“Blogging to Learn”

It seems that as the world expands, the amount of characters we are permitted to use to interact with one another grows smaller and smaller. What used to take a sentence now takes a hashtag to say. (Interestingly enough, hashtag enthusiasts claim that "hashtags are the most literal manifestation of a broader tendency of our highly connected, socially mediated environment toward greater interactivity." That's funny, because I'm not sure anyone using the hashtag"#iamtherealcookiemonster" is going to use it to connect with anyone.)

However, there exists on the internet a sort of backlash against the "principle of economy," the tendency of a language's speakers to shorten their words to the form that takes the "least effort." It seems that everyone, from Jenna Marbles to the Food Network to my high school friend Stevie, has their own blog. Why? I truly believe that we feel our expressivity is constrained by the 140-character rule. We have more intelligent things to say, words to use, and ideas to share with the world.

Why else are blogs becoming so popular? If you ask me, it's because there is something aesthetic in the human soul that craves to be released through language. Modern education continues to focus on more standardized methods of instruction and assessment, and the love of writing starts to be squashed by the bubble sheets and brief constructed responses, but there is something inside us that wants to fight back against the limitation of our expressive freedom. In this sense, the blog can be seen as a subversive act of creative release.

You have a unique voice and a perspective on the world that no one else will ever be able to match. Use your blog to explore that voice, to examine the world, and to make it better. As Ghandi apparently didn't say, you have to "be the change you wish to see in the world," but first you have to write about it.

What a blog should be...

• A place to critically examine and evaluate society, the media, popular culture, literature, films, theater, music, etc.
• A space to explore the boundaries of your fiction and nonfiction writing using advanced literary techniques
• An opportunity for thoughtful reflection, making meaning, and finding connections

What a blog should not be...

• A place to air your emotional dirty laundry, complain, or rant
• An opportunity to write inconsequential, meaningless drivel
• An advertisement for your awesomeness, insecurity, or anything else that only serves YOU and no one else

Your blog is a reflection of you and should therefore be well-thought-out, planned, revised, and always show the world the best version of yourself. Now... go dream big dreams!

Inquiry Based Learning - Timeline, Ahoy!

Digital-age students are pretty great at inquiry-based learning, and I really had no idea. 

Let me explain.

In designing a new unit around poems that are thematically tied to war, my fabulous grade-level teachers and I decided to frame our studies around a guiding question: 

How has public sentiment toward war changed throughout time? 

Rather than simply beating poems to death for the sake of passing the test, we thought we would give students a true purpose in analyzing the DIDLS (diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax) of each poem and how they contribute to tone. 

I'm actually very excited about this unit, despite knowing practically nothing about war-- which, as it turns out, is about the same for my students.

We knew that students would have to have a general background knowledge of the wars mentioned in, or that inspired, the poems we would read, so my fellow teacher had the brilliant idea to have students create a timeline. We looked at a few different websites, and each decided which one to pilot in our classrooms. I decided to use Tiki-Toki.com, which takes some practice to work, but is very functional (it even allows students to add events in BC and AD).

Rather than give students the background information, I helped to guide them through an internet search, answering the 5 W's (who, what where, when and why) for each war and finding an appropriate image from the web to represent each. I helped them to brainstorm ways to find the information, but aside from that, they figured out how to get the information they needed on their own. Students are so used to doing a Google search to satisfy their curiosity and answer their own questions that it was very natural for them to gather information on 8 different wars in a very short span of time. They didn't realize it, but they were really performing what Dewey would call "productive inquiry," or "deliberately seeking what we need in order to do what we want to do."

Then, they had to plot their information on a timeline they created on Tiki-Toki. I modeled the use of the website for them in about 10 minutes, making sure to inject a little humor to keep them interested.

There was a definite learning curve in using this website, but once I told students to ask a friend before they asked me a question about the website, the students began problem-solving on their own!

The final products looked something like this:

Beautiful, fluid, and able to be viewed in multiple ways-- even in 3D! As we move through the poetry unit, we will plot each poem on the timeline, making notes about the tone and theme, tracking how attitudes toward war have changed over time. This project will dovetail right into our research paper, and the timeline will serve as a broad knowledge base from which they conduct further inquiries.

Cool, right?

One Site, Infinite (Vocabulary Learning) Possibilities

This year, I discovered a brilliant new vocabulary-enriching website that has become my go-to dictionary. Yet it's so much more than a dictionary. Imagine that Merriam Webster, Quizlet, a Google web search, and your favorite, funny English teacher were all combined into one site-- that site would be Vocabulary.com.

We know that using the internet can enhance and multiply the effects of vocabulary instruction in the classroom, so I was excited to find that this site blends many of those elements together. You can easily use this to supplement instruction, or even send students to this site to go on a vocabulary quest and learn more about the words (to fill in templates, teach the words to the class, and many more possibilities...).

Here is a shakedown of a few of the fabulous features of the site:

Since I just used this word in class discussion today, I thought it would be fun to investigate. This is the top half of the page for the word seedy. So many exciting things are happening here.

Let's start from the top.

Okay, so half the fun of my job is in hearing students pronounce words in ways that sound ridiculous, but we do want them to sound smart, don't we? This site pronounces the word for students in a very intelligent-sounding voice.

Then, there's the "definition." (Note the quotes and imagine Dr. Evil, if you please.)

There's nothing worse than a boring dictionary definition. This site seems like it was made by a human being with wit and charm, as the "definition" is more like an "explanation"-- and a knee-slapper at that.

Then comes the dreaded etymology.

Dictionaries also having a way of making the history of a language sound thoroughly uninteresting, when really, students are intrigued by word origins when I treat them like little nuggets of little-known information. The etymology here is much friendlier and more engaging.

The next part is going to blow your mind.

Not only is the word family (and all its forms) shown, but it also visualizes for students how often the word and its variants are used on the internet. Sometimes we introduce words that have fallen out of style, and this makes it easier for students to see just how weird the looks they'll get from strangers will be when they use it in a sentence.

Underneath that, you can browse real-time usage examples from around the internet-- in the news, in pop culture-- I've even seen literature excerpts on here. On one page, students are given multiple exposures of the word in varying contexts. Talk about learning a word efficiently.

At the bottom, almost as an afterthought, are the more "traditional" definition, examples, synonyms, and antonyms.

The site easily displays multiple meanings of a word so students can see the bigger picture and know that when Grandma is talking about her seedy brother-in-law, she might mean a number of things...

Last but certainly not least, teachers can make vocabulary lists that students can access, save, and learn using the quiz game and spelling bee.

Who wouldn't want to be in a spelling bee by herself? Instant glory, my friend.

Hopefully, you've learned some of the wonderful ways that Vocabulary.com can create a meaningful, even titillating, vocabulary experience. Now pardon me while I look up "titillating"...

Adventures in Scriptwriting

Have you ever had an idea for a lesson or a that made you question your sanity? In teaching honors English for the first time this year, I've found myself doing that a lot. I blame it on the fact that I'm not far enough removed from higher education, and therefore I have (almost) impossibly high expectations about what my amazing little minds can accomplish.

They never fail to amaze me, though, even when I have my doubts.

Before I explain the concept behind this multi-step synthesis project based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat," I have to say that I put hours of mental sweat into planning it and consulted multiple colleagues to work out as many of the "kinks" as possible, so that it was ready to roll on the day I introduced it...

...and was formally observed teaching it. Like I said, probably a little insane.

Anyway, here's the concept!

Step 1 - Read and Analyze "The Black Cat"

We took about two days to read, discuss, and analyze the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, focusing on the skills of the horror unit (diction and imagery contributing to mood, characterization and narrator reliability, etc.). We also discussed whether or not the narrator was responsible for his actions, including all the possible factors that might influence that decision.

Step 2 - Investigate the Insanity Defense of the 19th Century

In order to fold in a high-level, complex nonfiction text, I used excerpts from an article by John Cleman that described the legal aspects of the insanity defense as it was used in Edgar Allan Poe's time. Although many characteristics are similar to today's insanity defense, people of Poe's time were also determined to be insane on the basis of things like phrenology (which was, in effect, studying the bumps of the head to determine personality traits, including sanity). The students read the article excerpt and created this how-to guide to paraphrase their understanding (I typed in a few examples):

"How to Be Declared Insane in 19th Century England"

Step 3 - Put the Narrator on Trial-- in Script Form!

The natural connection between the short story and the historical background (at least, in my mind) was to have students use the insanity defense of Poe's time to argue the culpability of the narrator in "The Black Cat." However, I wanted this to be a moment of individual ownership and serious thinking for my students, so simply having another mock trial in class wasn't enough for me.

Instead, I decided I wanted them to write a script describing the trial.

You're probably thinking I'm crazy, that there are too many steps involved, that students won't know how to write a script... Well, luckily for me, I spent hours laboring over this project baby, chatting with my wonderful fellow teachers about what challenges they might face in attempting such a task, and I came prepared for these hurdles. I scaffolded the steps thus:

1. Introduce and explain the project requirements
2. Model how to turn prose into script with silly examples
3. Analyze my sample script starter - how I used script conventions and created mood and character
4. For some classes, we even got students up to form a miniature court room to help them visualize the scene

My sample script used to analyze mood and character

The students felt challenged, and empowered, and a little scared... in fact, one left the room (during my formal observation, no less) saying in awe, "Mrs. Vinton makes us think REALLY hard...!" I just laughed and told her I would take that criticism any day.

What does any of this have to do with new media literacies? The point of this philosophy is to use as many different modes as possible to engage and challenge our students, and I felt like using fiction, historical nonfiction, and creative writing all in one project hit so many different modes that I could hardly ignore sharing it with you.

That, and I'm just THAT pumped up about this project.