Final Project

For my final project, I wanted to create a group novel project that would be adaptable to many of the novels I teach in my 11th grade American Lit course. Additionally, this class is intended to focus on the Historical/Biographical lens (it's taught chronologically) and to have a large research component. Even though this novel unit would not be the only place these skills are taught, I wanted to incorporate elements of them here.

http://novelprojectwiki.pbworks.com/

While I have a wiki for the course on which I include projects and assignments (with possibilities for student interaction), for this project I want students to create their own wikis in groups so that they have the opportunity to plan the organization on their own.

As the project stands at the moment, students need to (in groups) conduct Historical Research on the author and time period of the selected novel, individually create a blog for one character where they include a character profile (similar to a facebook profile), a comic demonstrating a defining moment for their character, and blog posts responding to the events of each chapter as that character. Students will then individually create bubbl.us maps for their characters connecting them to themes in the novel and will use the information contained on those maps to collaboratively write a literary analysis essay. All of their sources must be included on the Works Cited page and in-text citations must be used appropriately.

Portfolios

I have used portfolios in composition classes in the past, but never in the digital realm--until this semester. Typically when creating a portfolio, I ask my students to include a certain number of essays they've previously written (in a final, revised version), along with a "Dear Reader" letter which details the struggles, challenges, and triumphs involved in all of these pieces of writing.

This semester, I considered the portfolio project I generally use in my CIS Composition class and allowed students to create a digital portfolio via wiki if they wished. More than half the class took me up on it (which surprised me as it was a trial project).

The project:

Create a portfolio about yourself as a literary person—an intellectual or artistic bon vivant. Imagine your portfolio will be appreciated by those attending a graduation open house or as an artifact of your life in 2009. Directions:

1. Title your portfolio on the front page of the wiki.

2. Include the following links:

a. a fully revised and edited personal narrative

b. a fully revised and edited personal essay

c. a fully revised and edited literary analysis

d. a fully revised and edited review

3. Additionally, include any of the following:

a. A tribute to your favorite childhood author/book/movie.

b. A tribute to your current favorite author/book/movie.

c. A tribute to those who have helped you become a literate person, or a description of

obstacles you have overcome on your path to literary enlightenment.

d. An explanation of the criteria you use to evaluate the worth of a literary text.

e. Photos, illustrations, passages from literary works, famous quotes, jokes, song lyrics, poems,

etc. that further illustrate your path to literary enlightenment.

Additionally (after creating all of these entries), I have students create a page where they reflect on their writing development within the course. I have found that students enjoy this project because of the items in #3 above; they love talking about childhood books or movies or other influences. Once they've looked back at their writing from the beginning of the course (as well as some from years previous), they can really articulate areas of improvement and struggle that they have found. Even though they haven't necessarily thought about this consciously before, they are generally reflective and notice these trends as the course progresses.

See these samples from my class this semester.

For my own learning, I appreciate blog entries as a concrete place to look back. I'm not necessarily always organized enough to keep track of actual paper products, so a digital record of thoughts is important. For this class, it's been important for me to look back at the various technologies we've learned as my own teaching moves along. Applications that didn't previously occur to me suddenly do based on what we're doing in class. Something else I've started this semester is a blog for my daily lesson plans. I give the address to my students (for when they miss class) and their parents (to find out what their children should be doing), but it also will be super useful for me to look back on in future semesters. I've always kept a general paper calendar of the structure for the semester, but the more specific daily blogs will help me to remember more specific activities that worked well. Sometimes if there are new projects, I'm guilty of forgetting what they were.

Feedback on digital writing

With any sort of writing project I do in my classes, I prefer to have a peer-feedback stage before it comes to me--it's just not practical for me to read three drafts of 70 papers in a timely manner.

One of the problems with peer-feedback is that many students just want to focus on the editing level when I would prefer they begin by looking at more big-picture issues. One way to solve this problem is to have students in writing groups and then create a wiki. On the wiki, each person can post their completed paper for other group members to read. Rather than each student editing the first draft of the paper, they need to begin by leaving one comment at the bottom of the page. That will help them to focus their comments on large ideas, rather than trying to tell what sentence to edit commas in.

I will also use this method to comment on big-picture issues and on in-process papers. I've used this method in the past and the students have found it really helpful. I hesitate to actually edit on a student's wiki page because I want them to do more of the editing than to have me do it. Even when I reach the nearly-final project stage, I can comment on the types of errors they're making or the concerns I see and they can then go through and fix those on their own.

Since I tend to see my students every day or two, I find this method of feedback more useful than other more technologically advanced methods. There are times when I would create a vlog or podcast entry if I see errors that many students are making--or I will make edits on a wiki or blog assignment sheet.

Poetry Terms prezi

I have, in the past, used a Power Point presentation with my English 11 students to review poetry terms. While it's a clear presentation and simple to follow, it's not very engaging. Here's a presentation I've begun creating at prezi.com to attempt to make the information more engaging. It's not done yet, but my students gave a positive response when I used them as guinea pigs today...

Pomic comic

Here's an assignment I gave to my class today. Our volleyball team was in the state tournament, so I have a total of four students in class. Because we're studying poetry this week, I decided this would be the best way to engage the few students who are here in a meaningful activity while not making the other students feel too far behind. I'll then have the students post their poetry comics on my class wiki page.

Come see Harvey!

Reflections on Podcasting.

I can imagine that trying to create podcasts in a classroom would cause great amounts of stress among students and the potential for technology difficulties is great. My computer, for example, has an internal microphone, but the recording quality is fairly poor. Hence, my podcast sounds rather echo-y. I also had some technical difficulties in trying to upload the sound file, but that's to be expected the first time I try it. With students I would now be able to answer some of the questions because I've been through this once now.

Uses in the classroom:

I've discussed in other places some of the different uses to which I could put podcasting, including poetry projects and "This I Believe" essays, but I have since thought of a few more. First, students in my Composition class write an ethnography and are required to conduct at least two interviews. I ask students to turn in written copies of their field notes on observations, but have not found a good way to check on their interviews in the past. This would help with that problem. Additionally, if I were to make some of these interviews available to the full class, they would serve as effective examples. We practice interviewing skills in the class, but it's still something that makes the students very nervous the first time they have to do it.

I've tried to use hand-held recorders to capture literature circle discussions in the past, but the problem with that is I don't have enough digital recorders for every group and I'm unlikely to check them out to a group for use outside of school. Skype would provide a good solution for that. I like to allow lit circles the freedom to meet outside of class, but it does make evaluating their discussions more difficult. I've been searching for a couple of years for a solution to this problem. I'm delighted that Skype has possibly given it to me.

I am also looking forward to trying to give students audio feedback on their writing. Typically reading their work does not take long, but writing constructive criticism is very time-consuming. In an ideal world, I would have time to sit down and conference with each one of my students on their work. Realistically, however, this can't happen. There is simply not enough time in the day. Providing audio feedback that they can access another way (without me being there) would help to solve this problem.

There are a lot of students who would love the opportunity to use these tools for class projects. They always enjoy playing with GarageBand, but have never seriously considered using it for an English project. On the flip side of this, the use of technology beyond word-processing freaks out a surprising number of my students. Even in upper-level courses, there are many, many techno-phobes. This surprises me every time; typically in high schools the teacher is much less technology savvy than students, but there are many who are downright resistant to using new tools. Even something as simple as commenting on a wiki or blog seems to be too much. I haven't found a great way to solve this problem, but I do try to introduce technology in small, useful chunks. We'll use a wiki for a project one week, and then I'll add another component the next week. The students who chose to create their own wikis for the Personal Newsletter projects have become my best advocates for this--after figuring out the technology, they've determined how useful it can be for them, how much time it can save them, and how flexible it can be when they create their own projects. Hopefully, their positive attitudes will continue to positively influence the other students into conquering their fears.

Podcasting, part 2

In the vein of idea number 3, I've recorded some favorite poems. For students, I'll ask them to include background as well as a short explanation of why they chose the poem(s) they did. The podcast I've created is two Robert Frost poems that remind me of my grandmother. She was an English and Drama teacher (as am I) and was a huge inspiration for me coming into the teaching profession. "The Road Not Taken" was one of her favorites and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was in the bulletin for her funeral--"And miles to go before I sleep" seemed to remind much of the family of her character. The music in the background is a hymn tune that was one of her favorites.

Podcasting

I'll admit that, of all the new skills we've learned for this class, podcasting is the one I'll probably have the most trouble incorporating into my classes. That being said, I can see several places it would be useful, but it's also quite daunting.

Possible ideas:

1. In my CIS Composition class, students write a "This I Believe" essay as their first assignment. It's a good introduction to the class as it's fairly short, personal, but a different type of writing than students have typically done before. I've encouraged students to submit their essays to NPR, but having them recorded in their own voices for sharing with each other would be such an effective tool. I require all the students to read their essays aloud to their writing groups as an easy way to find errors and structural problems in their writing. I think that knowing their spoken essays would be shared with the whole class would help the essays to become even more well-constructed. An authentic audience (rather than the perceived black void that is merely turning something in to a teacher) is the best way to heighten a student's level of concern.
2. My Beginning Acting students spend quite a bit of time talking about inflection and how the way that lines are said is crucial to conveying meaning. In the past, I've had groups of students write radio plays that they perform behind a screen--trying to keep an audience's attention merely through their voices. Having the opportunity to record their plays and edit them with music in GarageBand would be a fabulous addition to this project, and would really help to drive these ideas home.
3. My CIS Literature students enjoy sharing their favorite poetry with their classmates (as I've mentioned previously, we read Billy Collins and Mary Oliver as a full class). Creating a compilation of poetry read by the students would be a fun enrichment activity for the students--these a usually over-achievers who would really enjoy the discipline of recording and adding music, etc.
   

Now that I've written out all of these ideas, I'm more excited about the different possibilities offered by these projects. The technology is still daunting, but I'm sure we can overcome those obstacles. Some students will be overwhelmed, but others will be captivated by the freedom and choices offered here. On a practical level, I'm always looking for ways to take home fewer paper-based projects to grade. Audio projects would certainly be easier to transport (and would prevent students from the ever-present excuse "I turned that in--you must have lost it.").

Andover Theatre 2008-2009

Online role-plays

I'm excited after our experience with this online role-play to try this in the future. I've often had online discussions with my students where they've had the opportunity to give their own reactions to a topic and then react to each other, but I can see where this would be more effective in a role-play format. Students are often reluctant to share an opinion if they realize the public sentiment is against them. In my CIS Literature class right now, we've been discussing the poetry of Billy Collins and Mary Oliver. Though most students seem to prefer Collins' work, there are a few who feel differently. When they're writing under their own names on the class wiki, however, they don't necessarily feel comfortable speaking in favor of Mary Oliver (this discussion is viewable at http://msjohnsonwiki.pbworks.com/Poems+we+like).

In class I've often used face-to-face debate to discuss issues like this; these debates are most often successful when I assign students roles randomly. Even when the students don't necessarily agree with the side they're assigned, they often get caught up in the spirit of the discussion. Though I enjoy these classtime activities--as do the students--I think a supplemental online component would be really effective. There are always students who are unable to join in the class discussion for various reasons; sometimes their peers are simply too vocal to allow others to participate. In my own life, I've found that there is no better way to strengthen my own arguments and feelings about issues than to research the opposition's position. This is a valuable skill for students to gain and for us to teach.

Taking up a role that is different than my own position in our role play really helped me to solidify my own opinions. My role of Miss Frizzle thought that Google is, indeed, making us dumb. There are certainly several facets to this issue and my personal opinion, but, in the end, my position is the opposite. Through my teaching, I've found that the difference between truly successful students and those who merely get by often shows in the ability to use resources when available. Students who believe that Google (or other popular search engines) can give them every answer will never understand the subtleties that govern many-faceted issues like this one. They're looking for the easy, "right" answer that they believe is what the teacher wants. Students who truly feel an intellectual curiosity to learn may begin with Google and find some information very quickly. They will also, however, realize that searching out opposing viewpoints is equally important. It is rare when the first answer found is the only possible one.

Wiki Wiki!

Using wikis in the Classroom:

I've played around with wikis before in my classroom, with varying levels of success. The most successful uses have revolved around my updating class assignments (much in the way we're using the ning for this course) or in having students do background research for various novels.

For this class, I've completely redesigned my wiki. The home page begins with the titles of the courses I currently teach and then branches off from there. For my CIS literature class, there are then subheadings with the title of each book and further assignments/discussion questions/tasks on the following pages. The other two classes will follow much the same format, though I don't have those completed yet.

Because I'm using one wiki page for all of my classes, the Sidebar only has links to the front page of each course; I don't want students getting confused about which pages they should or should not be accessing.

I like to put students in groups to find background information on a particular novel, time period, or author, and then have each group create a wiki which I link to from my page so they can all be viewed (though not modified) by the rest of the class. For example, my CIS Lit class reads the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I will break the class up into groups and have them research the following topics prior to our discussion of the book:

1. Ancient history of Persia/Iran-before 1921.
2. Recent history of Persia/Iran-beginning in 1921.
3. History and importance of the city of Persepolis.
4. The Shahs of Iran-definition and historical importance.
5. US/CIA involvement in the leadership of Iran.
6. Islamic Revolution.
   
7. Iran/Iraq War.
8. Today’s Iran.

Each group will then do a 5-10 minute presentation on the information they've learned for the class. Because this information is on a wiki they can all access, it reduces the need for the other students to take notes and they can actually listen to each presentation. Additionally, creating a wiki for their presentation allows students to link to various sites so they don't have to paraphrase (or plagiarize) all the information.

I have also witnessed students creating a wiki on their own initiative (once I've introduced them to it). In my CIS Composition course, students are in writing groups for several weeks at a time. These writing groups provide their main (and sometimes only) feedback for several drafts of several types of essays. One writing group, after learning how simple a wiki was to create and manage, created their own wiki as a environmentally-friendly method of sharing papers. They were able to post papers for one another, comment, make changes (which were tracked), and do all of this on a schedule that worked for each of them.

All of this being said, I can imagine several challenges in working with wikis in the classroom (aside from the standard lack of access to technology argument). When modifying a wiki page, only one user at a time can make modifications. If groups are working on a project during class time, it's likely that they'll need to modify the same page simultaneously. While working around this is not difficult, it can cause the type of frustrations that make insurmountable issues for less technologically-inclined students. Additionally, students can spend so much time playing with format and aesthetics of their page that they lose track of what they're really supposed to be working on. I have several students who get distracted by shiny things, and wikis provide one more opportunity for that.

www.msjohnsonwiki.pbwiki.com

Seward, Nebraska

My slideshow is a sequential story, of sorts, about my home town: Seward, Nebraska. I tried to hit some of the highlights and parts that were important to me. This is the type of project I would use at the beginning of a term with my students (see next post).

Slideshow and Voicethread

I see where this project could be quite useful in the classroom. Often, at the beginning of a new semester, I have students present "get to know you"-type speeches where they have to include information about themselves and what's important to them. As a speech, this causes quite a bit of anxiety for students at the beginning of a new term. If, instead, we were to create slideshows with students giving their own narration and linked them all online, it would alleviate much of that problem.

I felt a little like I was creating my own episode of Pop-up Video (which I have always found entertaining), when I was commenting on individual moments of the slideshow. This is a project which would really allow students' creativity and originality to come through. I am excited to try something like this.

Comments on "My first vlog"

My vlog is a random collection of facts about me: teaching career, hobbies, background, etc. Mainly I'm just proud of myself for finally getting this to work. For whatever reason, it took two actual tech guys and one self-proclaimed techie to figure out how to make the video and audio work together. But here it is!


I only have one idea of how I might include this technology in my classroom so far, but I'm looking for more. My CIS Composition class has a project halfway through the class to create a personal newsletter. In the past I've asked for it to be completed in a traditional newsletter format, though this year I also offered the option of a wiki "newsletter." I wasn't sure how many of the kids would take me up on that, but over half the class did. You're welcome to look at some of them by clicking here.

That assignment requires students include some of their writing for the term ("This I Believe" essay, a personal narrative, and a review), but also asks for a series of tributes. They can include tributes to favorite books, authors, movies, music, photos, quotations, etc.; anything that led them to becoming a literary person--an intellectual or artistic bon vivant. (They usually have to look that up.) I think adding a vlog component to the wiki newsletter (or other electronic format) might add a nice way for the students to be able to introduce themselves to their readers.

Bubbl.us for final project

Here's my bubbl.us map for my final project ideas.
I'd like to create a Literature project (specific work(s) TBD) and incorporate some of the technologies we've learned/will learn in this class. I'm not entirely sure exactly where I'll use each technology yet, but I'll find a way to bring them all in to one cohesive project with several steps.

I've also created a sample bubbl.us of the kind I would show my students. I've often used Inspiration in my classes, but we continually run out of time in class. bubbl.us as a site would alleviate this problem because students could access the site at home. This sample deals with the themes in Montana 1948 which I teach in the contemporary unit of American Literature. This kind of mind mapping is a great tool for regular-level students when composing their ideas for a literary analysis essay. It keeps their ideas more organized (and tidier than a hand-made version), plus if this is online, they can access it from anywhere!


I also use these mind-mapping tools to explain essay form to regular students. I love Inspiration because it has a feature to change a bubble map into a traditional outline form--this is a skill that many students have a hard time with. Inspiration makes it easy to show exactly how this transfer happens so the students can recreate it later in their own writing.

Final Project ideas, etc.

I feel like the school year is just beginning, so thinking about a final project idea already is somewhat daunting. That being said, I would like to focus on a project that will adapt well to my English 11 (American Lit) classes. I also teach the CIS Literature and Composition classes at my school and typically my time and creative technology use is confined to those classes for one practical reason: I can't assume that my English 11 students will have the access to technology or take the time to use it outside of class. I try not to use entire class periods for work on projects that could have just as easily have been done outside of class or without my guidance. I'd like to create a project involving digital writing that will involve class time in a meaningful way and still be accessible to my regular, homework-avoiding students.

One major focus of English 11 is a research paper. I hope to develop some sort of project that will involve my students using multiple databases, wikis, blogs, delicious, and incorporates a video or audio component. We spend a lot of time in class talking about how solely using Google as a search engine for research is not necessarily reliable (or reputable), but that deepening knowledge using some of our library's resources is more helpful. When beginning projects for my regular students involving research, I tend to steer them towards Opposing Viewpoints first since it offers a nice brainstorming-type list for students who are having a difficult time developing a topic. For those who have already come up with a topic and are looking to refine their knowledge further, I also send them to eLibrary or CQ Researcher. There are a few other topic-specific resources available in our library, and our media specialist really enjoys working with the students to help them further their own research.

For my personal research (and in teaching my CIS classes), I tend to veer toward JSTOR and Education Full-Text. With these databases, I've had more luck finding reputable articles in their full-text versions; as much as I'd like to say I take full advantage of resources available at the physical library, there isn't always the time (or inclination) to drive there. Because of teaching the CIS Literature class, I've become much more deliberate in my own search techniques. The CIS Lit class requires students to locate and reference critical articles for the literature we're reading in class. They have access to the U's databases for the first time in this class, so many of the students are simply overwhelmed by the amount of information available to them. For the first two novels or so, I pull literary criticism for them to read so they get a good idea of what kinds of things they're looking for. During the third novel, I model for them on a projector how I go about searching for criticism in a database: advanced searches, a variety of search terms, different combinations, etc. High school seniors (and humans) tend to get frustrated when they can't quickly find the information they're looking for, so seeing me having to perform a search several times in order to find exactly what I want is valuable for them. I wish that a teacher had shown me these resources in high school instead of having college professors my freshman year say "go find sources" with no guidance.

This class has been my first experience with using blog readers, so I'm still determining how best I'll make them useful to me. I see the value of a project like the one described in Chapter 2 of Beach, Anson, Breuch, and Swiss ("Using Delicious Tagging in a Literature Class"), and I'm excited to spend some more time developing how best I can integrate this type of project/research into a class. I've had students perform basic Webquests in the past for some background research for a particular topic or author, but I do like the idea of integrating some of these other resources as well. Particularly in a class where a research focus is so prevalent, needing to determine the validity of a source or another person's tagging of that source is a really good exercise. The sooner that students develop the habit of being critical of sources they find on the web, the better. Too many of them are still willing to accept at face-value what they see in print.

Thoughts on blogging...

I've never attempted to keep a blog in my daily life; I've never been good at keeping any sort of written record of daily thoughts or happenings, so I can't imagine that putting it online would make me any more successful.

I have attempted to use blogs in my teaching, however. I teach English and Theatre at Andover High School and have played around with blogging as a way to allow more students to become involved with a classroom discussion. At all levels I've taught, there are quiet students who are reluctant to participate in discussions in front of the whole class. I've attempted to have students blog their responses to discussion questions or post their own discussion questions in order to encourage their participation. In a few cases, this type of online discussion before class has encouraged the reluctant participants to talk in class. Knowing that they've already had a chance to get their voices and thoughts out can help students feel like they have a more viable entry in to discussion. Additionally, I've found that some of my more talkative students will help the quieter ones by inviting their participation in discussion once they've had a chance to see some of their thoughts online.

Another positive feature of having students respond to and interact with their classmates on a blog is that it necessarily requires them to hone their skills at argumentation and persuasion. In verbal discussions, students who feel more comfortable in front of the class can rely on their body language or tone to make their points. Similarly, if they're having trouble coming up with a specific word or phrase, one of their classmates is there to help. In an online discussion, students have none of these helps to fall back on; their skills alone must help them to make their points effectively. Students must find their own ways to effectively make and support their points. An online audience is quick to point out flaws in support or gaps in an argument.

One of my personal struggles with digital literacy is having the time to implement it effectively in the classroom. While I harbor no illusions that I'll continually know more or be more savvy than my students, I do hope that I can stay with them as we explore digital writing together. I also want to make sure that I'm using the most helpful tool for each task we're trying to accomplish. I don't want my knowledge gaps making an assignment more difficult for my students.