Making Meaning. Part 2: Remembering the Struggle

Part 2: Remembering the struggle.

View the short video and note any places where you feel confused.  This activity might increase awareness of the difficulty that are obstacles for developing readers and English language learners.  From this increased awareness, we can better plan instruction that will increase success. 

Some of the possible difficulties include: 

1) Decoding the sounds due to the computerized speech or the speaker’s dialect. 

2) Lack of prior knowledge. 

3) Lack of contextual background.

4) Unclear allusions.

This post is Part 2 of "UMdWP 1st Day Summer 2011 on Glogster.  http://dochorsetales.glogster.com/umdwp-1st-day-summer-2011/

Making Meaning. Part 1: Introduction.

Part 1: Introduction

Expert performance depends on developing multiple routines, with lower-level operations functioning “on automatic,” so that conscious attention focuses  on more complex operations and on fine-tuning adjustments.  Expert readers often forget the subordinated functions that enable them to extract accurate meaning from a text.  Reading depends on 1) selecting the correct phoneme for a letter like “c” that has multiple possibilities, 2) deciding which of the acceptable definitions of a word fits with the context, and 3) figuring out figures of speech, allusions, ironies, and many other subtasks.  A good teacher remembers the basic operations and finds ways to assist would-be readers who are struggling.

This post is Part 1 of "UMdWP 1st Day Summer 2011 on Glogster.  http://dochorsetales.glogster.com/umdwp-1st-day-summer-2011/

Curating #EngChat on Unlocking Adolescent Literacy

Curating Twitter’s #EngChat Archive (6/13/11) on Unlocking Adolescent Literacy

Moderators: Kylene Beers & Bob Probst.  

Archive available at: http://engchat.pbworks.com/w/page/28212658/engchat-archive 

Presuming to “curate” this chat: Joseph McCaleb (@dochorsetales)

Preface

     Twitter at its best refines all the stuff that’s out there; at its worst, it proliferates an already overwhelming overload of verbiage, word-garbage.  In my estimation, the construct of “curation” assumes significance in relation to the need to sift the volume effectively and efficiently.  The construction of meaning has long (perhaps forever) marked the edge of human consciousness and civilization.  Looked at constructively, Twitter pushes this edge and offers a playground or workshop to practice curation.

     As Twitter-users shape this new public forum, practice comes in several ways.  First, participants choose persons and hashtags to follow in order to manage the flow.  We also mark distinctions with RT (retweeting), like, and block. 

     “Chat” particularly pushes the need to curate due to the speed and volume of relatively disconnected messages.  Unless managed, the disorganized pattern of input produces a kind of dizziness (as noted by Probst at the end of this #EngChat session).  Despite its disorganized character and the resultant dizziness, many participants also note the value of the chat.

     I sometimes cope with this richness of confusion by skimming during the live chat, possibly throwing in one or two tweets, but mostly waiting for the archive.  In the case of Unlocking Adolescent Literacy, I found a considerable number of tweets and topics that were particularly provocative.  Without planning to do so, I seemed to curate for myself and since the heritage of that construct includes sharing, I decided to put my selection, sorting, and occasional commenting in a semi-public space.  I’ve moved tweets into categories that contributed to the construction of meaning that I found useful.  Of course, other curators would and should do this quite differently.  (**For resources on "curation" see the end of this post.)

On defining “Next” Practice as preferred to “Best” Practice

@KyleneBeers Bob & I have been talking about "accepted practices," "best practices," & next practices. What next practices are important?

@KyleneBeers @leslie_salley We don't talk enough about next practices; best practices are about what HAS worked; Next is about what will work

@KyleneBeers  Next practices, by definition, will fail and as we get better at them they will eventually become a best practice

@hrmason @CBethM @KyleneBeers Have to create the env. where failure is acceptable. Goes against they're hearing abt education right now.

@BobProbst @feministteacher --"Next" practice is untested, experimental, likely to be inadequate at first but with potential to grow.

@budtheteacher @kylenebeers @bobprobst I think we miss too many of the basics - doing good work is never old fashioned or out of style

Suggestions for best next practices

@spillarke @kylenebeers One next practice in my own classroom would be digital fluency--fluency using digital tools much like reading fluency

@mrspal next practices would be digital literacy in writing, collaborating & reading

@budtheteacher @KyleneBeers Too often, folks rush the digital and forget the good.

@KyleneBeers @spillarke  Yes to digital fluency. Fluency allows for a degree of automaticity & that allows more ability to cope with complexity.

@KyleneBeers @williamkist  Interesting next practice--that type of writing that encourages that fluid of thinking. Like it.

@MaryAnnReilly @KyleneBeers Next practices, like that so much better than "better". Focusing on composing as a way of being in the world

@mrspal   next practices would be digital literacy in writing, collaborating & reading 

@LindaReed Next practices-creating and sharing new thinking with those outside of your sphere of influence.

@katyvance  I think one of the best examples of "next practices" in literacy today is the idea of transliteracy http://t.co/gl2FT8C def on left

@williamkist @KyleneBeers Helping kids with learning to write in an online (screen-based) format (with hyperlinks) should be a next practice.

On Storytelling as a best next practice (extended into digital media)

@erinneo I'm changing next year to a model of storytelling to improve literacy. I think 'hearing' the story is important but getting lost

@erinneo @spillarke @maryannreilly I think an important question to ask students is if they are ready to take their own story seriously.

@BobProbst @erinneo--Most people like being read to. Storytelling and reading aloud capture many kids who think they don't like reading

@erinneo @BobProbst Hearing a story told well is a powerful experience, and I think a skill that can/should be taught.

@padgets  there are some really great websites to help students bring stories to life like Story Creator 2

@gmfunk @erinneo @BobProbst I teach oral interpretation (storytelling) in speech.

@cybraryman1 My Story Telling page (+ Digital Story Telling page): http://tinyurl.com/yex6k8d

@gmfunk @KyleneBeers Part of being good storyteller is thinking about the audience's understanding. Composing story to be understood

[Tweets I could have offered on this topic:

@dochorsetales Recommend Origin of Stories (B. Boyd) to connect narrative w/ social justice (evolving human capacity for cooperation) http://dochorsetales.blogspot.com/2011/01/to-compose-cooperation.html

@dochorsetales Recommend all of Vivian Paley (eg Wally’s Stories) for rich text of a masterful teacher telling (w/ exquisite narrative) power of narrative in classroom community ]

MaryAnnReilly Let's not forget that text can mean many things. I think photovoice is a fab way to build a comm set of texts

Just need a camera (phone will do). Cd post as a set on flickr.

@MaryAnnReilly @PaulWHankins sending them home w/ a camera to document an aspect of their lives & combining those images into a class text, is:)

@MaryAnnReilly @gmfunk Photovoice seeks to put cameras in the hands of ord people 2 document their lives. Shooting Back on Reservation" is an ex.

@MaryAnnReilly @judyjester Caroline Wang's work. here's a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoice I have used it a lot as a teacher.

@RdngTeach @clix Students could choose Animoto, MovieMaker or Photostory.

@RdngTeach @MaryAnnReilly Something so powerful when kids use words, pics and music to convey meaning.

@techielit  I plan on using Jaycut.com for book trailers. I like that I can host Jaycut on my class website - easy for students.

@GreggGraham Agree w/ @PaulHankins IMO, storytelling - a human universal - is the foundation upon which we build student's literacy.

On Mirrors (&Windows)

@Shamlet @erinneo @spillarke @maryannreilly It's important to make texts mirrors, so kids can see the reflection of their own story

@spillarke Exactly Right! RT @shamlet: It's important to make texts mirrors, so kids can see the reflection of their own story

@PaulWHankins @BobProbst This group is primed to the three way mirror approach to literacy: looking back, looking in, and looking forward.

@MaryAnnReilly When selecting a range of texts for a class to choose from, impt to remember mirror & windows. Representation matters.

@MaryAnnReilly Voice happens alongside choice.

@MaryAnnReilly @feministteacher essay can be the underlying script to a game. It can Pine Point. http://bit.ly/ltKeqG

@maricelignacio Completely agree! RT @writer #engchat spoken word poetry often mirrors thinking in essay so we gather and reread & dig in then write our own

My note: As with any human activity, storytelling and storytellers are not automatically good.  Narrative can be used distract and manipulate.  Out of semi-consciousness or more evil motives, persons tell stories that do not resonate with truth or morality. The need for clean windows and mirrors is huge.  And this has always presented a major task for education.  The efforts to privatize and de-professionalize teaching escalate the crisis.

What is Adolescent Lit:

@RdngTeach @PaulWHankins I agree it is connections, but I also think adol lit is where it becomes about making those bog world connections

@RdngTeach @PaulWHankins I think adol lit is also where it focuses more heavily on those "big world" connections

@KyleneBeers  Novels named: Giver, Hatchet, Outsiders, Terabithia, Watsons, Bud, Not Buddy, Among Hidden, Holes, Riding Freedom, Tuck Evlastingand Maniac Magee and Esperanza Rising

@BobProbst @PaulHankins @KyleneBeers Ad Literacy is in part an ability to change your mind as a result of reading and talking.

@BobProbst @KyleneBeers Think we need focus on ad litrcy because beliefs and attitudes grow ossified in those years. Kids need to stay open.

@PaulWHankins: To awaken adolescent literacy, we must affirm how our students are already literate. Hard to find voice if convinced you're dumb.

@mardieteach @RdngTeach I've been thinking a lot about teacher's intuition: Ability to make those decisions on a moment to moment basis

@AtlTeacher @hrmason @ecarboni here's a discussion board my students created on goodreads with their independent novels http://t.co/DWOqkKT

@MaryAnnReilly @judyjester I ask Ss to document what literacy means at beginning & end of course. Changes r significant.

Other assorted interesting items

@MaryAnnReilly Negotiating curriculum. Composing ourselves. Priveliging w "talking" with variety of languages

@KyleneBeers  Seems we need to use some of the writing lang w/ reading--we ask students to revise writing; can ask to revise understanding

@BobProbst @leslie_salley I read AP exams for about 7 years, mostly to find out what bright kids around country could do. An experience...

@gmfunk @KyleneBeers No place for choice or digital lit or writing on tests CCSS  will narrow curriculum. My district moving that way nxt yr

@techielit  Here’s the short videos I put together to announce the nominations for the Caesars http://www.techielit.com/caesars-2011

@KyleneBeers @writer  So agree that they need volume, but they also need to learn how to read with deeper understanding.

Conclusion, Extensions, and Next Time

@KyleneBeers  The hardest questions will take serious thinkers, risk takers, dedicated tchrs.Not more mandates.Not another kit. Thinkers...

@LYRichardson @KyleneBeers Hi, book you edited, Adolescent Literacy:Turning Promise into Practice is such a gem. A Twitter  topic for fall?

@Dwight_Carter: RT @PaulWHankins: Glad to see @WilliamKist here. #engchat-ers should not miss The Socially Networked Classroom. Great resource for the literacy discussed.

@mrami2: 6/20 #engchat w/ @emsingleton @magpete55 @ 7PM EST - How will you grow this summer? Summer PD ideas. Pls RT.




**Where to Go Next on Curation:

NWP’s space for curation of digital media work:

http://digitalis.nwp.org/search/node/curating

Tracing curation in cyberspace:

http://battellemedia.com/archives/2010/12/signal_curation_discovery.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JohnBattellesSearchblog+%28John+Battelle%27s+Searchblog%29

Definitions, reviews, application to student learning:

http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/06/12/students-becoming-curators-of-information/

Further review and extensions into professional development for teachers:

http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/summer-seed-ideas-curation-participation-and-student-ples/

Curation tools:

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/06/09/theres-a-new-web-curation-tool-on-the-block-meet-bundlr/

RobinGood curates curation from blogs, tweets, videos, etc.

http://www.scoop.it/t/real-time-news-curation?page=1

Robin Good interviewed on curation (14 min).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1IeOzIoRDs&feature=player_embedded

Business application:

http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/03/24/are-content-curators-the-new-standard-of-social-media-influence/

NWP: Time of Transition

 As the hour-long conference call among local-site leaders of the National Writing Project drew to its conclusion, that sense of transition, of ending and possible beginning, resonated further out and into the surrounding chamber in which Congress and the White House have been ending this era of federal funding for special projects.  This closing door suffused my being sufficiently that I felt a tremor coming from the passionate conviction and the enormous commitment built up over so many years and now pressed into this shared moment in time.  So the pulse I felt wasn’t limited to the twenty or so of us participating in that particular telephone call, but it encompassed the other one hundred eighty site leaders and the uncountable, almost-invisible staffers who provide service at NWP functions, always with smiles and open hearts, mirrors of the organization’s essence.  Although the echo was at some remove, when listening deeply we also perceive the reach of NWP into almost every classroom in our nation, at least those that evidence the trust and respect for teachers teaching teachers. 

But mostly, in that Friday afternoon, I felt the warm gratitude, just as it rises again now from my chest toward my eyes, for Elyse, Joye, Mike, and Judy who in leading this call, like others at the center of the organization, were giving themselves again to a great work, and especially because they were at the core of the surge of disappointment in the loss of funding and the layoff of NWP staff.  Their integrity, another hallmark of NWP, required that they speak the hard truth, as best they knew it, of the shift from external federal support to local initiative.  The promise, WE WILL PERSIST, anchors our place, but . . .  Although my mind attempts to argue for opportunity in this political complex, my heart cries at the betrayal and failure.  The totality of my being, tempered in over forty years of professional educational research, teaching, and service, knows with full confidence that the National Writing Project is true.  True to the vision of public education: freedom and equality for all.  Truer than any other professional organization that I’ve known.

NWP affirms the respect and trust that, more than anything else, empowers the classroom teacher to trust and respect his and her children.  It’s about as simple as that; and, as deep simplicity goes, it’s diamond rare.  Standing against most educational policy at all levels, NWP believes that the teacher does not have to be micro-managed, fed robotic-curricula, or watched like a hawk watches for prey.  NWP believes in knowledge that grows organically in and by the specific community of learners.  The organization acts with the most passionate conviction I’ve found in any professional community in order to establish and nurture the complex infrastructure to support this essence.  The support includes caring for each site and investing in the frontier of technology so that attention can be found at the moment of readiness and need.

I want to believe that truth wins, and I do; but it’s not on my timetable or in my immediate eyesight.  I accept that passion encompasses suffering as well as joy.  I believe good people find a way, with the old notion of when a door closes another opens, although sometimes it’s rather difficult to find.  Mostly, right now, I just want to express gratitude for all the heart, soul, and mind that good people have dedicated to the National Writing Project.  Thank you.

In Opposition to Test-Destruction of Public Schooling

1.  1.  Many voices worth hearing (e.g., Diane Ravitch, Darling-Hammond) have been shouting that this testing/assessment/standards/etc thing is not in the interest of education. 
   
   
   2.     Politicians on all sides are not listening.  Instead, they blame and bully education in order to distract the public from the economic problems, poverty, war, etc.
   
   
   3.     High stakes assessment is too expensive to do well. 
   
   
   4.     Teacher judgment is the only viable guide to status and development of learning.  Authentic indicators like portfolio are the only ones worth doing.
   
   
   5.     Informing and shaping teacher judgment happens best through professional development along the lines of National Writing Project practices and depends on the kind of infrastructure that NWP has in place.
   
   
   6.     The role of technology is increasingly vital in Professional Development work and in student learning.
   
   
   7.     Digital media is also the means to influence political action and that returns to the first and second points.  To change policy we may need to produce digital media that can reach public opinion and then influence politicians.

I think even China knows more than to look "up" to current US policy on education.  They know from experience that reliance on high-stakes testing is a flop.  So they look to other countries like Finland who trust teachers rather than treat them like robots who have to be directed by computer results and programs.

Continued investment in more and “better” testing is a waste of time.  It’s destructive and produces cynicism.  We know better.  I’m not interested in spending my time there.  I do realize that most policy makers don’t agree with me and that changing their minds might be a worthwhile project for persons who want to try.  I'm working at step 5, 6, and maybe 7.

On the Redemption of Rhetoric

Kenneth Burke, “the foremost rhetorician of the 20^th century” (according to the textbook I then used in teaching Foundations of Rhetoric), wrote of Hitler’s rise to power and said that Hitler’s terrible lie mobilized Nazis not because rhetoric favors evil but because the forces of good were failing to match his discourse.  The way I understand it: good is stronger than evil; but evil empowered with rhetoric prevails when good presumes not to need rhetoric.  We have to align good and rhetoric; long ago, rhetoric was defined as “the good (hu)man speaking well.”

Today education is under attack.  Diane Ravitch speaks for me when she tells of the betrayal of public education by those we voted to represent and defend us.  NCLB lies about its intention and action: it leaves most children behind and even threatens to destroy public education altogether.  (http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/20/obama-s-war-on-schools.print.html )

NWP (National Writing Project) is simply the best program I’ve experienced in 40+ years as a professional educator, and it’s now getting cut in federal funding while the perpetrators of the economic crisis continue to amass unconscionable wealth and power.  That’s not right. 

Because of the NWP, I no longer rely on the same print-based textbook of the last century.  Today’s generation, our world’s most valuable resource, lives in an age of digital media and an age of great challenge.  We’re witnessing almost unbelievable political change, and we see how reliant these reforms are on this new rhetoric fused with digital media.  As always, the chances for good rise up when they are joined by the most powerful symbolic system yet known. 

NWP taught me to care for digital media with an even bigger passion than I already had for print-based literacy education.  With its highly developed infrastructure and with amazing professionals who truly walk the talk, NWP provides support 24/7.  Keeping afloat in a Web X.0 World isn’t possible without this infrastructure.

Now is the time for us to power-up.  Good aligned with rhetorical power still prevails.  Good people who walk the talk with the resources of digital media and Web2.0 are remaking the world.  Educators who care for all children in our public education system can successfully defend the best of our promises and our inheritance.  The dream of this nation once depended on a commitment to make public education a reality for all and for this education to lead the way into freedom, justice, and equality.

The scope of this dream has always been daunting, and still it has summoned many of the best of a pioneering people; but we have not reached far enough into the vision.  I’ve spend a long career in this quest and have often been discouraged almost to the point of quitting, of losing faith, of giving up.  In my career, only one program sustains hope: the National Writing Project.  Perhaps there are others that do it for some folks, but it’s NWP for me.  In brief, it’s because most of all NWP honors the teacher and affirms the knowledge located within the moment where learners are empowered to own it, to make it, and to discern truth from lies.

(For elaboration on this essential feature of situated knowledge, see an earlier blog: http://dochorsetales.blogspot.com/2010/12/home-on-path.html )

Drawl Space & Digital Media

Maybe because I grew up for thirty years in the drawl space of rural West Texas, I’ve never been an early adopter. I don’t think it’s just about going slow, but it’s also about giving time for the multiples to accumulate. The toxic effects of one-right-way might’ve built up a strong resistance to speeding down novel (new-fangled) techie-things. On the other hand, going slow can also mean being stuck in the mud of tradition or fundamentalism. Neither speed nor slow is the answer.

After writing enough to get tenured, I even went backwards into the oral tradition where I felt storytelling was rooted and belonged. While digital media production looked interesting, digital and story were pretty much mutually exclusive. That was until I tried it out, reluctant at first, and then falling pretty darn fast.  But somehow, maybe it was instinctual, I knew that I needed a multiple-track format. Doing digital media with photostory and moviemaker didn’t have a good feel to it.

Also when I read or heard the experts saying you have to start with the written script, even with a storyboard, my body grimaced. I couldn’t articulate it then, but I wanted the full deck to play: text, moving image, still image, voice, music/sound. Searching the web and reviews, I found a program where I could see and work across multiple tracks with the creative energies sparking across them.  This allowed me to escape the claustrophobic sense of preimposed words that seems to be the legacy of print composition.

Steven Johnson’s Where Do Good Ideas Come From articulates explanations why digital media composing might need the multiple-track modality. Implications for teachers at all grade levels could be significant. The traditional working space or environment can “block or limit new combinations—by punishing experimentation, by obscuring certain branches of possibility, by making the current state so satisfying that no one bothers to explore the edges.”  The concept of the “adjacent possible” calls for an innovative environment that assembles the “spare parts.” 

We have a natural tendency to romanticize breakthrough innovations, imagining momentous ideas transcending their surroundings . . . but in reality they’ve been cobbled together with spare parts that happened to be sitting in the garage.” pp. 28-29.

“The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts.  The trick is to get more parts on the table.” p. 42

When I apply this to composing in digital media, I believe it means that certain platforms and instructional approaches risk limiting creativity, motivation, and quality.  Of course, we don’t want to overwhelm anyone for too long.  We do want work with platforms that allow dynamic engagement with the multiples.

After establishing the significance of the adjacent possible, Johnson moves ahead into another multiple which he terms “liquid network.” Innovations come not from the individual working alone but in the “swarm” that happens around the conference table.  I think of my frustration in a resource development retreat when I was summoned from my private composing so that we could report out to a working team.  Sharing my half-baked mumblings felt inadequate.  I also remember my realization that talking the process and the ensuing conversations provoked creativity and better composings. The liquid network, like the adjacent possible, challenges much of what I see in educational practice and particularly in individual assessment models and accountability pressures.

Steven Johnson has at least five more “patterns of innovation.” Stay tuned.