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| My nephew and nieces, photo courtesy of Just a Blink |
In this course, I hope to learn ways to inspire students to write. Nearly all of the charter schools I support are in urban areas with high poverty. Many of the students are English language learners and most struggle with writing. When asked to write multiple paragraphs on an assessment, it is far too common that students will write only a few sentences. I am convinced that our curriculum is not motivating them to write. I am convinced that it is--truly--preventing any passion for writing from taking root. This year I hope to find ways of motivating students to write and enough support that I can make some changes in our writing curriculum. Since I am not in the classroom, the changes will not be as immediate, nor will have have the control of them that many classroom teachers do. However, I am in a position to influence curriculum decisions that impact thousands of students. For that, I take this responsibility seriously. Given the lack of funding for our schools as well as lack of computers in most of our students' homes, I'm skeptical that blogs or wikis will prove to be the answer. Nonetheless, I am quite sure that I will find aspects of digital writing that can translate into our schools.
Let the journey begin!
2 comments:
Lisa, it's great to have you back. I was breezing through some of your 2008 cohort member's blogs since I know most all of them. Brought back a lot of memories.
Sounds like you've had a lot of previous experience with blogging, particularly for sharing with family members. This is actually not necessarily inconsistent with "academic" purposes because you were engaged in writing for specific audiences--a key factor in terms of motivation.
You really hit the nail on the head when you noted that a key problem with a lot of writing instruction, esp. in urban/charter schools, is students' lack of engagement in or motivation to write. They are often taught writing primarily for the purpose of preparing for the MCA test, as opposed to writing to actual audiences for real purposes. Blogging can help address some of this when students are using writing to write about things they care about and receive feedback/comments, esp. from others outside a class.
It's also essential that they are writing within a larger context of addressing issues or topics that interest them, for example, problems they perceive in their school or neighborhood, that result in proposing ways of addressing those problems.
Lisa: Fun blog! It's interesting to hear a bit about your history with blogging and your job history. I'm going to check out your sister-in-law's blog too, when I have time. A couple of things come to mind based on our course reading and what you said. Yes, blogging and wikis seem to be the way of the future, but there remains that disconect with education. I'm also wondering how this will actually be implemented in the classroom. I think you have a tough job - to develop creative curriculum that uses technology when the reality is, the technology may not be accessible to everyone. Also, spending time in front a computer is exhausting. I can see why the last thing you want to do is blog. Yes, it's a great creative impulse, but hard to stick with when you're already computer saturated. Which kind of leads to my other point, will students be responsible in what they write when they are already supersaturated with technology in their lives? I'm very interested in how this all plays out. Thanks for being a partner!
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