Inspired by an Earthworm

Apology to a Worm
While Fishing on Reed’s Crick

You wriggle (with an r, as only a worm can do)
hoping your last struggle is to salute Caesar
but my thumbs only press you down into the hook.

Mea Culpa.

Your death is inglorious.
You will not battle bass, trout, or even perch
(I know this even as I spear you).

You want to be cast into the river
where the swiftwater will whip you in eddies.
You want a cutthroat to swallow you,
a violent, valiant finale for your earth-eating life.

Instead, I will dangle you from this hook
while I laze in the shade of a cottonwood
and let the breeze blow the canoe upstream.

There are no fish in Reed’s Crick.
Not today, anyway.
I gaze down to the muddy bottom and know your life was in vain.

But how else could I explain why I lay all day in the bottom of a canoe
listening to the crickets and grasshoppers shwishping the grass?

You are my alibi.

The river is much too fast and I would have to cast
over
and
over.

-Katie Suenkel

Digital Short Story

This is an example of a digital short story I created in the class, "Writing for the Digital Age" using Windows Movie Maker and audacity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSsek1n6XHM

Response to "Five Ways to Grow as a Digital Writer"

What happens after "the end" is the focus of chapter 11, "Five Ways to Grow as a Digital Writer". Two of the suggestions, join online communities and create a personal learning network, I've already begun to do through this class. The other three, view and create online teacher cases, conduct teacher action research, and create an e portfolio, I would consider doing in a somewhat limited way. For example, this blog has come to represent a type of e portfolio, a place to think about and record my learning and projects I've created. My goal is to add to this blog--just for myself--as I find more and interesting projects that might be useful. I would like to read about other teacher cases, and as I do more with my classes, I might feel bold enough to contribute to this online learning community. As for teacher action research, it seems as though we all do this informally every day, and this informal action research, combined with the blog reflections, will help me grow in my practice and abilities.

In all, I am more excited than ever about the possibilities for learning and writing with digital technologies. I realize that there is more out there than I will ever be able to fully use, but being able to bring my students' learning into another dimension through web 2.0 technologies will enable me to help my students become full participants in shaping the future. I am excited for what the future holds.

Romeo and Juliet Podcast

This is an example of a podcast created using sound effects from sounddogs.com and audacity. In this podcast, "Dr. Phyllis" interviews Friar Lawrence, The Prince, and the Nurse about who is most to blame for Romeo and Juliet's death. It is hosted on podbean.com at http://katies.podbean.com/

Click below to listen:




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The wordle created below is based from the words on this blog. The most frequently used words appear as the largest. It's an interesting way to really "see" what you're writing about.

To create your own wordle, go to: http://www.wordle.net/

Response to "Fostering Reflection through EPortfolios"

I like the idea of using eportfolios. In Ed401 this year, we had students use first wordpress and then microsoft publisher to create eportfolios that they could then send to their prospective employers. It had limited success. I think this would have been a more powerful tool if students had started it prior to their semester of student teaching so they were familiar with the programs, and then while they were student teaching updated it as they saw fit. Two principals viewed both groups and gave them feedback on each of their portfolios--they were impressed with its ease of use--the teachers could email the principals before the interview, providing a link to the portfolio so the interview committee could see their stuff before or after the interview. One caution, though, was that my principal said it would be better for them NOT to send the eportfolio than send one that was incomplete, difficult to navigate, or unsound in some way. He said that would undermine the credibility of the applicant. So, it can be a powerful tool, but it needs to be well done for it to be effective. Also, it's very important to keep in mind purpose and audience when deciding how to structure it.

I liked the process that Todd Bergman used in Sitka, AK. I think that reflection is extremely important--I can see using this as a final assessment piece in the classroom. I want to look at ChalkandWire eportfolio site and explore its possibilities a little more.

Response to "Using Digital Tools for Formative and Summative Evaluation of Writing"

I have used the formative evaluation writing comment features in my newspaper writing class for several years now and can attest to its power. First, the comment feature enables me to provide sophisticated analysis and suggestions faster because I can type faster than I can physically write, and I can point to the EXACT text I am referring to. Additionally, my comments can easily be absorbed by the student and then X-ed off the page after they consider my thoughts. I really agree with the cautions the authors provide with the focus on providing positive, constructive feedback and limiting ourselves to strategic errors or one or two major ideas (e.g. organization, character development, etc.) It is soooooo easy to overevaluate using the comment feature, and the same horror students had when they received a red, ink-ed-up, bleeding paper from their teacher can occur digitally when we overcomment. I've definitely made this mistake. I've found it's better to focus on one issue at a time, have students resubmit, then focus on another issue. Pretty soon, students start to eliminate that issue in their writing because they get tired of fixing it. I understand that we can edit directly on the students' page, but I abhor that practice because it takes away the students' ownership as author and they don't really learn to fix their own mistakes--it's been done for them. I've found that my editors become "experts" in helping other students with the very mistakes they used to make over and over. Above all, I think it's important to remember that using digital tools does not replace our good judgement and practices as writing teachers. Everything we know to be true about fostering student writers still holds; we just have more and different tools at our disposal to help that fostering. I think it's very important not to lose the student writer in the media we choose to use.

I cannot see myself using the cell phone, IMing and other synchronous systems with my students at this point for two reasons: time and access. I recently read a study that university professors teaching online classes typically spend 20% more time per student than they do in a face-to-face classroom. This is great for the student, but the instructor still needs to make effective use of time. Being available online seems more time-intensive than what I can do at this point. Secondly, because I teach in a rural area with a generally low SES, many of my students do not have access to these technologies at home. I want to focus primarily on how I can help students while they are at school with some options for after-school teacher tutoring, but not to the extent that some students will be greatly advantaged over others.

I also liked the rubric ideas in this chapter and want to look more in-depth at CPR (calibrated peer review (p. 200)). This seems like a great opportunity to help students make good use of rubrics and internalize how they relate to specific writing assignments.

Response to "Designing and Editing Digital Writing"

This chapter takes me back to my journalism training, where we are taught that you need a visual hook into the page (dominant photo--sometimes text), and that in writing you need to use the inverted pyramid because readers truly only have time to skim the articles--only if they're truly interested will they delve. I appreciate that we have to teach students visual literacy (another literacy for me to add to my list) so they can understand what makes readers want to read their sites. I appreciated the process offered by Anne Wysocki (p. 163) for helping students understand the relationships among style, layout, content, audience and purpose.

I want to visit Google Page Maker to find out more about creating your own website. I also want to look at My Comic Book Creator and examples of zines for ideas about how to use these applications in the classroom. Some of my students have used comic book writing as a genre in their writing portfolios, but this might provide them with something better to use than microsoft paint or pen and pencil. Further, I think it's a great idea to try to create some interactive powerpoint presentations to help students build prior knowledge about a novel. I want to think some more about how to integrate these various possibilities into my classroom. I knew about myhighschooljournalism.org, and hearing about it in this book gives me courage to try it out. I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into before, but knowing it's well respected enough to appear in this book makes me want to give it a try for our paper. These are definitely technologies I want to explore more!

Response to "Using Digital Audio and Video Productions"

I truly appreciated how this chapter provided a variety of websites to visit for help and free software programs to use when creating podcasts or vlogs. I also appreciated how the chapter pointed out that technology can offer a wealth of help for our LD or ELL students. Too often, I think, teachers bemoan having LD students in their classrooms and think about the limitations it places on the class or teacher when in actuality there is a real opportunity for diversity and understanding that can occur if we only look for the resources that can help LD kids be successful. Blogging, vlogging, text-to-speech, voice recognition, and dictation tools sound like great ways to help all kids be heard and participate fully in learning.

I've never heard of the term "sonic literacies" before, but I like it. We could start an encyclopedia, though, of the number of literacies that exist now: digital literacy, media literacy, sonic literacy... It would be interesting to track just how many literacies there are.

Some ideas I had while reading this chapter for applications in the classroom included having students create a podcast of a role play for Julius Caesar--transforming the text in some way, perhaps. I also was thinking about how my students could create an audio tour of Spirit Lake, interviewing some of the locals and publishing it on the Spirit Lake Chamber of Commerce website. We also have a yearly community art show, Timberlake Creates, and my students could interview the artists and publish it to the web so that people could use the podguide when they view the installments at area businesses.

One of my struggles is attracting people of diversity to talk to my students since Spirit Lake is rather remote. For example, when we're studying Farewell to Manzanar, some of my students don't seem to "get" that we're talking about real people. It would be great to try to use skype to have the class possibly interview people who lived in some of the internment camps. This might help make it more "real" to them.

The information about vlogs is interesting, and certainly an option for providing alternative responses to literature. I think at this time, though, I might leave that for the more technically literate of my students to use as an option if they wish.

I need to start making a list--which in some form I've already done here--of my ideas for using in the classroom before I forget!

Response to "Using Blogs in the Classroom"

I really appreciated the information provided in this chapter because it answered many of the management questions I had about how to use a blog appropriately in the classroom. My initial thoughts are that I would like to set up a Moodle account and give kids each their own private blog, following much of the process that Mike Hetherington used (p. 129) in his classroom. It seemed safe and controlled. I would then establish a centralized blog where students could publish information for the entire class to see and share information. I think in this way, I could feel good about giving students their own page for self-expression while also providing them a place to share.

I also appreciated the honesty in this chapter with the reasonable warnings about the use of blogging. It will take time to manage and time to orient kids to the blogging world if they are unfamiliar with this medium. I also appreciated the "acceptable use policy" (p. 135) established by Brad Hunt. I envision using something similar as part of my classroom policy. I also think the authors provide sage advice by suggesting that teachers explain the rationale for blogging to parents and acquiring permission. My class syllabus I send home for parents to sign at the beginning of the year seems an appropriate place to attach this.

Many things I already do in class--silent discussions (which I learned from Christy Cochran last year in NIWP SI) and lit circles could be partly or wholly replaced by blogging. I'm thinking about possibly spending a day each week in the computer lab for digital writing or blogging. If I do this, I will be sure to keep in mind that students seem to respond more when they receive comments from one another. I'll also be sure to keep in mind that once it becomes an authentic place for them to write and not just another assignment, students will be more likely to engage in meaningful participation.

Response to "Navigating, Mixing, Creating: Digital Literature"

We truly are in a Brave New World (interestingly a phrase repurposed from Shakespeare by Aldous Huxley, a practice these authors correctly note has been occurring for ... well, a long time). Some of the ideas about mixing to create new literature reminds me of my trip to Paris's Georges Pompidou Museum of Modern Art. I remember strolling through a room where a long line of feather fans, moving on some sort of clock-like mechanism cooled a wall of apparently overheated ceramic vaginas. I also remember a net that held twenty-foot long, red rubber penis that plunged up and down through the center of the building. I remember thinking: interesting, but I don't really get it. I understand that collage, and digital collage, or the repurposing of different elements (body parts, fans, clocks, nets, etc.) can present something to us in a new and unusual way. It's just that sometimes modern art and by extension, modern writing mystifies me as to its purpose and meaning. I guess that I am living in a hypertext world and I am a linear girl.

That said, I really responded to the poem "In My Country There Is a Mountain" by Kori Ashton and the possibilities her video interpretation of the poem provided her by allowing the Spanish text to move backward and the English text to move forward. It was so smart. And powerful. I could definitely see myself using something like this in my classroom.

I think part of what this chapter shows us is the changing nature of genre. In print form, we have essay, poetry, drama, novel, etc. etc. Now, I don't think we have enough words for what is possible or being created. We are in the midst of a genre explosion, and it is an exciting time to see how writers harness different technologies to create something meaningful. I hope, though, that we don't get too lost in the novelty of the possibility to become self indulgent and create "texts" that are silly or mundane.

Response to "Fostering Collaborative Digital Writing"

My experience with wikipedia and my lack of any experience with wikis made me prejudiced against them. I misunderstood what wikis were. I thought they were a single site where anybody could enter and change the information. While that certainly can be true, this chapter helped me understand that wikis could be controlled by a single administrator and enable a class to create a single document collaboratively. I especially appreciated the ideas for using wikis presented in this chapter such as the college poetry instructor who employed wikis to have students link words or lines in a poem to commentaries and other sites, the choose your won adventure type story, creating a book review, or creating a study guide.

I also liked the idea of using Googledocs to help students revise their work. I use a somewhat similar process for my newspaper class, in which my journalists save their writing in a word doc to a server, then I and my editors open the doc making comments and suggesting revisions. The reporters then open the document back up, read the comments, and submit a final draft on the server that the layout editors pull to place on the page. This is the process I used when working at an actual newspaper, and it works well.

Some important things to remember are the FERPA caution provided at the end of the chapter--kids still have a right to privacy when it comes to their grades. Also, it's important to remember that when making comments, etc., it is still just as important (in my opinion even more important) to focus on the positives as it is on what can be improved. I find that commenting on the word document enables me to write more as I can type faster than I can hand write. I have to be careful not to over comment or overwhelm my students with feedback. There is, I think, a saturation point, and it needs to be their writing. We still have to instruct students about how to provide and interpret peer and instructor feedback. That said, I think this technology is providing us with a POWERFUL tool to engage students in meaningful writing opportunities that take advantage of a constructivist approach to learning.

Response to "Using, Creating, and Managing Digital Discussion Environments"

I'm most excited about the possibilities presented in this chapter, especially the idea of hosting an online forum for students to have asynchronous discussions (AD). As the authors stated, the benefits of AD can be that students can access it any time, they're less influenced by face-to-face physical intimidation such as eye rolling, grunts, etc. and therefore more comfortable, and the students get to choose the topics they wish to discuss. I would also add that AD allows students who seldom are heard in class to be heard by more people. One person cannot dominate an AD discussion (or at least is less likely to do so). I noticed, however, that a teacher using AD noted her students are still more likely to agree than disagree, which also happens in class. It takes a great deal of risk-taking to present an alternative viewpoint, and there is always the chance that someone will misunderstand.

I also appreciated the four phases framework for student participation in online discussions. It helped me understand how to move students from one phase to another. I question the use of video games and how I would be able to appropriately use them in the classroom. I'm not sold on this. It smacks of very inauthentic writing...

Further, reading this chapter helped me realize that if we are truly to prepare students for a digital world in which they could very well be IMing, composing email, hosting facebook pages, etc. for their JOBS, then we should probably be using these technologies in our classrooms. In addition, I really responded to the fact that these technologies promote collaboration and make their comments public so they are writing for an authentic audience. That is so very motivating to students to help make their writing shine.

I found it interesting that 76% of administrators expect social networking to improve writing. I wonder if it actually does.

In all, I am left wanting to explore moodle and tappedin more to see if I can utilize these tools in my teaching.

Digital Storytelling Definition

Digital storytelling is a multimedia, multisensory opportunity for storytelling. It can integrate any combination of TV and movie clips, home or personal video, photographs, music, text, and narration. It has a definite point of view and purpose. It can sometimes be more like poetry than narrative in that it is economical in its use of words and images. It seems to deal with a specific topic, which can be wide-ranging or very specific.

The process of creating digital storytelling involves thoughtful consideration of an overall topic, planning for the different multimedia elements, and recording of a narrative to bind the story together.

Response to "Using Digital Writing Tools for Collecting, Connecting, and Organizing Information"

The best heading in this chapter had to be "Using Delicious Tagging in a Literature Text". From there, that section went downhill for me. I had a difficult time understanding both the process for tagging as well as its purpose. I would have truly liked to see examples of tagging, multimodal texts, digital notetaking, and digital storage. It would have been great if the authors had provided websites for projects or examples of these as they did for some of the projects in chapter one.

It also would have been helpful if this chapter provided more information on evaluating search information. The criteria to use in the evaluation of search information is implied through the example of the student who felt comfortable using a PBS-based site with information from a source with a Ph.D. who was linked to a University. However, it would be wonderful to have a list of items for students to consider when evaluating a site such as: does this information seem to match what other sources (both online and physical) say, who are the authors and what are their credentials, what organizations are linked to this site and what are the reputations of those organizations, etc. etc. Perhaps this list is outside the scope of this book.

The most powerful part of this chapter for me was the use of the student-produced, inquiry-based collection of videos and images in the classroom. I envisioned myself using this to have students explore theme in texts such as To Kill a Mockingbird or Julius Caesar, for example. This could possibly be done as a prereading activity to build prior knowledge.

I was grateful for the many examples of Web 2.0 applications. My primary concern is that before I use them, it would be helpful to see examples of their applications by other teachers and students.

Response to "Why Use Digital Writing to Engage Students?"

As this chapter points out, Web 2.0 applications serve as a powerful tools to motivate writing and improve critical thinking. One of the most motivational pieces is that online writing makes their writing public or "published". Authentic writers publish, or share their writing with their intended audiences. Too often, we teachers skip over this part of the writing process because it takes too much time or it doesn't seem valuable, when in actuality this is one of the primary purposes for writing. This helps our students become authentic writers. Further, the statistic that 78% of our students believe more digital writing for the classroom would help them improve their writing skills is pretty overwhelming. Coupled with the fact that self-initiated digital writing leads to more writing, it is clear that teachers need to take advantage of this powerful tool.

I also appreciate that online writing takes advantage of the social connection and collaboration. Each year in my ISAT English classes (I teach a new group each semester), I have students complete a learning inventory based on Gardner's multiple intelligences to determine which of the 8 intelligences most strongly inform their preferred learning styles. For the last five years almost without fail, their strongest intelligences are social and kinesthetic. My personal belief is that the students who wind up in my class find themselves there because they are never--or rarely--taught as social or kinesthetic learners. Digital writing helps them be more collaborative and social learners.

A concern I have about using more digital writing in the classroom are the need for more resources and access to computers and the internet. I teach in a fairly rural school setting, and many of my students do not have computers at their homes. The authors of this text suggest encouraging children to use the public library, but for many of my students this is simply not a possibility. Digitally speaking, I need to limit my assignments to what I can give students access to during the 55 minutes I have them in the classroom. This does pose a challenge.

A second challenge is that, as Clay Burell points out, we need to make sure blogging doesn't simply become another way to turn in homework. Blogging needs to be purposeful and students need to be able to use its unique features to critically engage in inquiry and writing.

I agreed with the comments that students need to understand the purpose behind using web 2.0 tools as learning devices. For example, we need to help them understand when we are using an online debate as a means of furthering persuasive writing. I also agree with the authors that an online presence can sometimes blur distinctions between private and public, education and entertainment. We need to be careful to communicate expectations to students.

As I read, I found myself wondering if there is a saturation point for students with online writing. For example, one of the projects described the use of class-based wikis, where knowledge could build from a previous class. I wonder if there is a point at which this would stop being useful, as students might simply run out of information to add or topics to research. I also found myself wondering if an online persona that is different from a student's actual personality is necessary. I can understand the usefulness of adopting another viewpoint in an online debate, for example, but the author added this as one of the key advantages of online writing, and I'm not certain it's necessary...

I appreciated the list of tips to protect online safety for children. It would be nice to get a list of netiquette practices to distribute to students.

In all, this chapter has set me up to look forward to reading the rest of the book.

Querencia

Just above the banks of the St. Joe River, cottonwood trees shade the deep, pooling water. In the morning, the slant rays of sunlight burn through the mist rising over the river and evaporate the dew, heavy on the meadow grass. Just above the meadow at the base of the hill, tall, narrow tamaracks lean into one another. During strong gusts of wind they converse, cracking and bowing but never breaking. Cedars stand steadfast, dripping with lacy fringe.

Tucked into the middle of the hillside is my grandfather’s cabin—a trailer with the front shorn off and a plywood living room added. Its patchwork carpet has long been torn up and replaced by a green rug. For me, the cabin holds many fascinations, but my favorite resides in the corner just next to the sink. It is the secret treasure of this makeshift lodge: a wood-burning cook stove.

Grandpa used to rise at 4 or 5 or 6 in the morning, depending on when his arthritis would no longer allow for sleep, and start the stove to get the top heated just enough to sizzle a drop of water. Then he’d make the coffee—nothing French-roasted or latte-ed or mocha-ed. Simple Folgers from a can so that by the time we’d get to the cabin in the morning, breakfast smells and warmth greeted my mom, dad, brother and me.

As soon as we arrived, he would stomp his foot on the ground and the entire cabin would shake. “Vell, guuud mornin'!” he would say in an exaggerated Norwegian accent, mimicking the voices of his friends from logging camps. He'd dance a little jig to the stove and start the bacon popping on the large iron skillet, and when the strips curled to a golden brown, he would set them aside on a plate to keep warm by the stove. Then he’d carefully scoop up the grease into an emptied tin can that formerly had held beans or corn, and in a large, aluminum bowl would combine pancake flour with lots and lots of buttermilk until the mixture was very thin. Rosemary Clooney or Dean Martin would croon on the tape player as he carefully poured the batter onto the iron skillet. Between each round of pancakes, he regreased the skillet with a generous lump of bacon fat.

Some people love fluffy, doughy pancakes that rise a half-inch thick. I pity these people. They have never had Grandpa’s pancakes. His were thin and golden, crispy at the edges, tangy with buttermilk and rich with bacon grease. These he would pile onto a plate and place on the table, which my brother and I had set with a mismatch of thin, porcelain plates gathered over the years. Antique collectors would probably scramble to outbid each other for these plates on Ebay now, but for us they were right at home next to the Styrofoam cups of milk.

“Eat ‘em while they’re hot,” Grandpa would encourage. We all had a different way of eating them. Mom and Dad preferred a fried egg, over easy, on top of two or three layers of thin pancakes. With a fork, they would shred the yoke, letting the yellow goo soak into the golden crispiness. My brother would reach for the Aunt Jemima bottle, which never ran out but was always refilled, and poured so much syrup on his plate that my dad would lower his bushy, owl-like eyebrows in a half-scowl. My favorite way to eat them was to lather on soft butter and then take a silver serving spoon from the honey jar, lifting it high and winding it around and around so that light would pour through the thick, amber sweetness. Then I would let the honey drizzle from the spoon, making golden patterns on the pancakes: swirls, smiling faces, my name in cursive.

We would eat until our bellies were full, and only then would Grandpa sit down to enjoy his coffee and pancakes. My brother and I would clear our dishes and then scamper down the hill to fish off the dock or take the rowboat into the water. We wouldn’t be hungry again for hours and hours.

Sometimes you can feel love, sometimes you can hear it, and sometimes you can even see it. But on these mornings, I could smell and taste love.

Reflection on the writing process:
This was the first time I free-wrote on the computer during a class time, so that introduced some new elements to me. I was more likely to go back and revise than I am during my pen-and-paper writing, and I was also able to write more quickly since I can type faster than I can physically write. I found myself getting onto this one topic and wanting to keep going with it. I enjoyed this process.