We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions. #

Twitter is the spice that flavors what you’re putting on the table.  It might be the after dinner snack.  It may well be the connective tissue that flavors the stew¹.  But it’s not the meal.  It’s part of the deluge², and we must push against it,  building spaces where we can be thoughtful. #

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1. Because you just needed one more awkward meal metaphor in there, didn’t you?
2. At least sometimes.

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I couldn’t be more excited to be facilitating a course we’re calling “Common Core & Writing: Deeper Learning for All.”  I pitched the course as “a course on writing to learn for non-English teachers” and that’s almost exactly what I’ll be teaching¹.  Better yet – some of my friends from the National Writing Project will be helping me to develop the course. #

The six week course, which will begin mid-October, is going to begin with a deep look at the Common Core State Standards, and particularly the section of the standards that addresses the role of writing across the curriculum.² Then,’ we’ll tackle writing in the classroom from two distinct lenses: #

1.  Writing to Learn – the habits and bits of writing that you do to make sense of whatever it is that you’re learning and exploring. #

2. Writing for the Disciplines – the writing that’s specific to content areas other than language arts.  How do historians write for each other?  Scientists?  Mathematicians?  And why does that matter? How can we help our students to write in these ways? #

As a final project, participants in the course will use this protocol from the NWP to help them develop some writing assignments for their own classrooms that should result in some thoughtful writing for and with students.   We should all get some good ideas. #

As I’m developing the collection of resources, I know that NWP’s Digital Is will be an important text for the group.  And I’m also reminded of Peter Elbow and Donald Murray and their essential contributions to writing as process and writing as something that teachers just, you know, do. #

But I could use your help. #

Here’s a Google Doc where I’m beginning to draft a collection of readings and resources for the folks³ who I hope will take this course. #

I’d sure be grateful if you’d offer your favorites and help keep me honest by pointing participants to actual examples of the two areas I outlined above. #

And of course, this entire experience is, for me, first draft thinking.  I’d be open to your ideas, suggestions, and feedback as I’m working to construct an experience that’s ultimately useful to teachers and results in increased use of writing in their practice. #

Thanks in advance.  And perhaps I’ll see you in class?  Sign up opens soon. #

1. Er.  Facilitating.  Teaching.  Guiding.  Whatever.  The participants and I will experience it together.  And we’ll all take turns.
2. Yes, technically, this is a rather large section.  Pretty much the entire language arts section.  But we’ll hone in on the specifics of writing for the disciplines other than language arts.
3. Remember – a targeted audience of non-language arts teachers.

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He said that the pedagogical and philosophical¹ recipe for Youth Voices was something like: #

• James Beane and his work on breaking down the curriculum barriers and asking good questions
• plus Paulo Friere’s thinking on asking learners to look for generative themes
• with a dash of Peter Elbow who reminds us of the power of making things through free writing.

But he said something, off the cuff, that I thought was really important. He mentioned that he’d been in the Youth Voices work for eight years², and that students who started in tenth grade were able, in eleventh and twelfth, to return to the space and pick up where they left off. They didn’t have to learn a new space, and their work from previous years was right there. #

That’s powerful and important and worth unpacking a little bit. Teachers who are using interesting technology with their students find themselves too often in the setup and infrastructure business – and that’s fine sometimes. But not every time or every lesson or every year. #

One of the reasons I went to work for an IT department was because I wanted to help make spaces that had a life beyond one classroom. A student shouldn’t create one blog to suit the needs of every teacher that asks for work to occur in such spaces. Students create short term tools for what should be long term work, and they find themselves create blogs every time they start to do interesting work. The assumption becomes that the work they’re doing in these temporary spaces is throwaway work. When the unit, semester, or year ends, the space dies and the student is asked to create the next one. #

That’s not how it should work. #

What I love about Paul’s work, and the work of other folks who are thinking about the long game of educational spaces where work lives and breathes and mingles with other work, is that they’re building what I call³ longitudinal Web presences. Spaces where the portfolio happens as the collection grows. Places where the stuff a student made yesterday and the stuff a student makes today will be around for a student to add to tomorrow. Places that don’t die every few months or are subject to Teacher A or B’s personal web tool preference. #

When Karl or Michelle or I talk about digital learning ecologies, or Paul talks about Youth Voices, I think that’s what we’re talking about. Teachers shouldn’t have to be in the creation and infrastructure business all the time. Nor should they be helping kids to cram important work into temporary places. #

If you’re a tech director or a CIO, I hope you’re thinking about how to create these spaces. I also hope you’re thinking about how to help students return to them over time and to think through what they’ve made and how it resonates, or doesn’t, as they expand their knowledge and experience. In St. Vrain, we’ve built a few tools that help with this, but we’re nowhere close to figuring it out. #

We do, know, though, and have been charged by our school board, that we are stewards of the work our students produce. That’s an important word – the IT department is responsible for looking after the students’ work. We’ve got to make sure it’s well taken care of and preserved and saved until they leave our care. And that they can take it with them when they go. #

That’s what a portfolio should be. That’s worth making. Thoughtfully.⁴ I continue to be inspired and pushed by the work of folks like Paul who are building places of learning that last on the Web. #

1. My words, not his
2. Eight years. How many writing spaces do you have that last six months. Learning, folks, is a marathon.
3. Probably incorrectly, but playing with words is fun.
4. Sometimes, the curbs matter and the making of the containers are essential, in no small part because the traffic on the road and the stuff in the boxes is precious and worth looking after. The road needs to last for a long, long time.

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But I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t remember that this is also a giant trade show.  People here are eager to sell me on plenty of things – their products, or services, or consulting, or that their work is really, really neat. #

And that may well be.  The products, services, or other stuff may well be important and useful and interesting and engaging and worth spending time and money on. #

But not necessarily.  And it’s easy to forget that in the middle of the craziness.  Folks get excited.  I get excited.  And I sometimes, willingly or otherwise, suspend my disbelief.  And that’s not good for anybody¹. #

So as I sit here gearing up for hearing and sharing and listening and talking and writing and exploring so much with so many people, I’m reminding myself in public that I’ll need to have my crap detector fully functional and powered up throughout the conference. #

If I run into you and ask you a question or two, know that I’m not asking to discredit you or make you uncomfortable, I’m asking because I owe it to myself and my employer and the students and staff I’m responsible for to make sure that I’m doing my due diligence. #

There’s plenty of snake oil here at ISTE.  And plenty of good stuff. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t aware of the potential and the good. #

But there’s no rule that says the junk has to be clearly labeled.  And usually, it’s not. So my crap detector is spooled up, and I’m paying attention².  Here’s to a great ISTE 2011. #

How are you working to make sure you’re approaching what you see and do with a mind for what’s important?  How’re you working to improve your crap detector?  Let me know in the comments. #

1. Well, actually, it’s good for the bad salespeople.  The ones who want to sell you something that you don’t need, want, or could benefit from. The good salespeople, the ones I enjoy doing business with, are the folks who ensure that I actually need their product or service.  I dig good salespeople.  Lots. Sales is not evil.
2. Or trying to, at least.  Keep me honest.

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I wonder, finally, what would happen if we simply opened the doors and let the students go; if we let them walk out of the dim light of the overhead projector into the sunlight; if we let them decide how, or whether, to engage this monolith? Would it be so terrible? Could it be worse than what they are currently experiencing? Would adults look at young people differently if they had to confront their children on the street, rather than locking them away in institutions? Would it force us to say more explicitly what a humane and healthy learning environment might look like? Should discussions of the future of school reform be less about the pet ideas of professional reformers and more about what we’re doing to young people in the institution called school? #

via What Would Happen if We Let Them Go? – The Futures of School Reform – Education Week. #

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I never had the fortune to meet Jim Gray. But his fingers are all over my work as a professional educator. In 1974, he had this idea – this crazy, wonderful, delightfully simple idea – that perhaps teachers of writing should spend time taking about their teaching together. And perhaps, too, as teachers of writing, they should write themselves, and work together as writers, much as they would ask their students to do. Oh, and perhaps, after they spent time learning together, those same teachers might share their learning with other teachers in after school, before school and during school professional development. #

Teachers, he knew, can make a difference. And they don’t need someone else, some “expert” from far away, to do all the heavy lifting. We can help each other to get better. We don’t need saving. Teachers can be agents for thoughtful change. Together. #

Not a complicated idea. But I’ve been cribbing it my entire professional career. For good reason. That idea, originally the Bay Area Writing Project and later the National Writing Project, replicated again and again in university and school partnerships around the country, works. Well. #

When I was an undergraduate at Colorado State University, Cindy O’Donnell-Allen came to be a professor there. She taught my adolescent literature course, a course where she asked me to read and write in the ways that I might later ask my student to read and write. She wrote with us when we wrote in class. I always liked that. #

It was later, when she started the Colorado State University Writing Project, that I learned the story behind why she taught the way she did. And it was during the first summer institute of the CSUWP that I began to realize the kind of teacher I wanted to be. ¹ #

According to this recollection, Gray was a lover of people and of living. And that passion for life and people was the fire of his teaching. He made community. So does the National Writing Project. So do writers and writing and teachers of writing. #

I’ve never met a more thoughtful group of people. Sometimes, it’s downright infuriating. I like to move. NWP teachers like to ask thoughtful questions. Thoughtful questions sometimes slow you down. But when you do eventually act, you act better because of the thoughtful inquiry that informs your action. #

My participation in the National Writing Project is what led to the poetry course I taught for students who didn’t believe they had much to say. It led Antonio, the quietest student I’ve ever met, to say and share more of himself that anyone had ever seen. He made us laugh and cry through his poems, and we were never, ever the same. #

It led to Paul and Raeven figuring out the point of what they wanted to argue because they had to write and write and write their way through their thinking. Repeatedly. And they were willing to do that because the NWP helped me to understand how to build a classroom environment where it was safe to start over again and again until we got it right. #

It led to a class where five students and I explored the idea that blogs might be a place where we could write with and for the world. Their ideas about blogging have been published and republished and shared and reshared and mixed and remixed because the NWP gave me practical ways to respect my students as co-learners. #

My participation in the National Writing Project led to the creation of CyberCamp. And the work of the Digital Learning Collaborative. And pretty much every other piece of work I’ve done as an educator that I am proud of has roots in the work of the NWP. In my work, I try to model that teachers have much to learn from each other and that we should always be doing the work that we ask of our students. Always. And, of course, ten minutes of focused writing now and then never, ever hurt. #

I can tell you many more stories about the NWP’s influence on my work², but I think you get the idea. #

Our federal government, I believe, wants to do right by children and by the country. But they don’t have a handle on what thoughtful teaching looks like. As I watch the Congress gut support for the NWP, along with NPR and other programs, I realize that, as I’ve heard again and again in writing project conversations here, there and everywhere, there’s no one coming to save us. There is no Superman waiting to swoop in and set things right. #

It’s up to us to do so. We. Right here. Right now. And you know what? #

We are enough. #

Teachers can teach teachers, and politicians and anyone else who needs some learning. #

That’s the lesson of the National Writing Project, and that’s what I remember and will focus on as I head back to the telephone and the keyboard later tonight to remind my elected representatives of the importance of thoughtful teaching and learning infrastructure in our great nation. #

I want to live in a country that honors the important work of teaching and learning. I want to live in a country where thoughtfulness about how we teach and learn is an essential piece of that work. I want a government that understands that you can use a little bit of money to make an awful lot of difference. Children who can read and write well are a precious national resource. Groups like the National Writing Project, groups that so thoughtfully help children and teachers to become better writers, deserve federal support. #

So, yeah, I support the National Writing Project. I believe in teachers teaching teachers to make a difference for students. You? #

1. Actually, that’s not quite true – I knew that I would be a teacher of writing who wrote alongside his students. I just didn’t realize how truly exceptional that actually was. The NWP is an exceptional group of teachers. And the door’s always open for others to join the conversation.
2. And I’d be happy to if you ask me to.

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Here’s the first, from a video I was listening to Sunday¹ while I folded and sorted laundry: #

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That hit me so hard I had to put the laundry down and pull out a computer so that I could get it down. #

And here’s the second: #

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Caught that as I was getting into the car Monday afternoon².  Again, had to jot that down. #

Two times, in two days, teaching’s all about love.  And that resonates with me right now.  Deeply.  And I wonder if we don’t have enough love at school. #

I don’t mean the “leave room for the Holy Spirit” at the school dance kind of love, or the awkward sideways hug kind of love or the “uh oh in the newspaper” kind of love.  I mean this kind: Respect.  Kindness.  Compassion.  Acceptance.  Admiration.  Awe.  The kind that young men in our culture are supposed to eliminate from their persons at around age eleven.  You know.  When they “grow up.” #

In today’s podcast, I flesh out that idea, and a few ideas raised by it, further.  I mention Dean and his podcast and the quotes I’ve already shared with you.  I’d love, ahem, to hear your take on this. #

I suspect I’ve more to say on the subject. Hopefully, you do, too. #

Direct Link to Audio #

1. I’m on a serious Mr. Rogers kick right now.  Both his show with my kids and his thoughts and ideas for me.  And it’s good for me.  If you want to catch the full interview, which I’d highly encourage, here it is. The quote’s about six minutes in.
2. You can catch the interview that I heard here. I can’t grab his book right now, which sounds important.  But it’s on my list.

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Today, I encouraged folks to explore their writing habits, tools and toys, with the idea that we’ve all got a lot to share with each other¹, and that we also can stand to spend some time thinking together about our own practices and habits. #

We’ve written together, shared some ideas, and, hopefully, will leave thinking about what we want to tinker with next when it comes to our writing and our students’ writing. #

Some of my favorite writers happened to stop by, too.  Nothing wrong with that. #

Those documents that I linked to above, by the way, are completely open.  Feel free to add your ideas to them.  I hope they’re useful to you, if nothing else as a lens into your own writing practices. #

1. Often, we know more than we think we do. But we have to stop and make time in order to see that.  Doesn’t take much time.  Just a little.  You can write a lot in ten minutes.

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Bud, Troy, and the entire audience were engaged in a continual conversation that moved from notes appearing on the screen, to questions from the audience, back to one of one of them answering on stage, and out to the wider world through Twitter and Etherpad. Sara’s thinking was with us in the room, even though she wasn’t physically present.  Over the course of the hour, we shared a number of examples from our own teaching and research that helped illuminate issues related to filtering, curriculum, assessment, and teaching in digital spaces. We were, in short, completely engaged in the conversation, in “multitasking” at its best. And that brings us to where we are now, preparing to offer more reports from cyberspace. #

So, why write about that here, three weeks from the next session/conversation? #

We do so as an invitation. #

A conference session is a waypoint, a time and place to check in on where we’ve been, but more important, where we’re going.  So before we get to that waypoint, let’s take a moment to share our own reports from cyberspace as a way of starting this conversation.  Here is a link to an open Google Doc where we’ve left space for you to jot some thoughts as we move into our time together.  If you can join us for the session at NCTE, great.  But if not, and you’d still like to report or check in, feel free to do so. #

Here are some prompts that will take us into our session.  Help yourself to whichever one(s) will be the most useful in your thinking and reporting: #

• What’s the state of your educational cyberspace at this moment in November 2010?  What’s good?  What’s scary?  What’s working?  What’s not?
• What needs doing?  Fixing?  Raising up?
• Where are you focusing your attention?
• Where are we going with all of this Internet stuff?  What’s new?  What’s good?
• Finally, what do you hope to leave our session with?  What’s next?  So what?

If the reporting ends at the session, then we’ve failed. Conferences are notorious spaces, in that we all get together and get excited, but then the momentum seems to die. Help us figure out where to go and what to do next. In a time of increased standards and assessments, when everyone is an expert on matters of teaching and learning, and reading and writing, we need to tell our stories. It’s never been more important to be thoughtful out loud. #

Troy Hicks, Bud Hunt, and Sara Kajder #

PS – If you can’t make the session, but will be at NCTE, you’ll have another chance to join us immediately after this session at the Middle Level Get Together.  We’d love to see you, and hear your report(s), wherever you’ll choose to join us. #

1. I don’t use this word often.  But it was a really interesting conversation, both in content and in process.

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In light of the significance of writing in our national life, to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in, and to help writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives,October 20, 2010, will be celebrated as The National Day on Writing. The National Day on Writing will #

• celebrate the foundational place of writing in Americans’ personal, professional, and civic lives.
• point to the importance of writing instruction and practice at every grade level, for every student and in every subject area from preschool through university. (See The Genteel Unteaching of America’s Poor.)
• emphasize the lifelong process of learning to write and composing for different audiences, purposes, and occasions.
• recognize the scope and range of writing done by the American people and others.
  honor the use of the full range of media for composing.
• encourage Americans to write and enjoy and learn from the writing of others.

So, because anyone can create a gallery at the National Gallery of Writing, and since I figured that many of you, when you write, are writing about education and technology, I thought that it might be a nice opportunity¹ to write together about, well, something else. It’s good to mix it up a little, at least from time to time. #

So I’ve made a gallery called EduBloggers Not Eduing, Teching, or Blogging that’s for edubloggers² to use for sharing writing about NOT education or technology for a change. If you’d like. #

Here’s the submission guideline for my gallery. It’s not very helpful, but I think it does what it needs to: #

This space is open to any edublogger (self-identified) who wants to contribute a piece of writing. One rule – You can’t write about technology in education. That’s it. Otherwise, whatever you want to write is fair game. #

If folks’d find it useful, I’d be happy to put a few prompts out during the day tomorrow. But I’m thinking you don’t need me to. You’ve things to say, or describe, or define, or explore, with words. #

Right? #

So I’ll look forward to seeing your submissions there to honor the National Day on Writing, no matter where you call home. How are you otherwise celebrating the National Day onWriting? #

1. or excuse, if you prefer
2. You are one if you think you are.

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