Category Archives: Writing

#NPM2013: Here We Go Again

Posted on by
6

For the last few years, I’ve posted a photo prompt a day in honor of National Poetry Month.  Some folks write poems here in the comments to the prompt.  Other folks write other places.  Some students see these as warmups in class.  The rules aren’t important – what is is that you take a few minutes this month, whenever you’re able, to write and read poems.  There are plenty of other folks making better prompts, too, but this little project helps me remember to make time for poetry.

I hope you’ll follow along.  The first prompt of the month goes live in a few minutes.  The others will hit around midnight Mountain time each day of the month.  I hope you’re making time for poetry.  And time, too, to make poems of your own.

Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

Up Up Down Down . . .

Posted on by
1

Page 0 1

  1. Thinking about the ease of pushing handwriting to the Web. Been playing with styli and tablets lately – and it’s funny how much I’ve missed scrawling analog notes with a pen or pencil.  Even ordered a fresh pile of notebooks today.  The paper kind.  It’s the inability to move from analog to digital and back that’s bothered me – but maybe that’s not such a big deal anymore.

    I’m also thinking about how small changes to a system can fiddle in large ways with the system.  If you know where to make the changes.  I played Contra very, very differently when I was near well invincible. [↩]

Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

Writing in Public

Posted on by
7

It happened to me again last week, as it does from time to time.  I wrote something that I felt needed to write, to say something I felt needed to be said, and as a result, some people’s feelings were hurt.

I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings.  I suspect you don’t either.  But it’s tricky to move in directions that always result in happiness for all.  In fact, when it comes to issues of change and reform and fiddling with the essential elements of a system built by people, it’s likely that suggesting that something change results in someone taking it personally.

I try not to do that when the change suggested is directed at me.  That said, I feel like we collectively  are too nice to one another in our public discourse, or we are completely monstrous.  The middle ground is narrow and slippery and tricky to navigate.

It’s always easier to talk about big problems at a global level, to suggest change for all, but not change for a specific system, like our own.  But I find that the global comments directed at everyone are also too often directed at no one, and that’s no good, either.

I am reminded as I write this of the Four Agreements, a text that my friend and colleague often reminds me of.  Those agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

I suspect we all struggle to live up to those in all that we do.  And I try to always expect that folks are living by some version of them.  But I fail to not take things as personally as I’d like all the time, and I know others struggle with that.  I also know that I do make assumptions about the folks that I work with – I try to always, in the words of Adaptive Schools language, presume positive intentions in others, even when I’m not sure.  Especially when I am not sure.

But change breaks eggs.  And can hurt feelings.  And it’d be easier to not act for fear of causing harm.  I’ve always been a big fan of the Society for Professional Journalists’ code of ethics, specifically their call to those seeking truth to work, as they aim to tell that truth, to minimize harm.   They advocate that this looks like this:

Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.

Journalists should:
— Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
— Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
— Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
— Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.
— Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
— Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.
— Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.
— Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.

And they recognize that, while you might cause some harm, there’s often a greater good at work.  Tread carefully, but don’t not tread.

There’s paralysis in the moments after words I’ve written cause someone harm, and that paralysis is poisonous.  It sends my stomach on every roller coaster I’ve yet experienced, costs me sleep, and incites a healthy pile of self-doubt.1  But I realize there’s work to be done, and things to explore and wonder out loud in public about.  Many times in the almost eight years I’ve been blogging, something I’ve written has led someone to question my motives, or to suggest that it’d be better if I didn’t share in public.  Maybe, I’m often told, it’d be safer to not say anything.

And I think that’s wrong.  We don’t share in public enough.  We avoid action too often because we want to play safe and nice and not bother anyone.  That’s not the world I want to live in.  That’s not the person I want to be.  That’s not the world I want my children to enter into.  I want them to be agents for something, rather than passive participants in their lives.

And that’ll cause hurt sometimes.  Okay.  I can live with that.  Right now, at least.  At just this second of understanding.  Which I’ll do my best to preserve and protect.

How do you work to minimize harm while you also work to advocate for the change you believe in?  And what do you do when you cause harm, unintentionally or otherwise?

  1. I’m in the middle of doubting myself right now.  I’m writing right now to try to free myself a bit from that. [↩]
Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

So Why the End Comments After Two Weeks, Then?

Posted on by
8

I’ve often read that endnotey and heavily annotated papers, returned to students after a week or two, aren’t terribly useful for improving student writing, and yet I see that that’s how many teachers seem to “grade” papers. That annotation work that the teacher “has” to do also is given as a reason why more writing doesn’t happen at school. It takes hours of time, time that’s often stolen not from the schedule of the school day, but the teacher’s family or home life.

I don’t get why we continue to think that’s the way it has to be.

In this morning’s WSJ, Doug Lemov has a piece on practice, plugging his new book, and he writes this:

The anecdote suggests the many ways that instructors, in talking about practice, are just as likely to get things wrong as to get them right. Here, social science can help. Research has established that fast, simple feedback is almost always more effective at shaping behavior than is a more comprehensive response well after the fact. Better to whisper “Please use a more formal tone with clients, Steven” right away than to lecture Steven at length on the wherefores and whys the next morning.

I wonder how we might create structures for writing with students that are more about whispering alongside them rather than authoritatively annotating their written work after the fact. The more I use Google Docs for commenting and collaborative writing, the more I feel like that’s on the right track – but how do we change the perception that the teacher’s job is to scribble all over work after the student’s on to the next thing?

Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

Follow Up to Today’s (Well, Okay, Yesterday’s) Blogging Conversation

Posted on by
12

It was a real treat to get to spend an hour in conversation with some of my blogging and writing teachers on Thursday.  We were assembled at Connected Learning TV by Jabiz to talk about student blogging.  I hope we get to have round two soon – there was plenty more to talk about.  Here’s the recording:

And a few further thoughts.  If I had to give my stump speech for blogging, the talking points would look something like this:

  • Blogging should be a habit, not a unit.  Multiple blogging units for students as they move through an institution makes for a really creepy digital graveyard of barely begun texts.  Better to build the habit early on and practice as you go.  Therefore . . .
  • Blogging should be buiit into the infrastructure of the learning institution, not up to the whims of a particular teacher or teachers.
  • Blogs can be really interesting containers – you can put pretty much any digital stuff into a blog that you’d ever want to – but they should also be playful playgroundy spaces.  Blogs are much better as places of play rather than places of expectation.
  • Of course, the thing about toys and choices is that sometimes you’ve got to be able to choose not to play at all.  Otherwise, you’re not really playing.  Well, you are, but you’re playing a game that isn’t blogging.  It’s called school.  And that game isn’t always all that fun to play.
I said during the webinar that I felt like the infrastructure that we build, support and maintain should feel more like an invitation than an obligation.  We should make spaces and places on the Web where we’d actually like to spend time, and we should be working to bring other folks in to the party.  I think that’s the kind of work that Jim and Alan do.  They play in public and invite others to play along.  I think that Jabiz does that in his classroom.
Maybe I’ve been forgetting to do that lately.

 

Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

The Podcast: On Sunsets and Arguments

Posted on by
4

In today’s podcast, actually recorded yesterday, I respond to a response to a response to a piece in The Atlantic that is about writing in school.

Basically, I try to explain that we’ve got some silly false binaries in our heads when it comes to writing instruction.  At the heart of it, writing is about learning how to pay attention.  (At least sometimes.)

Pay attention during the podcast and tell me what you think.

Direct Link to Audio

Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

You Should Probably Just Grade Less

Posted on by
77

I have the pleasure of getting to pop in to the 2012 CSUWP Summer Institute this week and next, helping in a variety of small roles. Yesterday, I was present for a discussion of Because Digital Writing Matters, a common text for the SI that I think is worth your time to read if you’ve not yet had the opportunity.

I was there as someone who knows a bit about digital writing, and so a question was posed to me by a teacher in the group. She’s working on an inquiry project about how technology can be useful to streamline grading. I believe her question was something like “How can I streamline my grading practice using technology.” She was hoping I could suggest some things she might try.

I don’t think she liked my answer.

I suggested that she might want to remove the words “using technology” from the question, as most of the things that I think would streamline a teacher’s practice when it comes to grading are things that have very little to do with technology.

For starters, I think teachers, in general, grade too many things. So one way to streamline would be to “grade” less. And that doesn’t mean that teachers shouldn’t ask students to write, and write often. But we don’t need to grade everything that comes to us. In fact, we should grade very little of it. Heck, and I know this’ll sound a bit weird, but we shouldn’t even read all the writing we ask students to do.

One of the choices that a writer makes, and that a student writer should get to make, too, is when and how and where and with whom we share our writing. Reading and grading everything doesn’t help there. Nor is it manageable for the teacher. I find that we’ve built an expectation into school that teachers are there to write lots of notes in margins and markup student writing.

We’ve built the wrong expectations.

In an #engchat conversation a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that we should take Peter Elbow’s suggestion to read and respond less like evaluators and more like interested readers. I suggested that a copy of Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers would be worth reading.

Another thing that I suggested, before thinking about technology options, is that we need to make sure the assignments we are asking of students are the right things to be asking them to do. And, we need to build structures that support our students reading and writing and making things in partnership with each other.

Then I think I did suggest that many tools of the Web can help to make the work of putting writing in to each others’ hands and eyeballs easier than ever. But that only matters if you’re thinking about how you want students to spend their time. I’m eager to help this teacher in her inquiry work – the question, with or without the last two words, is a good one and worth her time.

Were I thinking about it, I probably would’ve recommended Dave’s recent posts about contract grading. While he’s teaching at the university level, I think they provide some useful ideas for thinking about assessment.

Too often, when we reach for technology, we do so in the service of something that isn’t just a technology issue. When a grading load is unreasonable. that’s likely not a technology problem. Taking a look at the whole picture is sometimes necessary before moving to suggestions of new tools or platforms. Then we can look for tools or apps or whatever that will help us do what needs doing. The problem is, taking that look takes longer than handing out a list of apps or websites.

So guess which thing happens?

Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

Responding to Responses to “What Automated Essay Grading Says To Children”

Posted on by
8

I wrote a post the other day about what I feel like the use of machine scoring for student writing looks like to children.  The responses were strong.  I thought it made sense for me to clarify what I was saying, what I wasn’t saying, and what I didn’t say.

Let’s tackle the last one first.  I didn’t say that I’m unsympathetic to the idea that more writing would happen if there was less grading to do.  Certainly, one reason that writing isn’t happening enough in classrooms now is that there’s a perception that every piece written must be “marked” or “graded” or “bled upon” by a teacher.  That’s completely false and a terrible idea.

What our students need isn’t so many end comments or suggestions for grammatical or technical correction, but they need to be responded to as writers by readers who are reading their work.  Peter Elbow says this far smarter than I ever could, but we teachers should be doing less evaluating and more responding.

So, yes.  Teachers are taking too long with papers.  The answer isn’t to stop reading them. It’s to read them differently.  Or to have more teachers reading fewer students’ writing.  And we don’t need to read everything that a student writes.  We certainly don’t need to grade everything a student writes.

Where I think this gets messy is, as evidenced by Justin’s comment, is the notion that students need more grading from us in order to get better as writers.  They do not.  They need for we teachers to write with them, and to create cultures of inquiry and reflection rather than regurgitation in our classrooms.  They need to be treated as apprentice writers and brought up accordingly.

Robotic graders are for people too busy to read the work our students are investing in.  That’s not fair to our students.

Now, to clarify.  I’ve ben in classrooms where existing writing assessment software has been used, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what I’ve seen.  My most recent experience with a writing assessment tool was in a middle school classroom in my school district, where a gifted teacher was using the tool as a starting place for her writing courses.  The software did free her up to be in conversation with her students about their writing.  That was just the right way for her and the class to be – the students drafting, the teacher conversing and reading and being with her students.

The students wrote more and revised more.  In talking with them, they felt a connection to their teacher and that she was concerned for them as writers.  The software was a scaffold, and a place to start.

I was okay with that.  More than okay.  The teacher made the classroom shine.  The software augmented the teacher.  She could’ve run a similar, maybe not as prolific, writing workshop with her students using only paper and pencil.

And she read what they wrote.  And encouraged them to share their writing with each other.

Writing for a machine to read all the time, though, is not really writing.  It’s pretending.  It’s make believe.  And not the good and playful kind.  It’s faking it when there’s not an other someone reading at least some of the work.  We want our students to write well not because they’ll need to do so in some far off future job.  We want them to write well because they have something important to say to the world right now.

So let me clarify further.  I get how the computers do the “reading” that they do1.  And I won’t completely knock it.  It’s handy if you need to score a bunch of tests in a hurry. And that’s one kind of writing – writing as proof of knowing.  But it’s writing that assumes unimportance.

And it’s writing that suggests that the students could build their own robot essay writers to write their essays for them.  In fact, that’s what an awful lot of student “cheating” cases are – they’re crowdsourcing their homework.  Some students do that out of malicious intent.  Others out of ignorance.  But too many students fake their way through essays out of boredom, and out of the knowledge that the teacher’ll be in a hurry and probably not notice.

You’ve got to notice what your students are doing.  And you’re going to miss some things.  But you can’t miss all of them.  Maybe even most.

I don’t think a machine grading writing is the end-all of everything I hold dear.  I’m sympathetic to the argument that our students need to write more and perhaps the machines will encourage that.  But the fervor with which I suspect machine grading of writing will be adopted suggests the real problem – we don’t actually want to read and write with our students.  We want to do reading and writing to them.  And that’s wrong.

  1. By the way, Justin’s series on automated essay grading is worth your time if you want to understand the processes and processing involved. [↩]
Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

What Automated Essay Grading Says To Children

Posted on by
18

“Your thoughts and ideas and writing are so important that, rather than investing in other people to mentor you and nurture your abilities, I’m going to have you put your words into a machine so I don’t have to be bothered to look at them.”

It’s a mixed message.

I’m all for students writing more. There is not enough writing occurring in schools. But someone should be reading the precious texts we ask of our students. They are too important to be left to machines.

Or, perhaps, we should be rethinking what we ask students to write. And when. And why.

Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare

#NPM2012: Let’s Begin Again, Again

Posted on by
6

National Poetry Month begins in a few days, on April 1st, of course1 and with it, I’ll begin again each day of the month with a prompt, an invitation, if you’d like one, to write a poem.

I don’t always write a poem every day, and you certainly don’t have to, either, but if you’d like to, and you need a nudge, they’ll be here.  Each day, a little after midnight Mountain, a new picture, and perhaps a sentence or two, will be on the blog to encourage you to write a poem.  Write in the comments, or on your own web space, or on paper if you’d like.  But write something sometimes.  I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and folks seem to find it useful.

It’s good to play with words.  It’s good to read and think about poems.  I hope that this National Poetry Month you find time for poetry.

  1. No foolin’. [↩]
Google+EvernoteEmailWordPressRead It LaterInstapaperShare