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.

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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. #

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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’.

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• There’s a recurring theme here that, if the mission “students should be making things here” is stuck to, other constraints (time, logistics, resources, etc.) can be worked through. Yeah.
• Bringing in students to make things is a pretty simple idea, but a resonating one. How can we promote more situations like these for students? And, as I’m in a suburban and rural area, I wonder about what spaces beyond big city museums can be places for students to come into to make things with. Where can we send kids out and whom can we invite in to be in making together?
• Panelists have mentioned that they are not fiddling with the work produced by the students. “We don’t edit the students’ projects,” one panelist said. There’s an interestingness in the idea that students can say things to museums that the museums themselves cannot say, for a variety of institutional and logistical reasons. I’m struck by the reminder of the power of an outsider voice being brought into an institution. This is a two-way thing, of course. And having outside eyes, ears, and voices in your space is a valuable way to see that which you cannot. But it requires an intentional desire to invite in outsiders. I wonder about when our schools and classrooms are inviting outsiders in, and how long they can remain outsiders.
• I’m struck by how the constraints of design processes and museum practices are useful in design process thinking. But they’re referred to here as opportunities, rather than restrictions. This is a good example of “Yes, and” thinking. I’ll say more about that in my next play post.
• I’ve been in several sessions so far here at the DML conference, and all of them expect too much listening from the audience. Not enough engagement. This isn’t a dig on this particular session – there’s certainly a culture to this conference and to conferences and institutional dissemination in general – but I’d like to see more doing in sessions like these, particularly as we’re talking about engagement.
• In the Q & A, it surfaced that the students are asked to write and reflect on their work – blogging, journaling, etc. That’s really important – but it was suggested that they have trouble getting the students to engage in those tasks.¹ I asked about how the museum staff working with them are surfacing and modeling their reflective practices. It seems to me that they should be writing with the students. I heard that the Smithsonian is working to digitize many of the journals and logs in their collections – looking forward to seeing those, but that’s not quite what I meant.
• It’s fascinating to continue to think about how museums are vibrant spaces of learning and making and being together.

1. Gever Tulley mentioned that students blog at the end of every day at his Tinkering School programs – note to myself to follow up more on that.

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2.  I’m honored to be a participant/facilitator for a session at this conference.  It’s called “Tapping into the Mutiplicity of Composition” and is a panel featuring several teachers who are making interesting things with students in the service of teaching writing and composition.  That should be a fascinating conversation. And, of course, we’ll be writing together.  Never a bad thing to do. #

To support the conversation, we’ve built a couple of Pinterest boards as ways of creating galleries that show some of the texts that students are making in the panelists’ classrooms.  A second board focuses on the testimonies of the panelists as a way of providing some background that might not surface during our conversations.  The agenda for that session is taking shape and will be finally finalized soon.  At a time when so much of the “interesting learning” that is taking place for students is taking place beyond the classroom, and sometimes in spite of it, I wonder about the role of schools moving forward into new learning landscapes.  I hope that schools see the potential in other ways of learning that haven’t been privileged in our classrooms.  I wonder how to bring the fringe learning into those spaces.  I know that the National Writing Project has a role to play in these conversations². #

3.  I’m struggling to write about some of my adventures in building cultures of play and love both in my school district as well as in my classroom.  I hope to get chunks of that thinking out here on the blog over the next few days.  My lens for this conference is basically “How do we promote cultures of learning and playfulness and care and concern for each other?”  Important. #

1. Which isn’t to say that I don’t approach teaching as a learning opportunity – but that sometimes the logistics of facilitation interfere with my ability to process what I’m learning as it’s happening.
2. Disclosure – the NWP has supported my attendance at this event.  I’m grateful for that.

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Actually, that’s not true. #

Her “problem” is that she has several really good and interesting areas where she might turn her attention and skills as a teacher researcher, but all of them are appealing to her.  She talked through three ideas that sounded fairly fleshed out and interesting, and two or three more that might workout, but are less developed.  I wanted her to tackle all of them.  And I think she did, too.  But she was stuck because, really, she could ultimately only spend the time and energy on one of them. #

I think she mostly needed to say that out loud, and to have me reinforce it.  I look forward to the one she picks. #

It came up in the conversation that she’d noticed that I was stuck lately in my own writing and exploration, as you might have noticed, too, Dear Reader.  It’s been rather quiet here on the blog, and all the other spaces where I’m writing in public lately.  It’s been rather quiet in the spaces where I write for just me, too. #

This fall’s been a busy one, and I’ve had a pretty full plate.  But that’s not really why I’ve been quiet.  See, I’ve been stuck, too. #

Maybe I’ve been distracted by all stuff I’ve been doing to see what it is that was worth doing, or maybe it’s that I’m just tired.  Or maybe it’s just that time of year for me, a time of quiet. #

Or maybe, on my worst days perhaps certainly, I’m losing my way.  Maybe I’m losing hope.  But I try to work through that.  Being without hope, in the long term, isn’t a productive place to be. #

I gave that teacher a little suggestion as we ended our conversation yesterday, and I’m thinking I might take my own advice.  She was having trouble getting started because she didn’t know what project to choose.  I’m stuck because I don’t know where I want to go next, either.  What I suggested to her was that perhaps she might start writing her way through her topics and questions, and that, along the way, she might discover what it was that was worth her doing and seeing through.  I know that’s helped me in the past, and, in fact, is pretty much why I write in spaces like this. #

She responded that she might not know who’d want to read about that, or if what she’d be writing about would be obvious to everyone else¹. #

That pushed me to one more suggestion.  I’m certainly interested in what she’s up to, and I’d like to hear from her when she thinks she’s something to say.  So, I told her, write to me.  Just do it in public.  She’s going to try. #

And that helped.  Both her and me.   I think. #

I forgot for a while.  One of the ways that I’ve always gotten myself unstuck is to try to write with one person in mind.  Writing for one person is better than writing for a universe of people.  Writing for one person might make sense.²
So I’m writing today for just one or two people that might be interested in this update.  And I’m going to try to come to the blog for a while with one or two people in mind and see where that gets me. #

Because, for so many reasons,  I can’t stay stuck for long.  Just can’t.  So maybe this will help. #

It’s certainly worth a try. #

1. In her case, as in most cases, that’s certainly not true. She has things to say that no one else can.  I bet you do, too.
2. When I wrote music, something I wish I were doing more of, and have been thinking about starting again lately, I found that the best songs I had within me were written in the second person. Maybe there’s something to that here, or at least right now.  Or maybe this is a self-indulgent post.  For the moment, to get unstuck, I’m quite content whichever it happens to be.

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I think it’s a good overview of the work that we’re up to here.  We would love to know about intersections with your work. #

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I shared this with them, a distillation of some of the descriptive and prescriptive ideas I’ve written about blogs and blogging and bloggers.  I tried to emphasize that good blogging, is a simple set of skills: reading, writing and thinking, although not necessarily in that order.  Good blogging is a continuation of the tradition of good writers and folks from pre-digital times, too.  Good blogging is paying attention and asking good questions. Thomas Paine’s name came up. #

Good blogging, too, is hard to do well.  It’s play dressed up to look like work.¹ #

My comments were nested in some of my thinking over at P2PU about the Common Core standards and what they have to say about reading and writing.  I dropped the s-bomb a few times.  Not because I wanted to, but because David Coleman, one of the architects of the standards, who’s now out on the road teaching folks what the CCSS are about, did in a talk a while back.  The larger talk he gave was about how the CCSS shifts the focus from some areas of literacy² to others, namely more emphasis on informational text and close reading and writing. #

I don’t mind that shift.  And I think some others have over exaggerated it.  But what I do mind very much is when he says this: #

Do people know the two most popular forms of writing in the American high school today? Texting someone said; I don’t think that’s for credit though yet. But I would say that as someone said it is personal writing. It is either the exposition of a personal opinion or it is the presentation of a personal matter. The only problem, forgive me for saying this so bluntly, the only problem with those two forms of writing is as you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think. What they instead care about is can you make an argument with evidence, is there something verifiable behind what you’re saying or what you think or feel that you can demonstrate to me. It is rare in a working environment that someone says, “Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.”³ #

Read like a detective and write like a conscientious investigative reporter. #

Sounds great, and there’s only one problem. #

Suppose the students whom you want to blog and write and bleed their passions on a digital page somewhere as a way of learning to read and write and think just don’t care? #

Suppose they’re indifferent about learning?   Or at least appear to be.  What do we do about that?  And what did we do to make that happen? #

1. Sometimes, with footnotes.  Footnotes look much too workish to be fun, right?
2. Read: the personal.
3. Link to the video – about 8:30 on the time code.  The unofficial transcript I’m quoting from is here.  The off the cuff reference to not giving a shit, surprisingly, isn’t in the “official transcript.”
4. One concern I do have about the CCSS is the same that I do about education policy in general right now; who decides “what counts?”
5. Which I think is the right model to aim for.

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Direct Link to Audio #

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And I get the opportunity, from time to time, to see these smart folks in action. This year, on the first day of school, MIchelle and Kyle and I took a lap around the district and happened to wander by Kevin’s classroom a few minutes into his year. #

And, boy, was he in the zone.  Already.  Inside a few minutes. #

He was  introducing reading notebooks to his students when we happened by.  We were approaching the classroom, no appointment, just saying hi, when we heard him say this: #

We are going to have thoughts as we read, and it’ll be good for us to write those down so we don’t forget them. #

Of course, the more I think about that one sentence, the more I think it sums up so much of what I think school should be – people exploring thoughtfulness. Thoughtfully. #

And I am grateful for folks like Kevin, who works with 4th graders, because I know that they are well served because he is there exploring their thinking with them. #

If your school year’s just getting going, I sure hope that you are reading something interesting, and asking your students to, and that you’re all pausing from time to time to write something that you’re thinking about down. #

And if you’re not – why aren’t you? #

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