Opening The Door A Bit Wider

The chaos of my learning

Premises I believe in:  People are messy.  Learning is messy.  And people learning stuff is super messy.

I kind of fell in love with Thomas Newkirk (shhh, don't tell Tobey) while reading the first chapter of his book, Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones.  I really liked how he described expression as "too individual and idiosyncratic to be evaluated by a machine" (4).  And then he started dropping expressions like "mechanized literacy" and "totalitarian logic" and I was hooked.

And while I could go on at length about the ideas I found interesting and applicable in this book, I am going to focus on two--depth over breath people!  My first "Ah ha!" moment in the reading was in Chapter Five "Popular Culture as a Literacy Tool" when Newkirk describes the use of movies as a "scaffold" for writing.  Mind blown.  Seriously.  I'd never thought of it that way. Allowing/encouraging students to create a new writing piece based on a pre-existing story is the equivalent of using sentence starters to help them transition to a new idea or refute a claim.  Students don't have to worry about being overwhelmed by the possibilities, the paralysis that sometimes overtakes us when we must build from scratch.

Unconstrained choice can be as disabling, as paralyzing as unconstrained direction (147).

The characters, conflict, props, setting, etc. have all been established allowing students to build upon or remix the basic elements of the story.  It's a way in for students who are overwhelmed by writing.  Training wheels for would-be storytellers.  Genius!

Newkirk also emphasizes the importance of validating student interest arguing that "the surest way to alienate any group is to indicate that their allegiances and interest are not respected." (109).  Just because you could care less about dragons or Asking Alexandria (ugh) doesn't mean that your students interests aren't worth exploring.  Interest fosters engagement.  If we forget this, we alienate students from their own learning.  At the high school level, the emphasis is on analytic writing.  All of our writing PD is focused on how to help the students craft better arguments.  Yet instead of allowing them to choose issues they feel passionate about, we force students to write about prescribed MCAS driven topics.  And we wonder why so many students hate to write.

I loved how Newkirk challenged the artificial dichotomy between "serious" writing and pleasure:

Any effort to teach analytic or reflective literacy skills [. . .] is built on the premise of engagement, for analysis is an unpacking of our reactions and involvement.  Without that engagement, there is nothing to unpack--indeed, no reason to read or write in the first place (129).

So that's my goal this year.  To provide students with more opportunities to play, to explore, to create.  I still want them to learn to construct powerful arguments but I'm going to take a cue from Gary McPail and open the door a little wider when it comes to what kids write about.

What the Hack?

Confession:  I hate the use of the word "hack" in educational context--Hack Jam, Toy Hack, what have you. It just feels gimmicky.  But I love, repeat love, the concept of hacking (ugh. I feel dirty writing it).  So I've opted to use the words tinker, remix, reimagine, redefine in its place.

I thought about my toy remix the entire drive home from RIC.  I even forced my husband to help me brainstorm some ideas.  The best we could come up with was to melt down some of Malcolm's toy soliders and recreate them into something innocuous like a bunny.  I nixed this concept because I felt like a true remix should leave some trace of the original toy.  If we'd melted down the soldiers, at some point they would cease being soldiers and just revert to liquidified plastic.  While I'm sure there's some fancy way to explain that transformation--Who are we really? Are we all just liquidified plastic at the core waiting for society to mold us into being?--I didn't want to go there.  I was more interested in the notion of relooking at something whose purpose/function you have taken for granted and trying to figure out what else it could be.

This is what I love about the concept of tinkering.  It forces you to not only think outside the box but to reimagine the box althogether.  (It's not a box, dammit!  It's a portal to the Xeres quadrant in the Flotsum galaxy!)  Just because Toy R Us says this thing is a sandtoy doesn't mean that it's the only thing it can be.  It gives you the creator control, puts you in the driver seat.

Little kids are good at this kind of thinking.  That's not a bucket, it's a hat.

That's shovel?  See that shovel there?  Yes, the one as big as my head.  That'd make an awesome spoon. Hand it over.

But as the opportunities to tinker, discover, and create are slowly replaced by more passive forms of learning, our ability to see possibilities atrophies.  And so we begin to accept the version of the world that is presented to us.  It is, what it is.

There is a danger to this kind of thinking.  It breeds cynicism and hopelessness; it makes you feel powerless. Tinkering helps to remind us of the complexity of things and empowers us by giving us license to explore, to fail, to try again in pursuit of a it self-determined objective.

And on that hefty note, let me present to a quick overview of my toy remix.  After abandoing the toy soldier idea, I decided to turn an old sand toy into a post-apocalyptic survival garden.  I chose the sand toy because I liked how the sand made the wheels move.  I thought it would be neat to water plants this way so I cut off the strainer at the bottom of the toy and replaced it with a plastic frying pan to make a container garden.    

In the end, my creation was only a partial success.  For while the garden actually came out quite lovely, the water stream is a bit too forceful (not to mention messy) to be a great watering mechanism.  I'm still thinking of  ways to modify my creation to make it truly functional.  Even though it's kind of jacked up, I'm ridiculously proud of it.  So much so, that I created a backstory to explain the concept behind the toy.

25 (ahhh make that 24) Word Story

When I checked my phone today, in the car on the way home from Mystic Aquarium, I noticed a tweet from Anne.

#25wordstory challenge..you in? @mthompson0703 @cookout70 @kellyjvreed @NMastroluca
— Ms. Barnhart (@Ms_Barnhart) July 21, 2013

Hmmm. . .was I? Creative writing has never come as easily to me as other forms of writing. I fall into the "It was a dark and stormy night" category of would be authors. Did I really want thousands of strangers to bear witness to my feeble attempt at creativity? After thinking it over for the rest of the car ride, I decided to go for it. Why not? What did I really have to lose? And taking risks is what we, writing workshop people, are all about, right? So I wrote (or at least tried to write) a #25WordStory:

Into the den runs a crazy-haired gremlin princess w/ a gap tooth grin. Mischievous and wild, the world is hers for the taking. #25wordstory
— Kelly J. Reed (@kellyjvreed) July 21, 2013

I know. I know. It's really a 24 word story. An embarrassing fact that I didn't noticed until after I tweeted it out to the masses.  Sigh.  I blame the aforementioned gremlin who was trying desperately to stand on the kitchen table whilst I was composing.  Still 25 words or 24, I feel pretty proud of my piece.

This is another reason I dig Twitter.  There I was just going about my day trying to keep my kids from jumping into the belgua whale tank when out of the blue I get a message from Anne seeing if I want to write a story (albeit a very short story).  Without Anne's gentle prodding and words of encouragement, I would never have written that piece, never have felt the satisfaction of creating it, sharing it.  Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are many things.  I'm not just a mom or an educator; I'm also a writer, a creator.  And I have things to say worth hearing.

Thanks for reminding me of that today Anne.  You rock!

Creating With Intention

In the chapter on presentations from Troy Hicks' Crafting Digital Writing, he defines two essential characteristics of an effective presentation--"stickiness" and storytelling.  I love this.  Particularly the idea of "stickiness."  It is a great way to start talking with our students about choice and intention in their own work and the work of others.  What stuck with you? How did the author/presenter achieve this stickitude? 

Wouldn't it be cool after discussing the criteria of effective presentations and viewing models to have students "hack" a terrible presentation?  To remix it, revamp it, reshoot it, to enhance its effectiveness?  Kids could turn boring PowerPoint presentations into movies, interactive timelines, podcasts, infographics, etc. If the objective--to enhance a presentation's message using digital tools--is all we care about.  The sky's the limit. Even if it was as simple as a student using a more interactive data visualization tool (like Infogr.am) to bring to life a static, two-dimensional graph, there would still be a valuable conversation to be had about choice and impact when it comes to representing data/information.

GDP Comparison Over Time | Infographics

These are the experiences and conversations which will hopefully increase the "stickiness" of our own instruction.  I can tell my students that their presentations should be "simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and storylike" (Hicks 2013, p. 73).  But if I really want them to internalize this message, I need them to play around with these concepts. To judge their work against the models that we've analyzed together in class. To see for themselves what works and what doesn't work.

Personally, I've been guilty of denying my students the opportunity to get messy, to tinker.  I've diligently gone over my expectations for the presentation of their work--and yes I've even required a set number of slides--only to be disappointed, angry even, when the students "failed" to live up to those expectations. Looking back, it's clear that I was the one who had failed.  I just assumed they'd figure "it" out on their own. I mean I'd told them to use "powerful visuals," to "limit the amount of text" on each slide,  right?

We have to do better than give students a checklist of criteria and hope that they'll figure it out.  If we truly wish them to become powerful producers of digital content, then we have to teach them how to make purposeful decisions, to "think intentionally about creating meaning" in a digital medium (p. 13).  Adults sometimes drink too much of the "digital native" kool aid.  But Hicks reminds us that just because students are "tech comfortable" doesn't necessarily mean that they are "tech savvy" (p. 20).  Just because a student knows what Tumblr is or has made a Vine, doesn't necessarily mean that he/she is a producer of meaningful digital content.

The danger in forgetting this is that we sometimes fail to act as the guides/mentors students need to fully tap into the potential as learners and creators.  To be truly creative, one needs to know so much more than how to operate a piece of technology. Technology isn't a tool until you figure out how to manipulate it to your fit your needs--not the other way around.  A rock was just a rock until someone figured out it could also be a hammer.  

Wrapping up, I encourage you to read my blog post, Youth in Action, to see what kids are capable of creating with the guidance and support of their teachers.