Beyond School

An update: I wish Clarence Fisher would make a documentary of the world in his classroom. His occasional blogs about them on Remote Access only make me want to see more. (Are you listening, Clarence? Make that documentary? I’ll give you twenty thousand Korean won.)

He recently posted about how many different projects are going on, student by student, within a single unit in his classes. One student is making a Flash animation, others are producing a video, still others are making podcasts, wikis, websites, whatever. He calls it chaos and seems happier for it–and his students too.

I’m creeping farther out on that type of limb in my own practice. It only makes sense. Jeff Whipple of Whip Blog was the first to nudge me. “Clay,” he wrote, “Why don’t you allow publication on the 1001 Flat World Tales ‘blook’ to student artists, too? That way, students who are not linguistically wired, but are graphically gifted, can have their own talents recognized through publication as well. Let the student-artists illustrate the student-writers’ stories.”

It was such an eye-opener for me. I’m so verbal (and so graphically-challenged) that I was excluding all intelligences that don’t mirror mine. So Jeff persuaded me: artists, musicians (a blook with a soundtrack?? Awesome 2.0 idea!), videographers, whatever–all are welcome to beautify the blook. (Spread the word to art, film, music teachers please?)

I took these ideas from Clarence and Jeff into my 1001 Flat World Tales unit plan yesterday by inviting students who could create websites and animations to help the project with their skills. Their contributions would count toward their unit grade, despite the fact that the unit is focused on creative writing.

The wonderful thing is, the students who volunteered–who have these skills I don’t have–were almost all students who are not stellar writers. They stayed after class to hear how they could help the project with ’stellar’ skills they do have.

So soon, we’ll be launching the 1001 Flat World Tales website. It will be the artistic facade to the the wiki (which, in my graphically-challenged hands, is butt-ugly). We’ll be directing all partner classrooms around the world into the wiki via that website.

I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

I also can’t wait to figure out how to square creative chaos with traditional grading. Blech. Help?
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1. Back to the Students: Invitation to a Collaborative Flat World Writing Project (redux and update)
2. Pre-launch: 1001 Flat World Tales Website: 16 Down, 985 To Go
3. Update on the K-12 "1001+ Flat World Tales" World Writing Project

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