Beyond School

[I've been side-lined for the last week because some medication I'm taking--only for a few more days--has side-effects that make my hands shake too much to efficiently type. I'll be back soon.]

Real quick:

All these conversations about “Blogging as Conversation” spinning around right now among Jeff Utecht, Barbara at Dare to Dream, Patrick Higgins, and other sites have produced this irony: Patrick and I connected on the topic of how teachers can kill blogging for students (the thinking starts here, extends to here, here, here, becomes a conversation here, which continues here, before reaching its climax–for my practice and pedagogy, at this stage anyway–here [Updated:] and here.). He helped me think on my blog, and I tried to reciprocate on his. This stranger-reader-interlocutor and I, in short, began to “blog-converse.”

The irony? In one of those conversations, I had a bit of an “a-ha” moment about the “teachers as blog-vampires” topic above, a light-bulb in my writing and thinking (or at least a better-than-usual moment of articulating the idea)–and I had it while commenting–strikethrough–writing–on Patrick’s blog.

But it belongs here too (and I mean that seriously, despite the lightness of this post. It’s below.). So why did it feel like I would be plagiarizing if I “stole” my own comment from Patrick’s blog?

The upshot? Patrick and I, as you’ll read below, don’t know what to call what happened next. Just read it. It’s partly comic, partly neo-literacy, blog-style. Here it is, cross-posted from Patrick’s fine Chalkdust blog (with his kind permission):

More on “Conversations”

In order to get some of these ideas going a little deeper, I will re-post Clay’s comment on “Blogs as Conversations,” here:

Clay Burell said…

Patrick, you really do nail the pedagogical affordances that, in my book, only blogging offers to developing student literacy–writing AND reading.

What I’m now experiencing with my own students is this: the idea of being writers is unsettling to them. After 9 years of schooling, they have only written homework and “schooly” writing assignments–have only been students, and never writers.

So they are resistant to this shift. They don’t want to learn to be writers, because it’s harder. It makes them find their own ideas, instead of hacking out some tired exercise based on ideas that Teacher prescribed to them.

So students have to be “professionally developed” as well as teachers into what the read-write web means for their learning. It’s new to them too, and just as uncomfortable.

Which brings me back to your main point: the training I’m pushing on my students now is precisely what you highlight: reading with writing in mind; writing with an audience in mind; conversing with other writers and readers via comments; hyperlinking and connecting.

Some get it faster than others. All need to hear this: we know you’ve never been a writer, and we know you’re a novice. We’re forgiving that way. This is a long-term journey you’re starting, so start where you are as a writer, and we’ll take you as far as we can in the coming years. Trust that you’ll grow.

That sort of thing. Enjoyed your post.

This is an observation that I have not heard about too often in my travels. As digital immigrants, we expect that we will have some issues with cognitive dissonance as we enter into blogging-as-practice and pedagogy, but Clay brings up examples from what he is seeing with his students. This is new for them as well, and this is equally as hard for them. By becoming consistent writers through blogging for larger audiences, we are kicking the chair out from under them, so to speak.

Think about the structures we have always placed on the writing process. We still use those structures, only the end piece is shifted dramatically. Audience is the most intriguing factor for us as teachers of writing because of the stress it places on the earlier steps of the writing process. Just by allowing for other students to access your writing openly and without the constraint of a 40 or 80 minute class period, it places new stress (what I would call “good stress”) on the writer as he or she develops ideas, formulates syntax, and revises. Eliminating the time constraint that a student’s work is open to others really transforms the whole process.

Professional development for students? I like that one, and our teachers will like to hear that as well.

Posted by Patrick Higgins at 12:35 PM

2 comments:

Clay Burell said…

Hi Patrick,

I love this conversation. Do you mind if I cross-post your post on my blog?

Funny how vague the etiquette is about all of this.

I just want this conversation to appear on Beyond School also (not “instead of,” since I love your blog), to keep the continuity of this whole thing.

Okay by you? And can I keep the cool picture? Full credit and link to you

Clay

March 23, 2007 7:15 PM

Patrick Higgins said…

I would be honored, as would my son’s rockin’ Snoopy.

I agree about the etiquette; somewhat mannerly informal.

March 23, 2007 8:38 PM

I don’t know what to say about this all, other than that it’s another historically new literacy wrinkle brought to you by web 2.0. It’s like, “Oops–I wrote a page of my book on your book! Mind if we share?”

And I guess that’s okay. It is for me, anyway. I like writing with like-minded strangers, which is what all of us are–at first.

(Jeff Wasserman’s plug for cocomment might be a bit of a “solution” here, though I’m not sure it’s a problem. The site was down when I tried it, though.)

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)

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