The Community Writing Project
Last year I put together a website for my 4th graders to publish on. I called it Tell the Raven because we have a totem pole in the schoolyard. Totem poles aren’t normally found in the interior of Alaska. They come from Northwest coastal people. This totem pole was carved by a Tsimpshian carver from Metlakatla, who has a residence here, and it has a story in which Raven carries a message of love, kindness, and respect around the world. I thought it was a good theme for the website.
This writing project came together for me midyear last year, when I put together a Drupal installation on a domain that I set up without charge through the Lunarpages education program.
I commented recently to a post by Nancy Brodsky, who was writing about her planning process, and today she looked at the possibilities for student web publishing with fresh eyes, on her Inquiry blog. She included a link to a post called Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom about issues around public and private classroom blogs. I left her a new comment, and as I was doing so I recognized that I could say a little more about my classroom project.
I didn’t want to encourage students to publish personal journals. I didn’t expect them to want to write fiction so much, either, but that was a choice I honored. I approached the project in the context of a school assignment. I wanted them to practice good form, and to be judicious about personal disclosures. This was the topic of conversation for us in writing conferences. Because the writing was public, my students were more interested in learning about conventions of print than they are when they’re merely being graded.
My principal saw this, as he regularly makes rounds of the classrooms, and he asked me if I wanted to include other staff members in the project. I’ll present the project to our staff at a meeting soon and see if there’s interest. One of the reasons that I chose Drupal is that it allows groups and memberships with different sets of permissions. Maybe we’ll be able to use this installation building-wide, and the kids can continue their work on it from year to year. The little classroom writing project may soon grow.
updated: see with fresh eyes for my comment. I should learn not to repeat myself.
thegirlwhopaintedtrees wrote,
Doug, Your comments on Nancy’s blogs and this post have been helpful. I left you some questions at her post “With Fresh Eyes”. I’ve also linked your sites on my blog. I hope you don’t mind.
How do you introduce the class blog to your students in the fall? I’m going to start with my third graders this year and am not quite sure how to start.
Here’s a random question: How do you file a post under categories? Is there specific html for that or does it depend on the blog service used?
Thanks.
Link | August 16th, 2006 at 12:56 am
Doug wrote,
I started to leave a response to you over at Inquiry but I decided to limit my conversation about this with you to one place, to keep it simple.
I’m glad you find any of my experience helpful, but I am still rather new at the business myself, so I don’t have a set procedure for any of this. It all “just happened” in a natural way. This year I’m going to be a little more deliberate about it. How to introduce the kids this year will involve showing them the site from last year. That’s about as far as I’ve got with the planning.
As for the category business, I don’t think you can do that easily with Blogger, yet, if you’re using Blogger. You are correct that different blogging platforms offer different management options. I think you might be interested in Mark Ahlness’s classroom blog. He works with third graders, and had them blogging last year. He uses Blogmeister, which is set up for classroom blogging. Mark recently compiled all of the links to his writing about classroom blogging last year.
Link | August 16th, 2006 at 5:41 am
nani wrote,
Thanks for the link to Mark’s blog! I’m putting it in my arsenal.
Link | August 16th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Mark Ahlness wrote,
Doug, this very uplifting news to hear, thanks for sharing it. Those who go to staff meetings like you, who walk in shoes just like yours, appreciate hearing about your success. Good luck with presenting it to your staff (boy, would I like to be a fly on the wall at that meeting), but mostly, good luck to you with your kids this year! - Mark
Link | August 16th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
Doug wrote,
Until now, I haven’t talked about the Borderland blog with any of the teachers I work with. That’s changing, and it should be interesting. It’s fascinating to watch students who see each other every day leave written comments on one anothers’ Tell the Raven posts. I wonder, will my local colleagues do the same? I’d like that.
I think that teachers need to have a basic understanding about the read/write web in order to participate on Tell the Raven - more than I can communicate in a single presentation - so I expect that if there’s as much interest as I hope there will be, we’ll set up a short course in social software applications. My initial presentation is going to be a brief invitation to the whole group, with a bit of show and tell. It would be a lot of fun to get a big part of the staff creatively working with online media.
[Maybe one of them will read this and see me about it...]
Link | August 16th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Graham Wegner wrote,
Doug, your writing project shows that online read/write technology doesn’t have to wear the tag of blogging to be engaging and authentic to kids. I’m still not sure what to make of the fact that educators scattered all around the globe are far more interested in what I do than my own staff colleagues. It has something to do with the reciprocal nature of blogging that means mutual interest with the far flung readers and responders while my closer staff members are either unaware or disinterested. I still think that most of my staff still view blogging as “that weird thing Graham does” and the one or two who read my blog keep a low profile because they might feel obliged to “deprivatise” their practice and ideas with me. I might comfortable or nonchalant about putting my ideas out in the open but those private people who keep their own teaching methodologies out of the spotlight within their local site might just be scared off by that cavalier attitude and view blogging as the absolute antithesis to the way they operate. I think you have posted in the past also about the Tell Raven site gaining more attention and feedback from beyond your own borders compared with your local community - your own blog (and mine too) mirrors that reality. Does this mean without the web and blogging/read/write technologies that no-one would be listening to either of us!!
Link | August 16th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Doug wrote,
Graham,
This is an interesting turn of conversation, since it brings the possibility of me talking over the heads of people who I know, and who may very well read this. I wouldn’t say that nobody listens to me offline, but people take more time to think about what I have to say when they read Borderland. The day to day world is driven by practical needs, and there isn’t a social forum at work where we can follow all of the philosophical rabbit trails we might be inclined to run down. I speak up at staff and committee meetings, and my colleagues know where I stand. They listen to me, I think. But in Borderland - and my classroom - I have a microphone and a stage of my own.
I like the way you explain the gap between the global and local community with the phrase “reciprocal nature of blogging. The gap may have nothing whatsoever to do with geography. I sometimes wonder if I would read or respond to blogs if I didn’t blog myself, and I think that I wouldn’t bother. I see blogging as a cultural form, and most people who aren’t into it have their reasons.
I’ve been thinking lately about the lack of local impact blogging has because of the way the audience is thinly spread around the world, and I’m considering ways to impact more people locally. I don’t want to start spouting off about a bunch of stuff that “I’m gonna do” until I actually start doing it, so we’ll see how that goes. It means more time, and a different sort of public engagement. If teacher bloggers want to make a difference in the world, I believe we have to pay attention to opportunities close to home. Taking my little classroom project schoolwide is a start, and I hope it happens.
Link | August 17th, 2006 at 5:29 am