National Day on Writing: Kylene Beers Leads By Example

Today is the first (hopefully annual) National Day on Writing. It includes the National Gallery of Writing, a live webcast from 9 am to 8 pm EDT, a U.S. Senate Resolution supporting it and, most importantly, lots of writing and smart folks talking about writing.

One of the smartest folks I know talking about writing is Kylene Beers. She�s done a lot of thoughtful work around reading and writing and is currently serving as the President of NCTE. Now, in addition to her tireless efforts to help us all become better readers and writers, Kylene has launched a blog of her own. As she says in her first post:

I�ll be using this space for an on-going conversation about literacy in the twenty-first century.

I really appreciate the fact that Kylene is not only talking the talk, but walking the walk. She is leading by example even though, and I think she would admit this, blogging does not come naturally to her. But see, that�s the thing, I don�t think blogging has to come �naturally� to any of us. It sure didn�t come naturally to me. But what does come naturally to Kylene is the ability to write thoughtfully about these issues, and blogging allows her to not only write about, but learn with, other really smart people thinking and working on literacy. As she says to conclude that first post:

We do write to be heard because it is in listening to one another that we do become a part of a community. Perhaps what this space is really about is community, a community of learners in the twenty-first century. Welcome!

I couldn�t have blogged it better myself.

We Can Do This. We Should Do It.

I'm way behind in my "personal professional development through RSS" (i.e., I have a lot of unread items in Google Reader), but luckily I took the time to read this post by Scott McLeod. Scott embeds two presentations given by Dr. Richard Miller, the Chair of the English Department at Rutgers University.

I'm also going to embed the two presentations below (the second one is in two parts), and I think it's well worth your time to watch both of them, particularly if you teach Language Arts, but really if you care about education at all. After each presentation I've pulled a few select quotes that really resonated with me.

The Future is Now: Presentation to the RU Board of Governors

We're living in the time of the most significant change in human expression in human history.

Do you agree? If so, what implications does that have for the way we teach Language Arts? What about other subject areas?

This is the room we're particularly proud of - the Collaboratory.

OK, when I build my school, I'm so going to have a Collaboratory. Actually, every room will be one. Perhaps that should be the name of the school?

To compose, and compose successfully in the 21st century, you have to not only excel at verbal expression, at written expression, you have to also excel in the use and manipulation of images. That's what it means to compose.

Shades of "The Yancey." Note that this is additive - no one is suggesting that words don't matter, that what we traditionally think of as "writing" is no longer important, but that the very nature of composition is more complex now, and that our instruction, our pedagogy, our learning spaces need to reflect that.

This is all building towards a larger vision of the humanities for the 21st century.

. . . In the New Humanities what we imagine at the center is this collective, collaborative kind of composition.

Social construction. Social composition.

The real function of the humanities is to engage in the art of creativity - moment by moment - to improve the quality of the world we live in.

I'm certainly not a linguist, but doesn't that get back to the root of "humanities?" And have perhaps some of our academic treatments of the humanities forgotten the human part that should be the center of our work?

That's writing in the 21st century. It's multiply authored, it's multiply produced, and that's where English is going.

Is that where English is going in your school?

---

This Is How We Dream (Part 1 and Part 2)

It has never been a more important moment for this profession, or for people who take reading and writing seriously.

Do you agree? If so, what implications does that have for your school? Your classroom?

I spent my time understanding writing as a solitary activity . . . I'm a person of the book.

Writing (composing) is no longer exclusively a solitary activity. And we need to expand our definition of composition beyond only text and beyond only a specific medium (book, research paper, academic journal).

An assignment for a class I taught for first year students called Creativity and Collaboration.

This is a class I'll be offering in my new school (The Collaboratory).

Ideas don't belong to us individually, but they belong to us as a culture. And that we as educators must be in the business of sharing ideas freely.

Shades of Pesce.

The limits and restrictions are largely ones we put on ourselves.

No excuses.

This is a way to push ideas into our culture. Why wouldn't we be at the front edge of that?

Yes, why wouldn't we?

We do not have a pedagogy on hand to teach the kind of writing I'm describing. It needs to be invented.

Alan Kay said the best way to predict the future is to invent it. The best way to figure out what composition should look like in the 21st century is to co-create it.

We can do this. We should do it.

We should get started.

I Read the (Rocky Mountain) News Today, Oh Boy

The Rocky Mountain News will be publishing its last edition tomorrow, leaving Denver as a one (major) newspaper town. And, while I�m not predicting this, with the Denver Post having tremendous difficulties as well, it�s not inconceivable to think that 12-18 months down the road Denver could be a zero newspaper town. The demise of The Rocky should presumably help the Post short term, with additional advertisers and subscribers probably coming their way, but that may not be enough to overcome the recession and their current business model.

This is sad in so many ways, not the least of which is that I believe newspapers (not necessarily the format, but the concept) are critical to a democracy. And I felt that The Rocky was doing better than most newspapers at trying to incorporate the web into their operation (obviously not profitably, though). It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out here in Colorado.

In the meantime, this spurs some questions for me. I am not particularly knowledgeable about newspapers or their business model, so I can�t really comment on that. But I wonder what this means for K-12 education, particularly here in Colorado.

What should this mean for how we teach students here in Colorado?

How does this affect where and how they find news information, and how do we as educators help them do that?

Will teachers in Colorado make the connection to their own classroom practice? Both in terms of the way publishing and audience is changing, but also in terms of how the status quo is not guaranteed to continue � and that outdated models can and will be replaced.

And, in light of Kathleen Bates Yancey�s (and the NCTE�s) call for a reexamination of writing in the 21st century, how will all teachers (not just Language Arts teachers) respond?

Perhaps most important, seen historically this 21st century writing marks the beginning of a new era in literacy, a period we might call the Age of Composition, a period where composers become composers not through direct and formal instruction alone (if at all), but rather through what we might call an extracurricular social co-apprenticeship.

NCTE is calling for teachers and students to embrace writing �authentic texts in informal, collaborative contexts� where there �isn�t a hierarchy of expert-apprentice, but rather a peer co-apprenticeship in which communicative knowledge is freely exchanged.�

Does this describe your classroom?

We have to move beyond a pyramid-like, sequential model of literacy development in which print literacy comes first and digital literacy comes second and networked literacy practices, if they come at all, come third and last.

How are you developing not only print, but digital and network literacy practices in your classroom?

Yancey�s article helps us �understand an increasingly important role for writing: to foster a new kind of citizenship.� In an age when newspapers are failing (at least in a business sense), this is going to be critical not only for our students, but for our democracy.

We need to become serious about helping students becomes citizen composers instead of good test takers.

Are your students on their way to becoming citizen composers?

Your thoughts?

Update 2-27-09: The Rocky has a "Final Edition" video up, I'm embedding it below. Also, John Temple has an article where he tries to explain some of the economics of why Denver can't support two papers.



Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Online Student Teaching?

One of the sessions I attended at the NCTE Convention was centered around online instruction. It was presented by and made up mostly of college professors, although there was at least one other high school teacher in the room. It was a very interesting session and spurred a couple of thoughts.

All the attendees discussed how their respective institutions were really pushing online instruction, both at the college level and � in the case of the high school teacher � at the high school level in Ohio (apparently they are considering a plan like Michigan�s requiring at least one online course to graduate from high school). The reasons were many, including teacher shortages, budget constraints, competing with other institutions, and responding to demand from students. They quoted the prediction that if current trends continue, by 2019 over half of all high school classes will be taught online.

They then talked briefly about some of the benefits to students (flexibility, convenience, choice), the challenges to faculty (tech literacy, significant planning, availability of resources and programs , tech support, high expectations from students regarding communication, evaluation of student�s work), and what must be done to embrace the future (training, funding to develop and implement tech to be used for online classes, meetings to design curriculum suited to online classes).

That was all good, but then the interesting thing (interesting at least to me) was that much of the rest of the session was spent discussing how horrible online instruction was, with quite a lot of student-bashing thrown in. Now, let me state my bias up front, I�m not convinced that totally online courses, given the technology and the pedagogical knowledge we currently have, are the best solution right now. I probably fall more into the �hybrid� camp right now, with a combination of face-to-face and online, at least pending further advances in the technology and our knowledge of how best to use it (with the caveat that this could change rapidly as the technology and our pedagogy get better).

Having said that, however, I was amazed that they spent this time complaining about what was wrong with it, when I thought a better use of the time would�ve been to talk about how we can do it better (because, I agree, from what I can see we are often doing it poorly). They all pretty much said they didn�t have a choice in this, they were being made to do this. Since these were not folks that were going to be able to change those decisions, I kept expecting we were going to shift back to, �Okay, I�m already teaching this online course (or soon will be), let�s talk about best practices� or something like that, but we never did. The overall feeling in the room was one of fear and, while some folks think fear is a healthy motivator, I think in this case it was getting in the way.

The second thought was spurred by the statement that one of their universities was pressuring them to offer a Masters in Education (getting a teaching credential) completely online. They were questioning the wisdom of giving someone a degree to teach that they might never meet in person, which I thought was a valid concern. They would still have to do student teaching, so at least there would be some chance to evaluate their people and teaching skills.

But that last piece of information is what really spurred this post. Because it got me to thinking about that possible �50% of all classes being offered online� statistic. If that statistic turns out to be true (or even close), then is it possible that face-to-face student teaching might actually be a bad thing for some teacher candidates? In other words, if a teacher is destined to teach in an online setting, then shouldn�t their student teaching also be online? Just as the idea that getting your degree completely online and not actually student teaching face-to-face seems like not the best idea for preparing a teacher to enter a face-to-face classroom, then isn�t the idea of preparing to teach online by teaching face-to-face just as bad?

I don�t know, but it makes me think that colleges of education are going to have to think long and hard about what they�re doing, and perhaps start training teachers for both environments. Obviously some of the qualities necessary to be a good teacher are the same in both settings, but some of the pedagogical techniques and the experience working with students might be very, very different. I think it�s safe to say that colleges of education have a huge task ahead of them and I�m curious if there are any teacher prep folks reading this that could perhaps comment on this. Are any programs currently having their pre-service teachers student teach (or co-teach) any online courses?

What do you think? Should teacher candidates be required to �student teach� an online course?

Random Thoughts from the NCTE Convention

This will not be any kind of coherent post, just some miscellaneous thoughts from the annual NCTE Convention. (I know, I know, how will you tell the difference?)

Did You Know? Has Jumped the Shark
Gary Stager tweeted a week or so ago that Did You Know? had jumped the shark because his Mom sent him the link (and, the horror, she was proud that he knew me). Then a remix of it played twice on Sunrise, a popular morning show on Australian TV. But I think the culminating piece of evidence is this picture that Bud Hunt made me take.


At the opening celebration for the NCTE Convention, they had it playing in a continuous loop for 60 minutes. But they also had the sound turned down and a mariachi band playing � so picture Did You Know? with mariachi music and light appetizers. Too. Funny. Oh well, Henry Winkler�s done okay since then, hasn�t he?

Greg Mortenson
We went to listen to Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, speak, and we sat in the front row because Anne wants to try to get him to blog with her students about the book. Just before he�s about to begin I start to take a picture of him. But he sees me and immediately walks over, puts his arm around me, and hands the camera to Anne to take a picture of us. After that about fifty people came up to have their picture taken with him. I�m guessing he just knows that�s going to happen so picks somebody out to start the process, I just happened to catch his attention. It was a little awkward, since I wasn�t trying to get my picture taken with him, and I�m still not sure Anne has forgiven me (even though � for the record � it was completely and utterly not my fault).

For folks that liked Three Cups of Tea, you�ll be excited to learn that they�ll be releasing both a children's version and a young reader�s version in January, both of which should be more accessible to younger readers. You might also look at the Pennies for Peace program.

Anne and Kristin
I was part of two presentations at NCTE. Anne and I were the featured presentation on Saturday morning, but it was 8:00 am so sparsely attended. But on Friday Anne Smith and Kristin Leclaire presented and it was fabulous � I predict that NCTE will be inviting them back to do some great things very soon.


Technology
Let�s just say that for a conference that was titled �Shift Happens,�


the wireless access was, ummm, pretty �shifty�. I know it�s expensive, but when is it going to be a given that when anyone gets together for a conference learning, especially educators, wireless is a necessity, not an option? Bud Hunt has more thoughts on this, and so do his commenters.

In addition, every single session I was in, including both of the ones I was associated with, had technical issues with the projectors and/or the microphones. Some of that is to be expected with that many sessions, but 100% with problems? I don�t think so.

Miscellaneous Quotes From My Notes

If we really want students to succeed in the future, we have to allow them to work in a participatory and collaborative way.

They did all this work outside of school because our filters wouldn�t let them find these things.

We invited the superintendent, adminstration, etc. � not one of them took the invitation. That was disappointing.

Teachers will incorporate bits and pieces, but it was still the same basic curriculum � we needed to change the whole thing.

'They�re on a computer, that�s not English' � but they were doing more reading and writing than in their other English classes.

I didn�t feel like our department had a vision � so I changed schools. At my new school, there was a different way of talking about students, a different way of viewing students.

We believe kids can�t look critically at the world until they figure out who they are.

We should think of ourselves [teachers] as the Designer of the Learning Experience.

Every teacher will have to be tech savvy.

They don�t have to be where the information is.

Blogging is reading, with the intent to write. (Quoting Will Richardson).

NCTE is Beginning to Shift

(Warning: There�s some shameless self-promotion in this, but I think the content is still worth your time.)

As I wrote back in February, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is really beginning to focus on 21st century literacies. I�ll be heading off to their annual convention, Because Shift Happens: Teaching in the 21st Century, in San Antonio this weekend where I�ll be presenting with Anne Smith, Kristin Leclaire and Mike Porter. NCTE has a Ning setup for the convention, are running some sessions in an area called the New Media Gallery, and have Tech to Go Kiosks organized by Sara Kajder with some help from Bud Hunt.

The November issue of the NCTE Council Chronicle (pdf) also has several articles (The �C�s of Change� (pdf), Widening the Audience: Students Reading and Writing Online (pdf), and Reading and Writing Differently (pdf)) that focus on trying to get our heads around what 21st century skills really are, and what it might mean to be literate in the 21st century. They also have an online �extra�, More Thoughts on 21st Century Literacies.

I think all these articles are worth your time � and are worth sharing with any teacher in your building that works with literacy (which is hopefully every teacher in your building). And then encourage those teachers to get involved in the conversation. As Bud Hunt says in one of the articles,

I�ve probably learned more about teaching and learning as a result of being engaged in professional discussions online than I�ve learned in any meeting or class or directive from an administrator.

This is too important for your teachers not to be involved in this discussion.

NCTE - "Shifting" Toward a New Literacy

A post by Will Richardson led me to this from The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Executive Committee (quoted in its entirety for your convenience):

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies�from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms�are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to

� Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
� Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
� Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
� Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
� Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
� Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

Let me highlight a few phrases:

• "Malleable" literacies
  
• Build relationships with others . . . collaboratively and cross-culturally


• Global communities
  
• Multiple streams
  
• Multi-media texts
  
• Ethical responsibilities . . . complex environments

Now some folks have argued that these aren't really new literacies and, in one sense, I suppose they're right, but it seems to me they're missing the point. Previously most folks haven't included these ideas when they talk about literacy, it's new to them, so I agree with Will (I'm sure he's breathing a sigh of relief) - these are some significant "shifts" in thinking about what it means to be literate.

Due to a comment on Will's post and a subsequent email to me, I discovered that NCTE's Annual Convention coming up in November has the tagline:

Because Shift Happens: Teaching in the Twenty-First Century

NCTE President-Elect Kylene Beers has an article explaining the choice of that tagline. Now, I realize that she mentions me, so this link could be seen as self-promotional on my part, but that's really not my intent here - please ignore that part of it and read the rest of what she wrote, including this part:

Yet, in relation to our hurtle through change, our schools seem to be moving more slowly. We still move large groups of students from class to class with a shrill bell (reminiscent of the factory whistle during the Industrial Age). We still group kids by age and label them with As or Bs, though few can articulate what differentiates them. We�ve added technology�but it�s in a lab down the hall where only certain websites can be accessed. We�ve said we want kids, the kids of the only nation that has put a man on the moon, to use technology in the classroom, but for students in a remedial class, that might be only an electronic workbook, and for those in a gifted class, a PowerPoint presentation instead of a poster.

. . . We�re teaching the Millennium generation, that group of kids who arrived at school as �digital natives� who have a new set of 3 Rs in mind: Relevance, Relationships, and Responsiveness.

. . . At NCTE 2007, we explored the topic of diverse literacies in the twenty-first century literacy; now, for the 2008 convention, we invite you to push this thinking even further by joining the national conversation about how to juggle those diverse literacies while addressing current technological, political, social, and cultural shifts . Do this by explaining how you�re effectively working with English language learners, coping with political pressure to pass high-stakes tests, addressing the ever more diverse student populations, and teaching with and through technology to all levels of students across all the language arts. Explain how you use technology to enhance your own learning and how you use it to communicate not only with colleagues, but with parents, politicians, and administrators. Share how technology has affected assessment of students and of yourself.

And her last sentence:

Join us there, where together we�ll discuss all that it means to teach toward tomorrow�something we must do, because, after all, shift happens.

Let me pick out some phrases again:

• Our schools seem to be moving more slowly


• Relevance, Relationships and Responsiveness


• Explain how you use technology to enhance your own learning
  
• Share how technology has affected assessment of students and of yourself
  
• Teach toward tomorrow . . . something we must do

Now, I know some folks will cheer when they read these, and others will vehemently protest. I think it's important to remember that they aren't throwing away the "old" literacies, they are just expanding what it means to be literate. But what I think is most important about this is the fact that NCTE is apparently basing their convention around these ideas. I think this is a major shift. This is not ISTE promoting NETS, or a coalition of folks from corporations wanting better prepared employees, this is NCTE - perhaps fundamentally redefining literacy and how we teach our children. Perhaps I'm reading (pun intended) too much into this, but I think this is huge.