Buried in Wires

Gone Fishin'

2012-01-25T08:18:00.003-05:00

I'm taking a break from this blog this year in order to focus on some other things. I think that in life sometimes something has to give and for the time being this is that thing.

With Warm Regards...

Short Shots and a Documentary in 40 Minutes

2011-11-18T19:19:00.001-05:00

Some of my Mass Media and Film Production students really struggle in the beginning of the year because they can't wrap their heads around filming. They have great ideas but bring back mediocre footage -- mostly shaky medium shots with no variation.

With this in mind this year I've been working with them a little more closely on breaking up ideas into sequences composed of separate short shots of various angles. Today I taught them the "five shot sequence" that I stole from Mindy McAdams' site.

At the beginning of the class we went over a handout based on her advice and then watched her sample film on Youtube. We discussed her film a little (What's rice paper? Why did she order her shots differently?) and then it was time to come up with an idea of our own.

I came to class prepared with two ideas. One student is particularly good at annotating so I was going to get them to make a film about that. Another student has already brought in footage for the profile project we are working on so I thought I might be able to get him to talk about his vision and filmmaking. The class quickly overruled my intentions when it was revealed that one of my students could make paper dinosaurs.

I brought out my Kodak Zx5 and threw it to a kid who volunteered to man the camera. The rest of the class stood off camera. We used McAdams advice to help position the camera person. After we collected the b roll footage of the subject in action we interviewed the subject with a couple of basic open ended questions. I was able to reinforce the idea of rule of thirds and told them that most interviews have the interviewee looking off camera (as opposed to directly at the camera). The shooting took approximately 5 minutes.

Next up was the editing. I manned the controls in the interest of time and had them remind me what order to put them in. While I edited I did a think aloud to share why I was cutting each clip where I was -- not so different than when I write in front of the class and do something similar.

After some rendering we were ready to watch our 40 second profile documentaries. The kids were impressed with their work and seemed more comfortable with this idea of thoughtfully placing the camera in order to tell a story in an artistic and compelling way. The real assessment will be seeing if they bring me back a five shot sequence with the rest of their profile documentary footage.

I really liked this lesson. I was able to demonstrate some things, the kids were really active and I was able to reinforce this idea about making films that celebrate interesting stories that may reside below the radar. Basically, most humans are interesting and most people have a story.

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P.S. I think these films also say something interesting about school. Both films, at their root, are about kids who find other things to do while tuning out teaching. One can't help but think of Ken Robinson's Schools Kill Creativity

In Interest of Full Disclosure

2011-11-10T21:59:00.001-05:00

Teaching is hectic. I am on the cusp of a four day weekend (Veterans Day, two weekend days, and I am attending Donalyn Miller's inservice about helping dormant male readers on Monday) and looking at the full slate of work I have ahead of me:

Grades are due on Monday. This means I have to:

grade two classes of documentary films
grade two classes of student memoirs
grade various responses and article of the week responses

Emma - By Sunday night I must read Volume Two, develop a handful of "quiz" questions for my students to answer online during my absence, and figure out an angle for discussion next week -- all for a book I've not read before.
#NaNoWriMo - I've been holding steady to my promise to write every day. I am way behind the recommended word count, but I'm trudging along.
Personal reading - I picked up Marvel 1602 from my school library this week. It is freaking awesome. Plop the X-Men down into Elizabethan England. Action, conspiracy, and witch hunting ensues. I also have to finish Philip Pullman's Clockwork by Saturday (it is due back to the town library) and I'd like to finish the last 100 pages of Franny and Zooey, a book I started back in August but have abandoned and resumed and abandoned and resumed.

I apologize for passing my "To Do" list off as a blog post, but I think it helps to show that even when a teacher has off, he or she isn't really off. There is always something to do.

First Major Documentary Projects Roll In

2011-11-09T17:13:00.000-05:00

My Mass Media and Film Production students just finished their first film. This year I wanted to start off pretty basic and limited the arsenal of tools I allowed them to use for their first film. Their task was to create a 1-2 minute documentary style film using only gathered footage and diagetic sound. They were allowed no voiceover, no post production music, and no interviews. I was inspired by the late Tim Hetherington's Diary, a short documentary about being a war photographer. My hope was they'd really be forced to focus on where they were putting the camera and considering composition and collecting interesting sound.

Students were given a week to come up with a topic and gather footage and a week to edit film. This is short for a project but I wanted to get them in the habit of working quickly and editing efficiently. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the projects. I have a sense of which kids are grasping digital storytelling and what kids are still struggling with the big picture. As one student remarked while waving her hand at Final Cut dismissively, "I don't like this class."

One project that is noteworthy is this short documentary on coffee. Cool shots, good use of sound. Not bad for a first project.

This next project says some really interesting things about schooling and kids. When asked about their big idea, these three boys affirmed that in school they feel deadened and outside of school they are engaged. I know they will not grow up to play paintball or to do judo but it still is a biting commentary about what we do in school. This could serve as a companion piece to Ken Robinson's Schools Kill Creativity Ted Talk.

Starting Stronger, Earlier

2011-11-08T05:00:00.000-05:00

So, Mass Media and Film Production is my nonfiction writing workshop where students turn their writing into films (narrative, documentary, etc.). I ♡ this class for the most part because I get to see kids really get swept away in what they are doing. By the end of the year, a significant percentage (5-10%) of the students in that class walk away wanting to find a career in digital storytelling.

If I were to describe the process of a Mass Media project it would be thus. I spend two weeks helping kids get started, nag them to get video, and pull my hair out at the leisurely pace with which they do. It is a time full of excuses; I didn't return my camera because of this, I didn't get my footage because of that, my partner was supposed to do this, I only got four shots because of this. Mr. Malley gets very worked up in the first two weeks of a project. Grrrr. Because, like any writing workshop teacher knows, the magic of storytelling happens in the revision and the editing. Getting the film is only the first part of the process. Editing those little touches and reshooting takes projects from being ordinary to awesome. Evidence here:

The payoff comes in the week before a project is due. There is something magical about seeing 24 students come in to class, sit down, get right to work and stay focused for forty minutes without my having to say a thing. There is a focus there that I don't see anywhere else. Kids come during study halls, after school, and during lunches not because I make them, but because they want to. This is my favorite time.

Each year I plug away at finding a better balance. How can I help kids become more efficient? How can I help them make the early stages of a project more productive so that they have time to tinker and polish at the end? How can I keep them focused when the final due date seems so distant? How can I get the focus I usually find at the end of the project to appear earlier and more consistently?

Pebble for Monday Morning

2011-11-07T08:22:00.001-05:00

I know this sounds obvious, but my classes are nowhere near perfect. I get all these undergraduate and graduate school observers into my class and a lot of times I'm cringing at the messiness. Teaching is messy, learning is messy, and establishing working relationships with students is messy. The mess is in the balance. How do you encourage while still holding firm? How do you slightly coerce while still shooting for intrinsic motivation? How do you overlook minor things without creating an avalanche of misbehavior? The big question is how do you get kids to act in their [arguably] own best interests when hormonally and socially and behaviorally and intellectually they are somewhat compelled to do otherwise? These are management issues that, ten years into teaching I am still trying to figure out.

I've been struggling with one particular student this year. She comes late to class. Isn't turning work in. She's been reading and has knocked off four books, but she is in all other ways scattered. If there is one second of dead space, one tiny kink in the defenses, she'll find a reason to get up to blow her nose and disrupt 19 other students on the way to throw the tissue in the trash.

I've conferenced with her. I've discreetly asked her to step outside to talk. I've used proximal distance to curb distractions. I've invited her to stay after school to make up assignments. Though we have had small moments of understanding, and though I am fond of this student, to this point none of our conversations have taken root. Earlier this week we were completing assessments while handing in slice of life memoirs. This particular student was off task again after I reassigned her to a different computer. I went over and told her in no uncertain terms that I would be calling home to talk to Mom.

Today, after sharing our stories in class, we had about three minutes left in class before the bell rang. Students were returning their binders and notebooks. I noticed a pair of legs sticking out from behind the projector screen. I determined that these legs belonged to this aforementioned student. I gave a little cough and tapped the screen with the book I was holding. She peeked out and put a dry erase marker back in the bin. When the bell rang, I looked behind the screen to read the following message:

******* was here <3. Mr. Malley is the best English Teache [sic] ever he believes that we can be somebody in life & I need to get it together ASAP :) Bye

Could the message have been a disingenuous attempt to earn back my favor? Maybe. Was the word "teacher" misspelled? Yeah. But I'll put that little pebble in my back pocket as I begin this week. I'll remember that kids are kids and that I must work my hardest to reach each and every kid because each and every kid is reachable if I keep plugging.

Have a good week.

Making Thinking Visible

2011-11-04T05:51:00.000-04:00

I know I just talked about a product earlier this week and I don't want to come off as a sucker wowed by anything and everything that is shiny and has wires and plugs and plays with my Mac. I also don't want to come off as some corporate shill with an opinion for sale. I have a simple flow chart to help my decision making when considering new tools for my classroom. Does it fit what I think good teaching? Does it work well? Is it cheap or free?

Yesterday at our faculty meeting our librarian introduced us to the iPevo Point 2 View document camera and I think it fills a niche in my classroom so it satisfies the first and third questions ($70 on Amazon).

When I gave up my overhead to move to a projector I gave up my ability to easily mark up a text. This has kind of made it difficult to make my thinking visible when working with documents. I can certainly use annotation features on a PDF reader or Skitch and a screen grab but there is something simple and clear to being able to draw and doodle and underline freehand. I have not been able to annotate documents live, I couldn't do live doodly webbing/brainstorming and I couldn't edit writing in front of my students. Basically, I couldn't easily show the messiness of it all -- the transformation of thought from chaos to order as I see it. While sitting through this presentation, I foresaw the ability of this contraption to help me do all these things.

So this morning I borrowed one of our fourteen cameras from the library and set to work. The Point 2 View looks like the hopping Pixar light from that company's ident. It attaches to the computer via USB and once plugged in it provides a camera that can project and even record whatever you place in front of it. Though it has been lagging behind on my computer a nanosecond or two, it provides a crisp little picture which is perfect for examining writing in front of the class.

Today my students were completing their self assessments on their slice of life memoirs so I decided to use this as an opportunity to teach them the editing skill of reading backwards at the word level and sentence level (read the entire document one word at a time from the bottom to catch spelling errors and typos, then one sentence aloud at a time starting from the bottom to catch grammatical snafus). I set up the camera, found a volunteer to offer up a SOL memoir and then did a quick demo about backwards reading. It worked out well and I hope that by seeing me use this method it will help them try to adopt this themselves. As Nancie Atwell wrote in In the Middle, sometimes we have to take off the top of our brain and make our thinking visible -- the iPevo Point 2 View is a great tool for this.

Hitching Myself to NaNoWriMo

2011-11-03T05:00:00.000-04:00

This month I am attempting National Novel Writing Month (or #NaNoWriMo, for short). Well, let me reword that. I am attempting the spirit of NaNoWriMo. I am starting a novel and working on it every single day. (There is no feasible way I can amass the 1600 words a day you need to average to get to 50,000 on the month. In addition to teaching every day and raising kids I am also attempting to finish 60 books this year (I'm on 43, 44, 45, and 46 right now (halfway through Juliet, Naked, Franny and Zooey, Woe is I and Emma with my AP Lit class)) and am making a concerted effort to write more here and on my personal blog). I have had five or six ideas that have been ruminating for the past few years and, well, what better time than now?

What I'm finding out, and granted, it's only day two, is that writing lengthier fiction is tough stuff. I mean, I've never really thought about how to go about it. I am starting with a basic plot outline, but, what do you use to construct a story? How do you build scenes? How do I choose a point of view and once I do, how do I use these interior thoughts to advance the story and build character? This is further proof to me that in order to teach writing, one must write. Making myself write has forced me to read like a writer. I was on the elliptical at the gym today reading Nick Hornsby's Juliet, Naked and attempting to understand how he uses character digressions to advance the story. I think that if we were truly interested in teaching kids to learn to analyze story we would try to get all students to try to write a novel (hopefully at a young age before they are all jaded).

Right now, I'm making a little bit of progress. I'm plugging along around the 1000 word mark. I'm trying to, as the handbook suggests, turn off my internal editor and write and find my flow. It's difficult though as for the past six years I've been writing for the immediate publication of blogging and have tried to be relatively deliberate on the first draft.

Finally, one cool side effect of my quest is that by merely mentioning the initiative I have inspired a handful of students to take up the challenge and they too are working on their novels. The editor of our school magazine is making an attempt and writing an article about the experience, so it should be interesting. Hopefully through all this struggling we will gain some measure of writing wisdom. Or, more than likely, we will die in the trying.

Leveling Jane Austen

2011-11-01T12:06:00.000-04:00

In AP Literature, the one class where I dictate most of what we read, I find myself falling into familiar patterns. Frankenstein. The Awakening. Much Ado About Nothing. Ethan Frome over Christmas. Invisible Man. 1984. The Things They Carried. Mix in some exam prep. Mix in some poetry. Voila!

Yesterday I went up to the book room to get The Awakening for the seventh time in nine years. I stood on the chair, poring over the different stacks of book spines, looking for Chopin's classic. Something in me, maybe the boredom of it all, sort of snapped and I decided on the spot to teach something different. I grabbed Jane Austen's Emma. I've never read Emma. In fact, my only experience with Jane Austen is a failed attempt to read Pride and Prejudice as a college sophomore. I rented the BBC miniseries, watched it and tried to follow along and read important passages. (I later did the same thing with Hamlet.)

Yesterday I started being a more expert learner studying a book that neither I or my students have read (well, that's not true. One of my students read it independently). Today the kids are on computers doing some research into the background of Jane Austen's world which they will weave together into a Prezi which they will share next week. They are chatting productively -- some researching, some Noodlebibbing, some using a presentational tool I still haven't demonstrated. The next month they will teach me more than I will teach them.

Though my only prior experience with Austen was drudgery, I'm excited to approach something with fresh eyes. I'm excited to share the experience of wading through an unfamiliar text with my students. I think that this is important. How can I lead kids in a shared reading if I am in a far different place as a reader? Sometimes, I think I have to level the playing field and struggle along with them in order to truly understand what I need to do to help them move forward.

Extra Credit

2011-11-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

No matter how many years I teach, I'll never cease to be amazed with the things kids say. Today, as I was getting my sophomore class started, one of my male students interrupted my class overview.
"Mr. Malley, you're really aging well."
I looked at him, not sure how to take this.
"Yeah, you look like you could be in a JC Penney's catalog."
I met this addition with a blank stare. There are moments in the classroom that are teachable, moments that are opportunities for discussion, and moments that are opportunities to help spur personal growth. This was none of these.
I pointed at the student, who was quickly becoming my favorite. "Extra credit," I replied, and carried on with the class overview.

Five Things I Love About Schoology

2011-10-31T06:04:00.000-04:00

Schoology rules. I know, I know. I've felt this way before. I fell in love with using Blogger. I was swept off my feet by Ning. Was forced into a bad relationship with Angel. Flirted briefly with Grou.ps. But now I think I've found the one.

First of all, I love the simple Facebook like interface. Its minimalism guarantees that I don't have to sit and obsess with the look of the site and instead I can merely focus on content. It is also obviously built for eduction, so unlike my past dalliances with trying to fit triangle pegs into circular holes, this site simply works like I need it to.

Here are five things I love about Schoology:

Pages - With Pages you can create your own resource section. Class notes, important documents, project materials, etc. In AP Lit one of the students volunteers to take notes on our discussion during class using the wireless keyboard and at the end of class we publish highlights of our conversations. The cool thing is that these pages and materials can easily be ported to other classes and to future sections of classes so I can organize years of handouts and rubrics that are scattered across Google Docs and multiple computers. No more creating a new rubric every time I reassign or redesign a project.

Inbox - Want something from me? Inbox me. Whether a kid needs me to read a draft of a college essay, needs to remind me about a letter of recommendation, or wants me to hold a camera, my answer is simple. Inbox me. I don't think I've forgotten to do anything this year and, what's more, students have a reliable and easy way to contact me.

Online Quizzes - I'm not a huge fan of quizzing about reading, but I do think there is some value in assessing where my students are and how much they are picking up. The online quiz option lets me have kids go on the site and write short responses to questions I pose. If I choose they can retake the assessment as many times as they like. Best thing is, everything is in one place and I can easily respond to their answers and compute the grades. Simple and intuitive.

The Calendar - The calendar function is my favorite. Each day I post the objectives of the day. Because my district is encouraging it I post the Core Common Standards we'll be addressing during the week. Every assignment is added along with links to related articles and materials. Everything is organized and easy to find.

Status Updates - A kid finishes a book? Status gets updated. Kid wants to share a story with the class? Status updated. I want to share a resource or an interesting video? Here's a link. This space provides an easy to use communication pathway.

Two Things I'd Like to See Improve

I'd really like to make my calendar public so I could redirect parents to it from my district website. I exported it to Google Calendar but there is no way to export individual class calendars nor a way to publish that Google Calendar to make it visible.
Notifications are wonky. I need a more Facebook like way of knowing if kids have commented on my content. Every once in awhile I go back through the stream and find comments that I haven't responded to. Guilt ensues.

One Thing That Needs to Remain

The site is free. I don't know how. I don't know why. A little research uncovered that they received an influx of cash from an Angel investor but I'm not sure what they plan once they figure out how to use the site to create revenue. I've been baited and switched already by Ning and Grou.ps. Fool me thrice and I'm not sure what I'll do.

I've been using Schoology for the past two months and I must say I'm really impressed so far. I've set up networks for each of my classes, the writers on our school newspaper, and even the group of teachers I'm working with on studying literacy practices in our high school. Overall, Schoology is simple to use and a really easy way to set up a classroom community online. Everything is all in one place and the site has a simple interface that students are already familiar with.

Plugging Forward

2011-10-30T16:51:00.000-04:00

Man. I'm not sure why, but I feel like I am 138% busier this year. I get up, go to work, get there early, and run around all day. I was assigned lunch duty this year so I lost thirty minutes of planning there. My study hall was moved to first period so I am usually grading or doing last minute planning during that time. After work is the gym, dinner, kid's homework, and then correcting. Last night I read through college essays every single night. I knocked off four classes worth of Article of the Week responses last Sunday. Even though I am pretty consistently plugging forward, my to-do list does not shrink in accordance to my effort. I feel on top of things, but at the same time I feel like I never stop.

My Trouble with Twitter

2011-09-05T20:15:00.000-04:00

I have to admit, I haven't been on Twitter all summer. In fact, my use dropped precipitously in the last few months of school last year. Don't get me wrong, I think that Twitter is extremely valuable tool for my professional growth. I love it and when I use it regularly I feel so connected.

So what's the problem then?

It makes me feel guilty. I follow, in my opinion, an unfollowable amount of people and I can't keep up. If I am away for an hour, I come back to find three million tweets and retweets. Once I start to browse, I find myself in a constant state of befuddlement as I catch conversations out of context and find myself wondering how they started and evolved. But, if I begin to follow that rabbit I find myself unable to sift through the voluminous stack of tweets that have piled and keep piling up. God forbid I see an interesting article shared by someone. I'll click over, read the first few paragraphs, promise myself I'll get back to it later, and abandon the article so I can keep on sifting through the pile. I feel pretty well informed, but only half as informed as I probably should be.

So, one thing I plan on doing as this school year starts is finding a way to control and manage the chaos. I'd feel guilty, but I might have to cut the list of people I follow down to the bone. I'll be keeping all my Writing Project folks and educational luminaries like Diane Ravitch and Alfie Kohn, but unless I can find an easier way to manage and find a better work/life balance, I'm going to have to cut significantly.

I don't know any other way to do it. How do you use Twitter effectively without feeling overwhelmed by the tide of tweets?

Unpacking, Unburdening

2011-08-31T12:54:00.001-04:00

Last year I said goodbye to the classroom I have had for two years. It was a huge room with room for anything I could imagine. Our district moved the fifth grade to the middle school in a series of cost cutting measures and I was displaced. I am now in an air conditioned computer lab and luckily my 16 Macs came with me.

The space is about 20% smaller and has built in computer desks lining 3/4 of the room. This significantly cuts into my classroom library space. I can keep one floor to ceiling book case that a student built for me six years ago and have one case that I've set behind some computers on the built on desks. I don't seem to have accessible room for my cinderblock bookshelves. I've also had to put my two filing cabinets on top of the built ins but am kind of worries that they won't hold. I'll revisit that setup later. God knows where I'm going to put my houseplants.

This decrease in space has forced me to take a good look at the stuff I have in order to purge. I've cleared out about 50% of my classics book case. I haven't had a kid willingly take a book off that shelf in ten years so no great loss. I don't know what i was thinking but I'm not sure I'd willingly choose Silas Marner over Speak if given the choice either. I've also ditched a lot of books I've picked up over the years at garage sales -- page turners from Grisham and King and Koontz and Cook. I think these books look thick enough to discourage most kids anyways. If they want that stuff they can get it from the library. My next chore is to go through my two large boxes of cords and tech doodads. They would not look put of place on a Jawa sand crawler and have been begging for maintenance for years.

It'll be interesting to see how it goes this year. I have four rectangular tables and no desks so it's going to be a lot different. I think that the tables will be perfect for group stuff and individual tasks can be tackled at computer stations. I also think that often I am so busy managing stuff that I am not completely focused on managing learning, so I feel this move and purge could be valuable in that way too. No more being overwhelmed with useless stuff. Overall, I think it will take me a little while to get acclimated to teaching in this space, but I look forward to the challenge.

Resources for Short Documentary Mentor Texts

2011-03-29T21:14:00.000-04:00

I'm always looking for short form films to show in my classroom. Because really, who has the time to show a whole film? In Mass Media and Film Production I'm constantly looking for films to use as mentor texts. Yesterday I found a pretty cool blog with lists of useful flicks. Today my students were on Day Two of watching short form documentary films as mentor texts in order to try to quantify the different criteria that makes a particular documentary film good. Tomorrow we will try to construct some sort of rubric to guide the rest of our composing processes.

The blog, called simply The Documentary Blog, publishes a special section on short form documentaries. Today over the span of two classes we watched segments of Man in Van, AFOL: A Blocumentary (about adult fans of Legos), the first few minutes of The Bowler, Baseball Card Movie and the first five minutes of Tim Hetherington's Diary.

I think that these films will really bolster my collection of mentor texts for next year (adding to my collection of Cool Hunting videos, This American Life, and selections from Media that Matters) and judging from the buzz in my classroom, the films gave my students lots to think about as we near the end of our three day hiatus from putting these films together.

Digital Video in the Classroom: A Preface to #engchat

2011-03-28T12:41:00.000-04:00

In 2002, at the end of my first year of teaching, Keith Hughes, a social studies teacher at McKinley High School in Buffalo, NY, approached me in the hallway and asked, "Hey Malley, how would you like to spend two weeks during the summer learning how to teach kids how to make movies? We'll give you $800 and a computer and camera for your classroom."

I don’t know what my exact words were in response. They are probably not fit to print. I remember thinking he was playing a cruel joke on a hapless first year teacher. Once I established that he was being straight with me, the answer was simple.

That summer I spent a wonderful two weeks working with various Buffalo Public School teachers in downtown Buffalo. We were led by Dr. Suzanne Miller and Jim Cercone as part of City Voices City Visions, a Buffalo Public Schools and University of Buffalo partnership that explored video composition in the classroom.

Teachers of every content area spent two weeks exploring how we might use digital video composition to help students make meaning in our classrooms. Suzanne and Jim were very clear from the beginning. We weren't learning this so that we could make movies for our students. We were learning because film composition is a powerful literacy tool and could transform the way our students saw content in our classroom. Students make. Students learn. A simple equation.

We learned the basics of film editing and film composition. We watched student work. We talked about how we could use technology to enhance learning in our classrooms. Most importantly, we made movies.   Lots of them. We made documentaries. We turned speeches into films. We made films out of poetry. We explored content questions with film. It was wonderful. It was PD as it should be.

Even though it happened almost ten years ago, it is still tied for the most significant experience of my entire teaching career (the other is joining the Western New York Writing Project). I don't know where I'd be had I not said yes. Video opened up the doors to everything my students do with technology. Blogging. Social networks. Podcasts. It all stems from that first summer.

My kids have been making digital videos since 2002. We've made films in English 9, English 10, and English 12. We've made films in AP Literature. We've made films in Creative Writing. We've made films in Advanced Placement Literature. We've made public service announcements. We've turned our poetry and essays into film. We've made music videos about books and ideas. The last few years we have even graduated into making documentary films. Some day soon we'll even try making fictional shorts.

Tonight I have the honor of hosting #engchat, a conversation on Twitter about English education. I don't know who will show. I don't know how many will show. I don't know what people will want to talk about. But, I do know that I have been at this for ten years so I have a couple of things I can add to the conversation.

When I look around though, I have just as many questions as answers. I look at the Core Common Standards and the looming PARCC exams and the unfortunate fixation that our nation's leaders have with standardized testing and I wonder, where does it fit in? How much fits in? As I've said in prior posts, the Core Common Standards do not explicitly mention digital video composition, so how can I best justify its place in my classroom? I wonder how to best use traditional writing to help support my filmmakers.   I wonder when this tool makes more sense than other tools. I wonder how film impacts my students willingness to engage deeply with the content of the courses. I wonder if film changes the way they see themselves and the way they see learning. I wonder about technology. I wonder about access. I wonder about balance. I wonder about the future.

So, these are the experiences and questions I will walk into #engchat with tonight. They are the questions and the experience I carry with me every time the bell rings to start class. My hope is that tonight might nudge my understanding a little deeper and that something might nudge someone else a bit deeper too.

Hope to see you at 7.

Cut! Taking Stock and Posing Some Questions

2011-03-28T10:32:00.000-04:00

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a workshop on writing across the curriculum given by Angela Stockman. I was in a room full of content area teachers trying to reconcile the fact that they not only need to teach their content but also take steps to support and develop the literacy skills of their learners.

I eventually ended up at a table with the rest of my English department and Stockman started to guide the whole group in a discussion of rubrics. Her argument was that when used correctly rubrics can be a great way to support or student writers. Basically, when used as a checklist or "postmortem analysis," rubrics are bad. When used in the midst of a project and used as formative evaluation, rubrics can be good. She then went on to discuss how we might work with kids and mentor texts to develop the rubrics with the kids' assistance.

I think a lot of teaching is being in the right place in the right time. (Or, in the right mindset at the right time.) Tiny bells went off in my head as I started to really think about how this might fit into what I'm doing. Right now, as I've discussed, my Mass Media & Film Production kids are working on their documentary films. They've just finished their research papers. As originally planned, they would have a week of class time to pull together their films.

After Friday I changed my mind and am going to try something a little bit different. Today I told the kids that we were going to be taking a couple day hiatus from the project. I told them we were going to watch a couple of short documentaries and that we were going to design the rubric that we'll use to evaluate their products.

I think that this will afford us a couple of opportunities. First of all, they have been gathering footage so I think now is a great time to stop, take stock, and watch some documentaries from the inside out in order to see how they are put together. I also think that having a few days of discussion of the characteristics of good documentary will put them in the mindset of evaluating their projects in the midst of their composing. Hopefully they will design a little more thoughtfully and with the criteria of good documentary in mind as they move forward.

So, today we watched the "Ask an Iraqi" segment of This American Life. Then, students worked in groups of four to dump some ideas about what makes good documentary. Tomorrow we shall watch another mentor text and then spend Wednesday attempting to quantify what good documentary looks like.

I'll let you know how it goes.

On Finding Time: Balancing Research, Filmmaking, and Mentor Texts in the Multimodal Classroom

2011-03-23T22:06:00.000-04:00

As I've mentioned a few days ago, I've been doing a lot of self reflection about my Mass Media and Film Production class since New York State adopted the Core Common Standards. On one hand, I know that this document doesn't put enough emphasis on multimodal design in the classroom. In fact, technology is specifically mentioned in two standards. One for writing (Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information) and one for speaking (Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.)

The problem is, these two standards are so vague that they essentially justify any use of technology as storytelling. A district could very easily argue that teaching a student to use Powerpoint to assist in a presentation could constitute student mastery of these skills.

So, like any good teacher, I have had to reframe my thinking a little bit and do consciously what I have been doing subconsciously all along; finding the best uses of the right tool to help students meet and exceed the standards as written.

So, I've examined the role that traditional research plays in my classroom. In the past, research in the senior elective has been cursory at best. Kids research when they need help making a convincing point or to help tell a story. Some projects came off really well. Some projects seem, well, superficial at best.

So now my students are writing research papers to go along with the documentary film they are doing. Kids have been hunkering down in my room working with a partner on a collaborative paper using Google Docs. Some are writing traditional papers. Some are writing I-Search papers (I gave them the choice after explaining the options).

The problem is -- time. There's not enough of it. Kids have been chugging along, asking good questions in their research, using problem solving techniques to answer questions and exploring their topics. Papers are due Monday and from the looks of their evolving papers, they are nowhere near finished.

As they are to be working on their documentaries simultaneously, I mandated that by today they have 75% of their footage in class. This is a soft deadline with absolutely no scientific measure for what 75% means, but I need to set some sort of deadline to force procrastinators to bring back footage. I walked around and did a spot check and very few of the teams had an adequate amount of footage.

When students return on Monday (they have the next two days off for teacher professional development) they will have one week to pull together their documentaries. I do not feel that they have nearly enough time to put something together well.

To further my worry, I don't feel like we've watched enough mentor texts, so when they start to assemble their films I'm worried that they will struggle assembling their stories.

Argh! I'm going to push them to see what happens. But, I think I am really struggling with balancing the research, filmmaking, and analysis. There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day. What's the answer?

Standing Against the Tide with the NWP

2011-03-19T11:57:00.000-04:00

At the climax of the middle book of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy things are desperate. Two kings and a handful of other road weary heroes are surrounded by blood thirsty and merciless evil forces threatening to tear down the castle walls and destroy the age of men forever. The situation is bleak. Things are hopeless. Darkness is sure to sweep the land.

In thinking about this scene of the book, I can’t help but draw comparisons to today’s educational landscape. I’ve been teaching for ten years. These years have been ten great years. Optimistic years. Years filled with wonderful students writing and reading and talking and making interesting films exploring topics that were inquiry driven.Eight were spent as an active member of the Western New York Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project, an organization which creates communities of teacher leaders who seek to improve the ways we integrate meaningful writing in every content area.

Lately, my optimism has been waning. Last month, with the flick of a pen resulting from our nation’s ham handed attempt to cut spending, this organization was jeopardized. On March 2nd, President Obama signed a bill cutting $4 billion in spending from the 2011 budget. With his signature, all federal funding to the National Writing Project was cut.

I believe in the power of people. I believe in the power of fellowship. I believe that if you get enough intelligent and motivated people working on a problem, that problem can be overcome. I don’t think that this is naive. This idea is democracy. This idea is America.

It is not possible for me to overstate how influential the National Writing Project has been to my career. They are my fellowship. They are the single driving force that has taught me that it is never okay to become complacent while teaching, that it is is never okay to settle for the status quo, and that it is never okay to stop asking questions. When I attend monthly meetings with my Western New York Writing Project teacher consultants I surround myself with knowledgeable, passionate educators who read widely, care deeply, act persistently and teach thoughtfully. These teachers are the best our profession has to offer. They are driving writing instruction in this area. And it scales up. When I visit National Writing Project annual meetings I am surrounded by those same intelligent people as I sit in rooms with Writing Project teachers from around the nation who also teach thoughtfully. We gather around conference tables and attack problems and share practices and resources, driven not by the threat of looming classroom evaluations or by the promise of higher salaries but because we are committed to our students. We act persistently in our exploration of writing instruction because we know that in the end our students’ writing and thinking will benefit. And so will our country.

Right now, our country needs the National Writing Project. It is a time of great change. The Core Common Standards have established literacy benchmarks for all content areas which will require the pedagogy of knowledgeable, thoughtful, motivated practitioners. As President Obama said in his State of the Union in order to compete in the 21st Century we need to “out-innovate [and] out-educate...the rest of the world.” We can’t do that without thoughtful writing instruction. We can’t do that without the NWP.

If you’ve read The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you know that at the end of The Two Towers the seemingly beaten and outnumbered heroes ride out against the forces of gathering evil, preferring to live the rest of their minutes in one glory filled charge. They are ultimately saved as Gandalf the White arrives when things are most hopeless, leading a host of horsed riders to the rescue of the beleaguered heroes who are riding out against the host of evil.

Unfortunately, we know that life is not as romantic. The future of the National Writing Project looks grim. The dawn looks as dark as the night. I see no white wizard on the horizon. But what I do see is a host of knowledgeable writing teachers standing shoulder to shoulder holding forth against the tide waiting to help lead this nation. At a time like this -- a time when we seek the ideas to educate and innovate our nation's way into the future -- the National Writing Project should not be let out of the car on the side of the highway. The National Writing Project should be given the keys and asked, “which way now?”

Noodletoolin': When Research Papers and Documentaries Collide Part II

2011-03-18T09:51:00.000-04:00

I've spent much of my career referring to Noodlebib as Noodleboob. So much so, in fact, that in the past I've slipped and used this term in front of the class. It's not that I'm against citation generators. I just didn't see much sense in paying for a service that is available for free over at Citationmachine.net and other places.

For this research project (and the research project my English 10 students are currently working on) I am mandating that students use Noodletools to prepare their project and I'm really impressed with the improvement to the site. One tool they seem to have added that I've never noticed before is their dropbox feature. Kids can share their project in process with me right at the outset. Noodletools is also now integrated with Google Docs so with a few simple steps kids can share the entirety of their paper with me and I can conceivably, time permitting, drop in and check their progress.

My librarian has also turned on the Notecards feature. We're not sure why this wasn't enabled prior to this project, but my kids have been using it and it is really helpful. Kids are reading articles, summarizing and quoting within the notecards, organizing their notecards within the interface and using this to prepare outlines for their writing. I'm watching them at their computers shuffling between this features and composing in Google Docs and can't help but notice their workflow. As these are mostly collaborative papers (kids are working in teams of two), often I'll see partners sitting at neighboring computers working on separate sources and separate notecards. The next moment I'll notice them simultaneously typing in the same Google Doc but on different computers.

I remember thinking that research papers were really imposing when I was in high school and college. Noodletools and it's integration with Google Docs makes it kind of intuitive to switch between researching, organizing, outlining, and composing. The collaborative features of both web applications are making this project, dare I say it, kind of enjoybable.

When Research Papers and Documentaries Collide: Part I

2011-03-17T15:27:00.000-04:00

It's research time in room 234. My Mass Media and Film Production students are in the early stages of a project which calls for them to investigate and/or document a topic. The result of their inquiry is a 5 minute documentary and a 5-7 page collaborative research paper.

This is the first time I've integrated formal research into MM&FP. Usually I recommend kids look stuff up in order to help tell their stories. A handful of kids will find some good quotes and some statistics that they'll fit into the films in order to help them get their point across. But, since the Core Common Standards have come out, I've started to rethink some things about that class. I still think that a good bit of the Common Core is exactly what we should not be doing in the classroom (For example, mandating that one Shakespeare be read each year and the strange fascination with having kids read Supreme Court cases as "literary nonfiction."). But, I had to take a step back and acknowledge that my kids should be doing more work that directly helps them develop the academic literacies they will need in college. I want my kids to research. But, I want it to matter to them, and I want them to do something with it.

So, here we are. We are two weeks into the project and a number of interesting things are cropping up that, quite frankly, I'm excited about.

Today I'd like to talk about one of the topics and some of the research and problem solving going on. I have one group of kids that is working on a documentary about the impact that Terry Pegula has had on our community. If you're not from Buffalo, Pegula is a deep pocketed businessman who recently purchased the Buffalo Sabres and has breathed new life into a franchise that was stagnant. On the surface, this doesn't seem like a very academic topic, right? What's cool is that the two students working on this documentary are focusing their research on the various social and economic benefits of major league sports teams. What is extremely interesting is that in trying to prove that an ownership change is good for our city overall they are discovering all these interesting things about the way sports franchises negatively impact a community (e.g. the void that frequently vacant arenas and parking lots have on surrounding businesses). On the other hand, through some original search they have discovered that attendance at games has indeed picked up since Pegula took over. They've scanned over every box score and analyzed the attendance rates pre and post Pegula's assuming ownership. It's this idea of not research but original search and problem solving that I find fascinating. These two want to find answers so they are inventing ways to prove their hypothesis. As of right now I'm not sure if it is the way the assignment is framed or if it is because the research is aligned with a documentary film project but my classes are really into this research project. It's great to see.

There really are a lot of cool things going on that I'll talk about in the coming days. Noodlebib and Google Docs have some cool features that kids are using, there are some really interesting topics being looked into and a bunch of other little things. I've been taking video so that I can throw together a quick documentary about the project. It's been interesting so far. I'll share more tomorrow.

Edweek Webinar Participants

2011-02-09T09:49:00.000-05:00

If any of you are finding your way here as a result of yesterday's 21st Century Teaching Series: Use Digital Tools Effectively to Enhance Student Learning webinar, feel free to ask any questions or share any insights in the comments section of this post and I'll respond promptly.

If you'd like to take a look at the networks my students are using, here are the appropriate links (Earlier this year I made the switch to Grou.ps from Ning and am really unhappy with the results. We've decided to take a little break from our etwork. We'll be using this space (or something similar) again in March once I work out some details):

Central Films - This is the network my students have been using to blog about their projects, writing, etc.
Central Films on Vimeo - Here are all of my student videos from this year.
Lower Frequencies - AP Literature
Corner Ink - This is a blog I use to offer students the opportunity to discuss their novels or articles. They are required to keep a journal and from time to time some decide to respond on this space.

Choice; or, Why, in the Words of the Famous Advertisement, "I Love New York"

2011-02-08T20:50:00.000-05:00

Last week, students in my undergraduate class wrote memoirs exploring the development of their literacy. They read a similar piece from Paulo Freire and wrote about the great books in their lives and their different routes to becoming literate beings. Though these students plan to be teachers in a variety of content areas, one thing remained pretty constant. For the most part, students either lost their love of reading or stopped reading altogether right around the same time their English teachers started assigning books.

This has been written about elsewhere. Kelly Gallagher wrote an entire book about it and teachers such as Nancie Atwell and Donalyn Miller have explored how they have moved away from assigning books and have instead given their students autonomy in choosing their books. As a result, the stories they tell are stories of students falling in love with reading and as a result, reading voraciously.

To me, there is no greater truth about teaching novels. Choice leads to reading. Lack thereof leads the decline of reading. I lived this truth when I was in high school. I seldom read what was assigned. I read sporadically but in spurts and on the side. I also watched this unfold in my classroom. When assigning books, kids who are reluctant readers won't read. Kids who are latent readers won't read much. Some motivated students will read only the book you've assigned. On discussion days, for the most part, I've stared into a multitude of barely engaged faces who have obviously not read the material. They are merely reluctant tourists, in my room only because my class appears in that slot on their schedule.

So, I said the hell with it. And I gave my students choice. And they are reading. And I know because I can see it. I know because they tell me even though I haven't asked.

So, when I originally took a look at the Core Common Standards list of "exemplar texts," I was scared (click here to download New York State's adaptation of these standards). I mean, look at these lists:

For argument's sake, let's just say that you are a high school student in a school who has an English department that takes a look at this list and says, "okay, here's our required book list, all laid out and wrapped tightly in a bow." Can you imagine being a reader in this classroom? I'm sure these are all insightful texts worthy of merit and devotion, but looking at it would lead one to believe that nothing worthy of reading has been published in our country in the last thirty five years. Where are the books that will inspire readers? Where are the books that will inspire students to crash to sleep exhausted, drooly faces stuck to the page after reading deep into the night? Did the end of the Vietnam war correspond with the death of the publishing of young adult literature?

Which is why my hands shook when I read the version of the Core Common Standards that New York State recently adopted. As you probably know, each state has the ability to add 15% to the Core Common Standards. I was genuinely worried. New York seldom does anything right. But, as I scrolled through, I came across these two pearls:

Grade 6-8 (Highlights courtesy of NYS)

Grade 9-12

I know, I know, standard #10 is still there. Complexity and quality and all that nonsense. But, my state saw it necessary to add Standard 11 which, at the very least, gives us more ammunition that students deserve a say in the texts that they will spend so much time within. It's a great standard. Sort of an unstandard standard. It opens the door to inquiry and motivation and self direction and all those things that we progressive reading teachers hope to help our students develop. It gives me hope and for once, I love NY.

A Thousand Tiny Awakenings

2011-01-28T21:27:00.001-05:00

A few years ago I was asked to write a personal essay about how I decided to become an English teacher. I am reposting this essay here as an example of a literacy memoir for my EDS 224 students.

I was never the most practical kid. If you rented a time machine, hunted me down anywhere from 1977 to 1995, gently pulled me aside and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d respond in one short sentence. For eighteen years I’d stare intently into the ground, nudge the grass, snow, sand or dirt with my foot, and say, “I want to be a baseball player.” A random survey of my 6^th grade papers would reveal that I did not just include my name on the top line of the heading, but also my self asserted title, “Baseball King.”

When I was twenty-one, I was nudged awake. My friend and I heard about an open tryout the Atlanta Braves were hosting at a baseball field in Tonawanda. I grabbed my raggedy Cooper mitt, careworn spikes, and delusions of grandeur and drove out to the diamond on an overcast Wednesday. That afternoon, under a darkened sky, a lifetime of eschewing the weight room and over relying on Pepsi and Hot Fries as my main source of nutrition exposed me for what I really was; a slow footed dreamer with below modest skills and a hazy sense of reality. Just as in high school, I still ran a six second, eyes closed, zigzagged forty yard dash and possessed rubber band arms which produced throws that reached the plate accurately but only after being preceded by a few infield bounces.

It’d be cliché to say that I had an epiphany that day. It would be more accurate to argue that this humbling experience was one of a number of awakenings at a transitional time in my life, and this was the point in a novel when the protagonist finally crosses the threshold and begins his journey. It was somewhere thereabouts that I decided to become an English teacher. Funny thing is, I’m not too sure how I decided that I wanted to become an English teacher. Truthfully, I cannot identify any one point in my life when I even considered the possibility. No sit down meeting with a career counselor. No bearded, walking inspiration of a teacher, clad in elbow patches and dripping in Walt Whitman. No dog-eared novel with a permanent spot on my nightstand.

What I do remember, however, are a thousand instances of English teachers opening the doors to exhilarating new worlds, which must have left hundreds of tiny dings in the subconscious of a dreamy, yet lackadaisical baseball player. An early impression was left by one of my elementary school teachers. She sat a small group of the “advanced” students down with headphones and allowed us to read The Hobbit while listening to the audio book on cassette. I remember being swept up in Middle Earth, so much so that by the middle of junior high school I finished the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and the non-Elven parts of Unfinished Tales (I could never stand the elves…too much singing and too many similar sounding names).

Similarly, in 7th grade my English teacher, Mrs. Shea, in an early edition of a literature circle, allowed her students to choose one of the novels in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia for a reading project. I chose The Silver Chair, and although only required to read one, I quickly consumed all seven novels, each night falling asleep and dreaming of accompanying the Pevenses to the magical land of Narnia.

In high school my interest in the subject ebbed and flowed. I read many of the assigned books, and fondly remember The Pigman, The Catcher in the Rye, and Lord of the Flies. But the heroic struggles of Holden and Ralph were often pushed to the background by the mind numbing drudgeries contained in the orange Vocabulary Workshop books that followed me from grade to grade. Often I’ll get visions of the big, bleached white pencil on the cover and shudder as I remember years of coma inducing analogies, sentence completions, and synonym matching. Also, in high school it seemed that the ludic strolls through coming of age novels were often shoved to the shoulder by forced marches through the canon. I remember paying vague attention to the teachers’ discussions of Tale of Two Cities, Shakespeare’s plays, and The Scarlet Letter and succeeding without reading. I passed with above average grades simply by parroting and playing the game of school, as opposed to being deeply vested in the books I was reading. At risk of having my English teaching license revoked, I feel the need to admit that I still haven’t read Macbeth, and have only a fuzzy recollection of witches and blood from my 11th grade experience with that play.

Other English teachers, whether through the encouragement of words or deeds, left more enduring positive memories. In 9th grade I wrote a short story about a fictional skiing vacation with a deranged brother, and my English teacher liked it so much he convinced me to submit it for publication in the school’s literary magazine. He later pulled me aside to share that his literary magazine staff enjoyed the dark humor. During my senior year my paths crossed with another influential teacher, Mrs. W. The course was Mystery Literature, and rumor had it that it was an easy grade. Mrs. W was flighty and well past the recommended age of retirement, and initially her students saw her age as a weakness to exploit. In fact, those of us in the row near the window spent a significant amount of time in the first few weeks of school using our watches to redirect the sunlight to distract her while teaching, making the beams of light dance around the chalkboard and, while she lectured, refract off of her eyeglasses. Her passion and enthusiasm for her subject soon hooked us, and we were exposed to a myriad of mysteries, most notably Arthur Conan Doyle and the world of Sherlock Holmes. She offered us choice in the texts we read, guidance while reading, and time in class to read. She showed her students that there was a world of mystery literature to explore and she made time for us to dip our toes in these short stories and novels. Although we were only required to read three short stories during the Conan Doyle unit, I read every one of Doyle’s short stories as well as The Hound of the Baskervilles. I became swept up in mystery literature, devouring most of the authors in the mystery section in her classroom library. The class may have been an easy A, but I never noticed as I worked harder and read more than I ever had before.

In large part, however, I fell in love with reading outside the sphere of school. My parents had a subscription to Reader’s Digest, and each month I would draw a hot bath and read Drama in Real Life while my toes shriveled like golden raisins, all the while chuckling away and dreaming of earning three hundred dollars by having a story accepted to the Campus Comedy, All in a Day’s Work, or Life in These United States sections of the magazine. I lived for the humorous essays of Mike Royko and Art Buchwald in The Buffalo News, and couldn’t wait for my weekly subscription to Sports Illustrated or the monthly National Geographic passed down from my grandfather. My mother would take me to the drab colored Cazenovia library and I would get lost in the large collection of young adult literature. Afterwards I would curl up in bed and read, sometimes finishing two books in one day.

Yeats quote has become ubiquitous lately, but I honestly believe that there is some truth in it. Good teaching inspires authentic inquiry. The thousands of tiny awakenings I experienced were a result not of napalm, but of teachers throwing pieces of kindling on a smoldering fire. I am here today because of it. I love being an English teacher. I love the fact that I get to wake up every morning and talk with people about two things I love; reading and writing. As I teach, I keep my own experiences close to my vest. I provide my students choice when possible, strategies to help them develop their voice, and structure to help them succeed. I read constantly, seeking out novels and nonfiction that may help my students ignite and become lifelong readers and learners. I try to model myself after influential teachers because I think that the experiences provided by literature and the well crafted stories in Sports Illustrated and National Geographic enriched my life and provided me with an empathetic worldview. I also do it because someday, another under skilled and delusional outfielder will pick himself up off of the short grass, and realize that he needs to blaze a new path.

I'm Just Spitballing Here...But...

2011-01-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I finished the 2005 edition* of Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts, a short instructional book about filmmaking for the teen audience. The book takes students from script writing to auditions to filming to publication in hopes of providing teenagers a full timeline for completing five minutes fictional shorts.

Even though I teach Mass Media and Film Production and have taught digital film production for going on eight years, the book gave me a lot to think about. My students generally make nonfiction films. They make variations on documentaries and narration based films. I guess they make music videos, which can be fiction, but that assignment is based on a personal essay about music and the videos tend to stray towards nonfiction as well. I've always grappled with how best to help my students create script based fictional shorts and to have them "pull them off" but in a professional way that avoids cheesiness and predictability.

Coincidentally, yesterday I also received a Facebook message from a former student who is a filmmaker. I had Jordan as a sophomore (he is currently a senior) and was impressed that he was making documentary films about Cryptozoology. He publishes films on Youtube under the Swordfish Films moniker. He sent me a link to a film he just finished making, a 29 minute fan fiction piece inspired by Sweeney Todd. (Let me also preface this by saying that I cannot pretend to have anything to do with this young man's talent. He was making films long before I met him and he is not enrolled in Mass Media due to a scheduling conflict.)

The book and Jordan's film made me think about film and high school. High schools have plays. High schools have musicals. High schools, generally, do not have films (I say generally because I'm sure that some places do). But wouldn't it be cool if they did?

So here's my idea, and I'm not totally committed, but I think it might work. Next year, film club. Get kids together. Draw kids from Mass Media and Creative Writing electives. Write a script. Give readings. Auditions. Post cast lists. Student written, student directed. Film, edit, voila! Shoot for like a 20 minute movie.

We could then make this twenty minute movie the central film around which to build our Central Films Film Festival in June. This would help a lot because then I could make the film festival, previously an event where we screened every Mass Media project, a submission based event. Then we wouldn't have to screen the bombs in front of parents and community members.

I'm not committing yet. It's just in the idea phase. But I think it might be cool. Here's Jordan's film if you're interested:

___________________________

* I ordered it in 2007 with the funds allotted to me by my English department. I just now got around to reading it. Maybe I'll knock off Film Art, purchased in 2008 with the very same source of funds, next.

On Passion, Failure, and Learning

2011-01-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

Today my morning Mass Media and Film Production class had the opportunity to visit with filmmaker James Dirschberger. Dirschberger, a local high school graduate who most recently directed the documentary film Honest Man: The Life of R. Budd Dwyer, came in and shared some very valuable insights into the film and production industries.

Mr. Dirschberger (84 Films, 84 Films Vimeo Channel) shared some of the short animated films that he has helped direct and produce, as well as a new music video for The Fresh and Only's. He also espoused some tidbits that I am seriously considering printing up on bumper stickers and smacking onto the foreheads of my students so that every time they look in the mirror they'll have to read them (backwards, but nonetheless).

His primary message was about passion. He said "if you have any passion at all, stick with it." I think this is such a valuable lesson for high school students to hear. I have a fair amount of kids who have fun making films and are crafting compelling stories, so I think this message that if you work hard and keep creating and are prepared for opportunities as they arise is extremely valuable for those with open minds. Furthermore, I know that this lesson applies to all things. Find something you love, do it well, do it often, and opportunities will follow.

Furthermore, Dirschberger talked to students about developing their craft and preparing for many hours of failure. This is equally valuable. For my students to hear that professional filmmakers make mistakes, struggle, and learn from mistakes hopefully will sink in. I have to remember this as a teacher too. Not every film (or, any film) my students make will be perfect or anywhere close, so I need to remember that every little misjudgment and risk taken is an opportunity for learning.

At the close of the session, Dirschberger watched a couple of my students' films and gave them feedback. He was a great guest speaker. He highlighted some of their films' strong points and made them feel good about what they are doing. Afterwards he stuck around to talk business to a couple of kids who had some further questions.

I need to find a way to do this more often. Guest speakers provide experiences and stories that I cannot provide. I think we all benefited from hearing what he had to say.

It's Not About Technology, It's About The Story the Students Tell

2010-12-06T13:25:00.000-05:00

In September I went down to Washington to record a podcast for The College Board, The National Writing Project, and Phi Delta Kappa. (Read the full story here.) Yesterday I received the email that the podcasts have been finished and published.

There is no way to embed the audio, but if you want to take a listen, you can download or stream the podcast here.

ARCS Float Onto My Doorstep

2010-12-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

I'm always interested in getting new titles for my classroom library. Trouble is, I'm not rich and I don't get any budget to buy individual novels. So, my classroom library is made up of books I buy every couple of months and books that have lasted through the years because they aren't good enough for my students to have walked away with (I swear I've had ten copies of Perks of Being a Wallflower disappear since 2001). Luckily, I have the world's most wonderful librarian and she is always getting new young adult literature onto her shelves.

Recently, a forward thinking bunch of Twitter users started thinking about starting an ARC recycling project. Advanced reading copies (ARC) of books are routinely sent to book bloggers, reviewers, and at conferences. Thing is, once a blogger is done with a book, there is nothing to be done with it as it cannot be legally resold or donated to a library. So, Sarah from The Reading Zone and Donalyn Miller developed a program matching book bloggers and classroom teachers. You can read more about the program here. Basically, book bloggers have books to get rid of, students need good books to read. Voila! Match made in heaven.

When I heard about the program, I was eager to join. My sophomores are reading tons of books and I want to add to that "book flood" (a term used by Kelly Gallagher to describe, well, a flood of books for students).

I signed up on the matchmaking survey at The Reading Zone and the next day I received an email from Michelle Franz, who reviews books at Galleysmith. We exchanged information and this morning a box of twenty novels were delivered by UPS. I eagerly opened up the box and all sorts of young adult novels poured out. As I sorted through the box I thought of different students who would be good matches for each book. I am very thankful for Michelle's donation to my classroom.

Overall, this has been a great experience. I am reminded of Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody. There are so many interesting things going on through Twitter. The site provides a vehicle that helps people with common interests but wide geographical boundaries to work together and share resources and solve problems. I know I'm gushing, but its just really wonderful to see.

Literacy, ELL, and Digital Storytelling

2010-12-04T12:55:00.000-05:00

Kent Manning shared this video with me two days ago via Twitter. It's a neat feature on a digital storytelling project in a US History class in Oakland, CA. A few years ago, while working with City Voices City Visions, content area teachers often had questions about how they might integrate film projects into their content laden curriculum. Well, here's a pretty good example of a project that was deep and took place over a long stretch of time in bits and pieces. (Mr. Manning, we haven't met, but thanks for passing it along!)

Project #2: Two Minute Profiles

2010-11-23T21:55:00.000-05:00

For the second project of the year, my Mass Media and Film Production students were asked to make two minute long profiles. They were to choose an interesting person, interview them, gather b-roll footage, and weave it all together into a cohesive two minute film.

As with most projects, this one stretched a few days longer than I had anticipated. This is my fault since I originally gave them two weeks to gather footage and edit. I let them finish the films while I was at NCTE. After the first day of screening, I'm really happy I did! The kids got good closeups, solid interviews, and were thoughtful about composition. Some went so far as downloading new fonts that were more suited to the topics of their films. They also collectively improved their audio balance (no interviews drowned out by voiceovers) and started to push the editing program a little bit by trying out new techniques.

For this screening, I've changed the discussion format a little bit. For the first project, we used the TAG method (tell something you like, ask a question, give a suggestion). At the end of the last project I sensed a little bit of hostility and some anxiety during screening, especially in my later period. At NCTE I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Ruth and Stacey from Two Writing Teachers. They shared stories about their students celebrating writing at the end of genre studies. With that in mind, I decided to repackage the screenings a little bit. I talked to my students about the reasoning behind screenings and shared that my intent was to for us to celebrate in their work, not look for opportunities to be overly critical about each others' work. I gave them a revised observation form which read TAsk instead of TAG. I asked them to tell something they liked or that they found meaningful in one column and asked them to jot a question about technique or intent in the second column. I told them to leave the G to me.

Anyways, from what I saw today, I am impressed with their work. I'm going go embed a few below, but if you'd like to take a look at the full range of projects, click on through. I'll probably post more tomorrow. These are the ones we screened today.

True Life; I'm Addicted To My 81' Camaro from Andrew Wiatrowski on Vimeo.

Skateboarding from taylorj roberts 2011 on Vimeo.

Spike It! from Jennifer Buczek on Vimeo.

The Wonder Mother from Mahlia Lowell 2011 on Vimeo.

A Day In the Life: Of Zachary Nazzarett from John Nazzarett on Vimeo.

Hair Affair from Charmaine Weaver on Vimeo.

How the NWP Helped Me Find My Voice

2010-11-19T11:32:00.001-05:00

(to a prompt at the NWP general meeting)

On my very first day of the WNYWP Summer Institute in 2003 I sat at a circle table in a basement room on the Canisius College campus and harriedly tried to keep up with everything that was going on. I was being bombarded with titles of books I had never heard of, watching masterful teachers give deeply thought out teaching demos, and desperately trying to keep my head from spinning off and onto the floor as a whirlwind of comments streamed forth in discussion of things I had never quite considered and knew deep down I should have.

Over the years, through my involvement with NWP, I have had the opportunity to continue to surround myself with these teachers. Through events, meetings, book clubs, and the teen summer writing workshop I am in a constant state of writing teacher think tank-edness. This has given me the time and exposure and state of mind to root my teaching and thinking in the thoughts of others. We've bounced ideas. We've planned. We've discovered.

As I've stayed involved, I have also been able to be immersed outside of my own site and into the National community. Through Twitter and the Dissemination Retreat and the opportunity to be involved with the NWP/College Board's Teachers are the Center of Education series I've met teachers who I am in awe of and inspired by. NWP has also given me my voice by giving me and my students validation. Even though what we do isn't always the traditional face of English, it is still not only valid but worthy to be celebrated and explored. How could this immersion not seep into the soul of my teaching?

I would not be the teacher I am today without the NWP. And I know that in twenty years, I will be able to say the same thing. I will know that because of my NWP community I will evolve and grow and be the teacher and writer and learner I have the potential to be. What other professional development program can say that?

Planning for Day Two NWP/NCTE: Whispers and Shouts

2010-11-18T23:35:00.001-05:00

NWP General Session

Cannot. Wait. To. Hear. Donalyn. Miller. Speak.

I read The Book Whisperer over the summer as part of the young adult literature course I taught over at The University of Buffalo. This book, as well as Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide, were all the impetus I needed to recommit myself to make my English 10 class primarily choice based reading (with a few in common texts).

NWP is pulling them in lately for the General Session. Not that it’s a competition (I’m lying, it totally is), but they’ve been kicking NCTE’s butt lately. Last year Billy Collins vs. The Sound of Music lady. This year NWP has Donalyn Miller vs. NCTE's Hilary Swank. I mean, c’mon, you’ve read the book and seen the movie, what else do you want to know?

NCTE

To get free books, or to not get free books. That is the question. I want to be that person who walks away with tote bags full of free books. I think the exhibit hall opens at noon. As the general session ends at 11:30, this might give me just the right amount of time to sprint over to the Coronado to throw away my dignity in the name of free stuff. I mean, my students need new books to choose from, right? Looks like none of this for me. Damn you Disney and your multiple conference hotels.

The only thing that kind of stinks is that because of NWP and the books I’ll miss sessions A & B. Lots of good stuff there. Session B.27 “Bridging the Real and the Ideal: Implementing a Reading/Writing Workshop in a Standards Based World” looks like exactly the type of thing I’m looking to see (11-12:15 Y&B Ballroom, Salon 7).

C Sessions (12:30-1:45)

Two Writing Teachers presenting REFINING REFLECTIVE PRACTICE: BEING A WIDE-AWAKE EDUCATOR IN WRITING WORKSHOP (G). There really is no other choice. I’ll be there. (Y & B Club, Saybrook Room). Well, there are other choices. There’s a cool summer reading presentation going on, and one about Multigenre papers, and one about bringing authors into school. So, I guess there are other choices. Then again, there’s not. Bad thing is, it's at the Yacht and Beach club, so no free books. Oh well. Good presentations are worth the sacrifice.

D Sessions (2:30 - 3:45)

Honestly, right now it's all up in the air. I have to kind of figure out how things are with transportation. Do I stay at the Yacht Club, or do I head over the the Coronado. Hmmm..

Planning for NWP Day One: Or, How I Really Wish I Could be Cloned

2010-11-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

Here’s my Thursday “schedule” for NWP:

Session A (9:30-11:30) - I am currently scheduled for Reading and Research: Ethical Dimensions for Writing Online. I mean c’mon, Bud Hunt and Paul Allison! I really want to hear more about YouthVoices.net and explore different possibilities for my kids publishing online. I know I also sometimes get swept up in what I can do without delving into enough conversation about why I might not do something. Sounds like a wonderful presentation.

There are at least two more concurrent presentations that I would love to attend in this time slot. Renee Hobbs and Joseph Conroy are presenting Fair Use of Copyrighted Media in the Classroom and I kind of feel compelled to be there. My kids create digital media and publish it online and I am lax in enforcing copyright. Even though I do strongly suggest my students use music from Freeplaymusic.com they still may be violating the letter of the copyright terms as they do republish their films online. I need to know more about copyright.

I'd also like to see Responding to the Common Core: An Introduction to the Literacy Design Collaborative sounds like exactly what I’m looking to explore this year. It could be the most important things I attend. Also, Where Next in the Teaching of Writing? from Arthur Applebee and Judith Langer sounds really promising. I think this might help me revisit what types of writing I do in my classroom and as I recently saw Applebee’s name mentioned in the ECNing discussion thread about Sandra Stotsky’s study of reading trends in American high schools, I feel like I also need to be there.

Argh, so many choices! Not only do I want to attend these sessions, but some of my NWP Tweeps are presenting about Digital Literacies and there are so many household NWP names represented elsewhere. I don’t know how to be in so many places at the same time. What’s a boy to do?

Lunch (11:30-1) - Games for Education and Social Impact. I signed up for this session. I have no idea what it’s about. All I know is that I have always loved video games, have some unengaged males students who are buying into the reading but need something else to supplement, and I also have a five year boy old in kindergarden. I want to be in the know.

Session B (1-3:00) : Again, so many choices. My site director, Suzanne Borowicz, is presenting about analyzing student writing in the classroom (B3: More Than Assessment: Our Analytic Writing Continuum at Work for Sites) so I feel like part of me wants to be there to check her out. I don’t think I registered for a presentation at this time so I’m kind of a free agent. However, I think I am leaning towards Transitional Conversations: Connecting Writing in High School and College. I teach seniors and believe this is where I need to be to best serve my students.

Session C (3:30-5:30): This is another time slot I am having a hard time with. I am registered for Elyse Eidman-Aadahl’s Digital Writing and Assessment: Pushing the Boundaries of How We Talk About Text (C13). Eidman-Aadahl is awesome and I was fortunate enough to see her speak in Philadelphia in the kick off event to last year's Annual Meeting. I think this would help me examine my Mass Media class and the writing we do, especially in light of the Core Common Standards. Sometimes I worry that the latitude in writing topics I give my students in Mass Media/Film Production is doing them a disservice and that they won’t be prepared to do the type of writing they need to do in college. (I am reassured every time I screen a project or read a blog post, but it’s still something I need to consider.)

That being said, I would love to attend Prompting for Meaningful Student Writing as I think sometimes the actual assignment sheets I give my students are ambiguous or poorly worded and not well thought out as they might be. Maybe I can hijack someone who attended that session and steal the handouts.

There are other presentations that look good to me too. I’d love to attend my man from Philly Robert Rivera Amezola’s presentation on digital stories. There are also cool looking presentations about visual literacies and after school writing programs that have piqued my interest.

I don’t know. NWP is problematic, but it’s the best problem to have. I guess attending NWP Annual Meeting is about making hard choices. To support this point, even with all the things I’ve mentioned above, part of my wants to go to NCTE from 2:30-4:15. NWP luminaries Troy Hicks and Bud Hunt are presenting over there, as are Teri Lesesne and Tom Romano and Penny Kittle. No matter what I do, I will not be able to experience even a fraction of the richness that is available. I have a lot of thinking to do between today and tomorrow.

Coming Up: Planning for Day Two NWP/NCTE: Whispers and Shouts

Grab Your Mickey Ears, It’s Time for NCTE and NWP 2010!

2010-11-17T11:20:00.001-05:00

Another NCTE. This will be the sixth time I’ve been able to attend NCTE and the NWP Annual Meeting since I started teaching in 2001. San Francisco. Pittsburgh. New York. San Antonio. Philadelphia. And now Orlando. Over the years I’ve attended a lot of sessions. Some sessions were wonderful and I still find myself thinking about them from time to time. I saw Nancie Atwell and Linda Christensen talk in San Francisco. I sat through a wonderful session in Pittsburgh about analyzing documentaries in the classroom. Graphic novels, text annotation, Socratic discussions. The things I’ve learned have solidified my teaching foundation and have made me a better teacher.

That being said, last year I was a bit underwhelmed by the sessions I attended at NCTE (on the other hand, I was blown away by what I saw at the NWP sessions). So this year, I decided to take time to really plan out what I want to accomplish at NWP and NCTE. I am going to do what I ask my students to do on occasion; define what they would like to learn and then reflect on new understandings.

This year I am looking for a number of things. Even though certain parts of the Core Common Standards are vexing to the root of my soul (really, you want my students to read and analyze the Federalist papers? More on that in a later post.), I want to hear what other teachers are saying about how the new standards will impact their classrooms. I need to continue to consider how these standards will impact my Mass Media and Film Production class and my English 10 class, so I feel like I need to be part of some good conversation.

I’d also like to attend some sessions sharing nuts and bolts writing workshop stuff. I plan on attending the Two Writing Teachers presentation on Friday and will be looking for more opportunities as I scour the NCTE program.

Lastly, this year I refuse to shop for presentations. In the past I’ve been too worried about where I wasn’t and not enough concerned about where I was. I’ll admit to abandoning my fair share of sessions over the years. This year, I’m going to grab a seat in the front and be present for the entire presentation. Pinky swear.

Coming Up Next: Planning for NWP Day One: Or, How I Really Wish I Could be Cloned

Lamenting Grou.ps and Diversifying the Digital Classroom

2010-10-31T10:59:00.000-04:00

I heavily invested in Ning. Then, Ning resorted to extortion, removing features unless its members paid up. Ning did offer an option to let educational networks be sponsored by Pearson, but this model was so limited as to be rendered useless. Inexplicably Ning even limited sponsored Nings to two sidebar modules (or whatever they refer to them as). I'm not too sure how much .00001 kb of data could possibly cost Ning, but heaven forbid we sponsored freeloaders attempt to organize our links or utilize an extra text box. As a result of this change in business models I lost five active networks (including the WNYWP network. We are still adrift with solid plan for our online presence other than that of our hosted page at Canisius) and all the videos I've uploaded the past two years (though I still have the full quality versions on a hard drive).

You'd think I would have learned my lesson with Ning. But I didn't. I heard about Grou.ps. I checked it out and it seemed like an intuitive (yet a bit buggy) social network platform. Plus, it had everything. Blogs. Chat. Wikis. Video. Photos. Everything I was looking for. Grou.ps also promised to never do what Ning did and to keep the platform free for users. I created three networks, one for each section of English I am teaching. I got the kids signed up. I worked the site into the infrastructure of my classroom. All was well.

Well, promises don't seem to last in the online world. Grou.ps, despite promising to remain free, sent out emails late last week threatening to limit the options of network creators unless they chose one of three packages starting at $2.95 a month. Creators were given seven days to make a decision (Ning gave months to make a decision.)

Grou.ps, in it's defense, is offering a "entry level" network for free but these sites will have large ads and will have very limited bandwith and 100 mb of storage. I am going to wait until tomorrow to see how intrusive or inappropriate these ads are and watch to see how the bandwith impacts the use of this site in the classroom. (Here is my Mass Media site if you want to take a look. Here is my AP Literature site.)

In the meantime, I've decided to stop putting all of my eggs in one proverbial basket. Two weeks ago I had my students create Vimeo accounts and we will be uploading our films to that site. I created a Vimeo group and created a tab to link to the group from my Grou.ps page. This way, I won't lose any films and Vimeo can do the heavy lifting of video playback.

I've also relocated my Wiki. I had been using Wiki to host resources for my class but figured it would be safer to put this information in more reputable hands. I've copies and pasted all of my Mass Media tutorials over to my Central Films wikispace. Now, I just need to figure out where to host the pictures I take in the classroom.

I am comfortable with tech use in the classroom, so these changes in terms will not cripple my classroom. But I wonder how frustrating it is for people who seldom use technology and are exploring these tools for the first time. I also understand that these are businesses and they need to make money, but I have absolutely no desire to begin piling up subscription after subscription to build the online infrastructure of my classroom. I could pay the $2.95 per month (times three because of my three sections) for Grou.ps or the $9.95 per month for the upgraded Vimeo or however much it is for a Pro Flickr account, but I don't want to. I already pay for a custom domain and to host our school newspaper website. The last thing I want to do is incur a laundry list of monthly charges on my checking account.

In English 10 I still don't know what I want to do, so for the time being I am going to rely on our Facebook page to communicate, even though that site cannot be accessed from school. I don't want to put the work into the English 10 grou.ps because I don't plan on using it as much as I would with my senior classes. I'm not sure what the long term answer is, but in the meantime I know I need to diversify so that the fickle whims and broken promises don't destroy what my students are building.

Reading Workshop: Discovering the Flow

2010-10-28T13:18:00.000-04:00

My sophomores are required to read thirty books a year and are given wide latitude in selecting texts. I've always valued choice in the classroom but have struggled with structuring the reading and studying of text around total choice. This past summer I read Kelly Gallagher's Readicide and Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer as part of the young adult literature course I taught at UB. These books helped me think about how I was structuring reading in my classroom and gave me a few ideas to help me move forward. Miller's book also inspired me to set a minimum number of novels in my classroom (she has her students read 40 books a year. I decided to set my sights a smidge lower and adjust next year after I see how it goes.).

So far this year, my students have been gradually settling into this requirement. Many of them are, in Miller's words, latent readers. Two months into the school year the reading doesn't seem to be taking hold. There are a few kids burning through books, but a good number have only finished one or two books. Some are still struggling through their first. Last week I was starting to feel a little discouraged about their progress and the reading culture in my classroom. It didn't seem to me that they were buying in. I was setting the example, sharing what I was reading and sharing books I thought individual students might like. I was being thoughtful in my suggestions. But, I still wasn't seeing the buy in that I had hoped for.

After some weekend reflection, I thought about the ways I was sabotaging my own efforts. Primarily, I decided I wasn't giving them the time they needed. Last week during reading workshop I allowed them to read their books or read, annotate, and respond to their "article of the week," and I think that they took the article more seriously because the expectations for fulfillment were more clear. It is easy to point to a marked up article and declare, "I have done this. It is finished." My expectations were less clear about reading. This week, I modified the reading part of the workshop and set out the expectation that reading time was only for novels. I also modified my simple weekly reading log to suggest a minimum amount of pages.

As a result, this week I'm seeing improvement. I'm seeing more evidence of students being engaged with their book. Two extremely latent readers finished their first books of the year (Jacqueline Woodson's Locomotion and Chris Crutcher's Running Loose). I sent about 1/4 of the class to the library between Tuesday and Thursday to pick up a book. Even the kids who were struggling are making progress. Clearly, the independent reading is taking hold and kids are getting excited about books.

This morning, I probably had one of my favorite reading workshop periods of the year. The shades were drawn, blocking out the early morning light and the wind gusting through the trees at upwards of 50 mph. Two out of three sets of lights were turned off (during our initial expectation setting discussion, they said dim lights helps them get immersed in reading). Every kid brought his or her book. One girl sneezed three times and not one kid said "god bless you." Today I had 100% trust that they were reading. I didn't need to break my concentration to make sure that a kid was sneaking a snooze. No need to tap any kids on the shoulder. When I did look up from The Strange Case of Oragami Yoda, every kid was totally immersed in the flow of reading. I was even able to finish that novel and move over to the other book I am halfway through, Christopher Paolini's Brisingr.

I don't know. Twelve years ago, while reading Nancy Atwell's In the Middle in college, I pictured my future classroom atmosphere to be like today. It felt good to me, and, not that I can read minds, but I think it felt good to the students too.

If Kids Are Making Movies During Their Senior Year, Will They Be Able to Do College Writing?

2010-10-26T20:29:00.001-04:00

This weekend I presented at the WNYWP Teachers Teaching Teachers conference. In my presentation I shared a couple of narration driven film projects that I do with my Mass Media and Film Production class, focusing on the ways writing and film intersect and build on each other.

I started my presentation by showing a student film from last year. It is a cool little film. The girl wrote this voiceover from the viewpoint of her younger brother who fell in love with baseball the summer before. She utilizes lots of cool shots and angles while a young man’s voice performs the narration (this director didn’t think her voice would be right, so she outsourced). I didn’t think about it too much at first, but as the film started I heard a quiet exclamation from the front row. We watched the video and discussed it. I asked the participants about the different ways they saw the filmmaker writing and designing the story. After a few people shared some keen observations, a woman in the front row raised her hand and said, “Joel, I have Hayley Pitts* in my freshmen composition class. She's wonderful.” (It was Hayley’s film that we were screening.)

A few minutes later I had the participants write to the prompt I use to start my Mass Media kids on their first filmmaking assignment. For our first film project we basically write on our blog about a pet peeve, observation, or other “deep thought” and eventually turn that blog post into the voiceover for a one minute film. The participants wrote, shared, and then I set them to storyboarding. While the participants storyboarded, the college teacher called me over. I walked over and hunched down next to her. She said, “At my college, I have no computers and four blank walls. How am I supposed to compete with this? Hayley must feel bored...like she is going backwards.” She also shared that Hayley is the best writer in her class.

It’s weird. I know this is an anecdote that really doesn't prove much, and I know that this was a very thoughtful college professor (as her attendance at a WNYWP conference would attest), but every once and awhile we hear that college professors complain that students aren’t ready for the writing they will encounter in college. Here is a professor worrying that she can’t compete with the nontraditional writing going on in my classroom, even as some more traditional teachers question whether this nontraditional writing even belongs in the English classroom. Interesting indeed.

We Begin the Ted Movement

2010-10-21T20:09:00.000-04:00

Today our school hosted our first Ted Talk screening. Over the summer we worked on a curriculum project to look for more ways to pique our students' interests and help further create an intellectual community. Our idea was to host biweekly to monthly Ted Talks because, frankly, what's more interesting than giving interesting people twenty minutes to share something they are passionate about. We are in the process of contacting individuals from our area and beyond to come in or Skype in and talk to students about projects they are working on. Students that are interested sign up during the week and are given tickets to come to the Tedtalk.

We wanted to start small, so we limited registration to thirty kids (we have a student population of around 900). We figured by limiting registration we would attract only kids that were truly interested, also keeping in mind that keeping the endeavor exclusive might create a buzz amongst the kids. We set the signup sheet outside of my room and within three days we had filled all thirty slots, helped in some small part by this commercial we broadcast twice on the morning announcements.

Ted Talks Commercial CCHS from Joel Malley on Vimeo.

So, during 8th period thirty students reported to my room for coffee, cookies, and a Ted Talk. In the belief that starting small is beneficial to the long term success of the program, we screened a previously recorded talk given by Brian Skerry, an underwater photographer for National Geographic who took pictures of the results of overfishing and habitat destruction. It's a powerful speech. I was so moved by it that I haven't eaten shrimp in the eight months since I first watched it.

The kids were very attentive. Fifty people packed into the room (I have an 8th period class of 14 and we were joined by our superintendent, some student teachers, and other teachers working on the project). After watching the talk kids shared out their thoughts about what they found moving along with any questions they had about the talk. We also talked about different things we could do in our own lives to address the very complicated issue. One girl shared her love of tofu and more than one vegetarian shared eating habits.

Right now I'm going over the evaluation sheets and they are overwhelmingly positive. We asked students to rate "the extent to which this talk piqued [their] intellectual curiosity." Three students rated the talk as a 3, but the rest of the stack rated the talk as a 4 or 5 (5 meaning "very interested").

We also asked students to complete and explain the following sentence: "As a human and thinker, I cared/did not care about this talk because." Student responses were authentic and most commented on the speaker's focus on the devastation wrought on these fragile ecosystems.

Lastly, we asked the students to share out some ideas about what they might be hearing about in the future in order to help us plan for the future. In reading their thoughts many desire a continued focus on the environment and the green movement, as well as talks about "other cultures," how "violence affects our community," "women's rights" and "human health" (excerpted from various feedback forms).

It's interesting. I know this is cliche, but kids get stereotyped. This generation is apathetic. This generation is too wrapped up in Facebook and are self absorbed. This generation is lazy. The fact is that if you give kids opportunities to discuss bigger things in a supportive environment, these stereotypes are quickly dispelled. Today, in the waning hour of the school day, it was refreshing to see students engaged and discussing bigger ideas.

You're the First English Teacher to Ever Tell Me I'm a Good Writer

2010-10-20T21:13:00.000-04:00

"Mr. Malley," he said, turning around on his chair.

"Yeah dude," I replied, wondering what was coming. He was looking me in the eyes, which was out of character, a smile radiating on his face, which had been happening more and more frequently.

"Yo, you're the first English teacher to ever tell me I'm a good writer."

I paused, shifted my weight from one foot to another, unsure how to respond. "That's because you are, man."

This exchange actually happened today and it's been under my skin the whole day. Last night I read this kid's blog post, which was full of voice and creativity and inventive figurative language. He was an extremely reluctant writer, and actually put his head down on his desk in the beginning of the year when I explained to my students that Mass Media is a writing intensive class. His blog post was arguing against my practice of making my students submit weekly blog posts of 400-500 words. The title of his post was "U Buggin" and that, in and of itself, brought a smile to my face. The post had a number of cosmetic errors but overall it was seeping with good writing. It has me wondering. This kid is 18 years old. A senior in high school. He was forceful in his assertion that no one had ever complimented him on his writing. Ever. How does that happen? I am a teacher because several teachers along the way took the time to tell me that something I wrote resonated with them.

What is the impact of going through school with the belief that you suck at something that is such a vital skill? This kid's writing had a lot of good stuff going on. It had verve. I suspect it didn't just appear. When I read and respond to blog posts tomorrow, I'm going to go out of my way to find things to praise in my other students' writing, because I'm wondering how many of them feel the same way.

Guest Post: The Process Called Filmmaking

2010-10-19T21:55:00.000-04:00

This will be the first in a series of guest posts from my students reflecting on projects in media res. In this post Drew shares his insights into the early process of filmmaking:

Well we're about a week now into the actual filmmaking part of this class, and in all honesty I thought it would be harder. Granted I think my first video is going to stink, but I still think it's a pretty easy process. Every process that I've gone through so far is going well. All the shots that I've took got imported quite well, they transition pretty good, and I've even put music into my movie just fine. What I've found to be the biggest thing I'm struggling with has to be getting the footage. Its not the fact that it's even hard, it's just annoying. Like you go get a bunch of shots, bring in your camera to import it, get the footage in, and then you realize you forgot to take a couple shots. Then you have to do the same process all over again. Not only is it hard getting all your shots, it's hard finding people once you go home to either be in your shots or hold the camera so that you can be in them. I don't know if this is a problem with other people but my mom is just not so willing to jump into one of my movies, nor do I really want her in there. If I could have a constant arsenal of friends that I can call at any given time to be in my movie that would be fantastic.

Another thing that's hard about it is finding which shot angles or types of shots you want to use. There so many different angles to use that I have trouble finding one that I want to use or look good. I'm sure farther down the film making road I'll have a better grasp on what types of shots will be better off to use.

Another problem I'm slowly discovering is that I may need to buy a real camera and not just use my Droid. It's a good camera for messing around videos and on the spot shots but let's be serious this is the big time now and I need a legit camera. I've done some browsing and I think I'm going to purchase one. There will be better quality, it won't absolutely kill my battery, I can hook it up to some kind of stand so I don't have to constantly hold it, and my mom would be happy that she has a video camera she can use.

Mister, Do We Got Beef With Iran?

2010-10-16T09:19:00.000-04:00

This year we started to institute Article of the Week (AOW) in our 10th grade classes, appropriating Kelly Gallagher's idea from his book Readicide. We're about three weeks in, thus far having shared an article about a boy who sailed around the world and another on child soldiers around the globe. This past Monday we sent home an article from Up Front titled "Tweeting Their Way to Freedom," an article exploring the role of Twitter in recent uprisings in Iran and China. Students were to annotate and respond to the article during the week, leading up to our discussion yesterday.

The kids came armed to discuss yesterday and there was some excellent conversation. This is only my third week of AOW so I am still kind of getting used to the format of discussion. I learned a couple things this week. First of all, I tried to jump right into having them share their responses. A few minutes into the dead conversation I had a kid raise her hand and ask, "Mister, what's "repressive" mean?" I quickly realized that I should have probably started by asking them to share out their questions and observations in their annotations.

The gist of the AOW is that we need to do what we can do to help expose our kids to the world. Our conversation revealed that I had kind of overestimated my students' knowledge of what is going on in the world. Here were a few questions:

"I think the US should shut Twitter and Facebook down if they're a threat."
"What does "hardline" mean?"
"Aren't Iraq and Iran the same thing?"
"Mister, do we got beef with Iran?"
"How do you shut the Internet down on an entire country? The people would revolt!"

Very good conversation flowed out of their questions and at the end of the period I felt that students had some time to ask some authentic questions that stemmed from their curiosity. It makes me feel like we're on the right track.

Next week we'll be reading about some Buffalo area "homesteaders" who eschew materialistic lives and find simpler ways to live, relying on dumpster diving and reusing the tossed away treasures that line our curbsides on garbage days. One gets the sense that these days a good number of kids genuinely believe that money is the root of all happiness (as Wu Tang says, "cash rules everything around me."), so it will be interesting to see their reaction.

A Romantic* Walk in the Woods

2010-10-11T10:49:00.001-04:00

Last week my AP Literature class trekked out into the dismal rain to Reinstein Woods, a local state run nature preserve with huge lily ponds and an extensive forest. We are studying Frankenstein and the Romantic Poets, so I thought it would be a good idea to get them out into the very nature that Wordsworth and Keats spent so much time writing about. If your recollection of Frankenstein is hazy, basically Victor Frankenstein sins against nature and can no longer find peace, even in the sublime beauty of the Alps. He is driven to the desolate Artic circle (where there is no nature) to seek revenge against the monster he created. Good times.

As I was saying, I was hoping for the best. We had a 70% chance of rain and an expected high of 52. I remember what I was like at 17 and couldn't envision myself spending a day in a cold downpour without a whole lot of whining. I figured we were going to get a little more of rain to create a dreary mood than rain as baptism and character restorer, if I may slip further into the role of literature analysis.

When we arrived, it was drizzling. We met our guides. On the bus ride over I explained the task to the students. They assembled into groups of two, each enabled with a flip camera, with instructions to take shots throughout the day and to try to capture impressions and details about their natural surroundings.

It was a cool little trip. After twenty minutes the rain stopped and it was clear the rest of the afternoon. The students listened at rapt attention as our guides unveiled the mysteries of the forest. Students smelled a strip of beech tree, handled dogbane rope, and listened to the story of a tiny tulip tree which, if lucky, would someday emerge through the forest canopy. We were completely silent listening to the calls of a white breasted nuthatch, spotted several downy woodpeckers, and stood in awe of a sea of birds engaged in aerial maneuvers, twittering (as Keats describes it) in unison. We shot video of a dead shrew and contemplated the contrast of Victor Frankenstein's isolation and Victor Reinstein's isolation (this land was Reinstein's summer abode). There were so many little moments and questions and conversations. It was a great experience.

All in all, we gathered 6.7 GB of video. Students were required to write a poem capturing some small part of the experience and bring in a rough draft the next day. This week students will cobble together one minute videos using their poems as a voiceover. Based on listening to their drafts on Wednesday, I think good things are to come.

* romantic referring to the artistic movement

Mr. Malley Goes to Washington

2010-10-07T21:12:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to fly down to Washington for a day to take part in a Congressional briefing organized by the National Writing Project, The College Board, and Phi Delta Kapp. In this briefing I shared observations about the advantages of using digital tools to enhance learning. Essentially, I was making the argument that allowing my kids to write with digital video and blog in the classroom led to great improvements in their writing. I cited a number of reasons in the video I shared and in the subsequent speech.

It was an interesting experience. The briefing took place at the Capitol Visitors center. We left the hotel at 7:15 in the morning in a steady rain. After a brief cab ride, we trekked up to the entrance but were chased away by armed guards. We later found out that they cleared the building because someone found an unattended package in the Visitors center. As the detective who later visited our briefing room explained, that package was a box of handouts our tech guys brought to distribute. Good times.

It is not often that I deliver speeches. I've been free forming for ten years in the classroom, possessing a vague notion of what I will be saying over a forty minute time period. I kind of play it as I go. This is the same for presentations I give. I've got a plan in my head and maybe some sort of slides to keep me on track. I kind of felt this had to be different.

So, instead of free forming, I wrote a speech and spent the morning pacing and trying to memorize the speech. After watching NWP director Sharon Washington and moderator Juan Williams give thoughtful and professional opening remarks, I felt kind of nervous. But what do you know, I got up behind that podium and delivered my entire speech without even looking at the paper. I even added emphasis!

Anyhoodles, the briefing went really well. My copresenters and I were able to easily handle all questions about the relationship between technology and writing and I think we came off really well. I wouldn't exactly describe the questions from the legislative aides in the audience or Juan Williams as a barrage, but they were probing questions which raised interesting insights.

After the briefing was over, I had a couple of hours to myself. I poked around the Visitors Center and then made my way over to the Folger Shakespeare Library. The security guard at the Folger invited me to walk up into the balcony and watch rehearsal, so I spent a half hour watching the lighting guys set up the stage while five musicians rehearsed the score and discussed the arrangement. It was super interesting hearing their creative banter.

After the Folger I went over and checked out the Library of Congress, as I figured none of my immediate family would ever want to accompany me there. I walked around the marble halls until it was time to get on the subway back to the airport.

It was a wonderful experience. I've been stressed out for the presentation for a couple of months now. The briefing wasn't anything I'd ever have thought I'd be doing, so the fact that it went well is deeply satisfying.

Anyways, here is what I had to say and here is the video I refer to.

I’ve been lucky in my career. Within my first two years of teaching I became involved with two organizations that helped define my teaching. In 2002 I joined City Voices City Visions, a University of Buffalo organization which holds summer institutes teaching teachers how to help kids compose with digital video. My students began making digital videos three years before Youtube existed. In 2003 I was accepted into the Western New York Writing Project Summer Institute. This month of professional development helped me to develop the writing pedagogies that are the foundation of my classroom.

After seven years of teaching I left a tenured position with the Buffalo Public School District. The district’s pendulum was swinging towards scripted instruction and other regressive policies. Because of my experience with these two organizations, I knew that education could do better. I knew that my students deserved something more.

I soon secured a job at Cheektowaga Central High School, a progressive district with an eye towards the skills that our 21st century citizens will need. It is a district concerned with action. Not reaction. The English department boasts five Western New York Writing Project teaching consultants. Last year, our ELA passing rate was 88%.

Although I teach three very different classes with distinctly different goals, they can best be described as digital literacy workshops.

I’ll let this tell you a little more about what we do.

Show Film

Slide One - Increased Engagement
I see my students transform over the course of the year. They are tentative when I explain the writing intensive nature of my courses. Around December you see the change slowly wash over them. They start to see themselves as thinkers, storytellers and filmmakers. They are in my room before school, during free periods, during lunches, and after school, sometimes into the night completing digital projects.

The question is, why? Why this increased engagement from students who should have one foot out of the door? To answer this, I’ll refer to Daniel Pink. Dan Pink and many social scientists who study motivation argue that three factors are needed to create intrinsic motivation. Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose. In other words, kids need to have some choice to inquire into topics or stories that interest them. And they must believe that they are going to get good at something that matters. Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose.

Students get autonomy within parameters. I dictate the genre, but students get choice of topic. And when given the opportunity to choose, they make good choices. They make films about dying parents, they make films about people who have inspired them. My students explore racism in our school, investigate teens and unsafe driving, and look into economic factors affecting their neighborhoods and our city. The stories they tell are important stories to tell. The stories are bigger than themselves.

Slide Two - Audience
Digital writing also matters because of audience. Writers need to consider audience. Often in high school, there is no real audience other than the teacher. Digital tools allow students to write for more than just their teacher. I see this when I log onto my student networks on Sunday evening and see my students chatting about Keats and Wordsworth. When my AP Literature students blog about their reading, they know that their peers will read what they have to say. They know that I am going to bring snippets of what they’ve written into class in order to prompt further discussion. When my Mass Media students write about their projects they know that their peers will be commenting on what they’ve written. Every final project is shared. Students know that the better they write, the more original they are, the more powerful their stories, the bigger their audience will be. Because of this audience awareness, they revise not because they are told to, but because they need to. They write like writers.

Slide Three
Digital writing matters for one other reason. Again I’ll refer back to Daniel Pink . In his book A Whole New Mind, he argues that “the future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind--creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people-artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers--will now reap society’s richest rewards and share in its greatest joys.”

Writing is hard work. Digital writing is more difficult. It is complex. It has many layers. When you compose with multiple modes (video, audio, text, transitions) you have transcended writing. You have moved from writing a story to designing an experience. My students do this every time they choose the right font, nail a voice over, or come up with a concept.

If you believe Daniel Pink, if you believe, Tom Friedman, if you believe Richard Florida, then communication, collaboration, and design is invaluable in the 21st century workplace, in 21st century cities, in the 21st century economy. Therefore, these skills must be woven into the fabric of the 21st century writing classroom.

Thank you.

Simply Noise

2010-09-29T09:59:00.000-04:00

Between peripheral noise, announcements, student visits, and the lure of the internet, I have a hard time concentrating for long stretches. This isn't so swell, as, like most other teachers, I have a lot of work that requires concentration. I recently found a site that is really helping me concentrate. Simply Noise is a white noise generator which produces static. With a pair of headphones, this empty sound space drowns out those distracting noises that usually jar me from concentration. Yesterday I even accomplished a fair bit of reading during a study hall (this is sometimes difficult because I have four chatty seniors who do not understand the phrase "bring work to do.")

I have loads to accomplish, and basically, every little bit helps.

Good High School Teachers Steal from Good Kindergarden Teachers

2010-09-24T21:42:00.000-04:00

This year my five year old son got on the bus for the first time and off he went to a world apart from us. For the first time in his life, he'd be spending more than half of his day with people other than his parents and grandparents. I know every parent goes through the same thing, but it is still unsettling when it happens.

One of the first things his Kindergarten teacher did was send a sheet of paper asking parents to write back to her to tell her a little bit about our kids. They were straightforward questions. Activities. Goals. Interests. Hobbies. It took me awhile, but I chose the words carefully and tried to tell the story of my son Quinn.

Inspired, I also sent letters home with my sophomores asking their parents to write me a letter. About 1/3 of the parents responded, and it was some of the most valuable reading I've ever done. Reading the letters helped me feel more connected and helped flesh out the stories of these kids. This year's sophomores came up with a reputation for being wild. These letters instantly humanized them.

I hope it helped make the parents feel more connected too.

Writing in the Digital Age

2010-09-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

Next week I am lucky enough to be able to head down to Washington to take part in a Congressional briefing about writing in the digital age. I'm still fleshing out my short presentation but finished this video to try to help tell our story.

Writing in the Digital Age from Joel Malley on Vimeo.

Writing as a Foundation

2010-09-21T12:48:00.000-04:00

In past years, I started my Mass Media and Film Production class off slowly. First, we would start with an icebreaker film. They needed to tell me one thing about themselves and them film it. For the second project I would have them find a quote and ask them to capture that quote in one shot. Eventually, we'd get to minidocumentaries and somewhere down the line the personal narrative/essay film project.

What would happen is that by the time we reached the heavily voiced over essay/film project kids would shy away from voiceovers. Once the voiceovers were recorded they were often too brief and superficial. This year I've decided to combat this by jumping right into a narrative project right away. I've dispensed with the icebreaker and the one shot film. This year, I'm going to keep pushing the idea that the films come from the writing we do on the blog posts. I've asked my students to write a blog post exploring their observations about human behavior. Kids brought back lists of things they've noticed. Their next job is to choose one of those observations and flesh it out into a one minute, voiced over film.

We'll see how it goes, but I think this will be a way to start more deeply.

So far, their ideas pretty sophisticated. I have some students addressing very interesting topics and a few of them have solid concepts and storyboards so far.

September Winds: A Few Things I'm Looking Forward To

2010-09-03T11:33:00.000-04:00

After weeks straight of sun drenched eighty degree weather, tomorrow the Western New York forecast is for a high of 63 and showers. Autumn is extending her arms and school will soon be upon us. Yesterday, we had our first full day of faculty meetings. On Wednesday we meet our students for the first time.

The staff development day was, well, long. I have a hard time sitting in one place for long stretches and we spent much of the morning sitting in large rooms. Some of the content was soul sucking; discipline discussions, calls to "all be on the same page" (I've been teaching for ten years in various buildings and have never seen everyone on the same page. Seems like maybe we start thinking about revisiting what that page says and maybe adapting it a little), and the idea for mandatory punitive vocabulary lists for in school suspension students. Other portions of the program were more engaging. More on that later.

Overall, the day was pretty tiring. At the end of the day I received some news that looks less than good, so I was kind of disheartened. Today, while walking my son, I decided to dwell on some of the things I'm looking forward to this year in order to help me break out of that funk. Here are a few:

Working on a team of like minded progressive educators. This year I am teaching two sections of English 10. The other sections of English 10 are being taught by colleagues who I have great respect for and who also value creation, choice, and inquiry. Although we will be reading a few texts in common with our students (we think Mango and Fahrenheit 451, as both would serve as read-alouds as they are probably a little too tough to navigate without support), most of their longer texts will self selected. I'm looking forward to developing materials and overall plans with a team.
Learning Club - The three of us, and any other teachers who are interested, will be forming a learning club to read some texts throughout the year. I believe our first book will be Troy Hicks The Digital Writing Workshop. This is an improvement over prior years when learning clubs were mandatory and organized around The Thoughtful Classroom. As Dan Pink has argued, autonomy over work and choice in groups increase intrinsic motivation.
Small class sizes - I've looked over my class sizes so far. They look good. I have about twenty kids per class. My smallest class, surprisingly, is a Mass Media/Film Production class, but I fully expect this class to be at capacity (24 students) once senior elective shopping begins (the week or so when syllabi are distributed and buzz spreads about certain electives and groups migrate to different electives).
Mulligans - I feel really good about what happened in AP Literature and Mass Media last year. Even so, the chance to tinker and redesign and improve is really alluring. I do not feel good about English 10 or the school newspaper I advise. For English 10, like I've said, I'm working with a team now. As for the newspaper, I've decided that this year I'm starting off with the 80/20 method. I'm giving assignments until I see that I no longer need to. Students can also work on something they are interested in pursuing, but I need to take a more active role in the direction of the newspaper.
Article of the Week - Our English 10 classes are using Kelly Gallagher's idea of reading an article each week in common. This seems like a great opportunity to enrich our students understanding of the world and a good lead in to our inquiry project that students will complete at the end of the year.
Ted Talks - Our school is building TED into the fabric of our school. Students will be signing up to attend rebroadcasts of interesting TED Talks and we are also extending invitations to local entrepreneurs and interesting people to come in and talk with our students for twenty minutes. We are looking to expose our kids to the world and firmly believe that interesting ideas and stories are captivating and inspiring and fulfilling.
Blogging - I'm looking to revitalize this blog, both with my own reflections, and with those of my students. More on this later.

Summer was long and wonderful. Now it's time to welcome a new crop of students begin afresh. I can't wait until Wednesday.

As the Record Winds Down

2010-03-25T22:00:00.000-04:00

Last night I sat on my chair and watched a few of my students' latest videos. We are wrapping up our unit on narrative music videos. Basically, they wrote personal essays, designed a music video, and culled voiceover from that essay to put their narrative spin on the subject of their video. It was a four week unit and we'll screen next week.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the unit. I had some wonderful projects. I had some students who were struggling finally find their place and some successful students craft great projects. But, I also had several students basically give up for one reason or another and have had a large amount of students not finish their project on time. These students aren't finishing on time because they aren't gathering footage early enough into the composing process. They are procrastinating to the point where their projects are barely getting off the ground. By the last week of the project, urgency sets in and they get down to work. The problem is that they then don't have time to reshoot and revise if something isn't working and don't have the time to think about creative editing touches that would take their films to the next level. Furthermore, the voiceovers often feel rushed or tacked on. Sometimes, the projects seem superficial.

I'm trying to decide where to proceed from here. I'm considering putting together some sort of David Allen "GTD" type of form/folder to help kids plan their next actions, keep track of their projects, and stay accountable. I know that this will not have that great of an impact this year but I feel like I need to start working on infrastructure things for next year.

The video that follows exemplifies my mixed feelings. These two students took forever to get their footage and were evasive when I asked to see their drafts in process. They are also in separate classes and were directly told that they could not work together. Essentially, this order forced them to clandestinely work on their project at home instead of in class. Had I seen a draft in progress, I might have had the opportunity to encourage them to develop certain sections of the video so that it had the required depth and sophistication. Other than those drawbacks, it is a great example of student creativity, problem solving, and innovation. I'm really impressed.

Find more videos like this on Central Films

An Open Letter to My Representative Concerning Funding for the NWP

2010-03-08T21:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Representative Higgins,

I am writing to thank you for your support of teachers and students in Western New York. I am also writing to ask for your further support through sponsorship of the National Writing Project (NWP).

To me, most of the secret of being a good teacher is to find yourself a network of well informed, well read, caring professionals, and become active in that community. I found that community after my second year of teaching. I spent the sweltering July of 2003 sweating alongside twenty other teachers in a basement room on the Canisius College campus. I was a fresh, energetic and naive second year teacher who was surrounded daily by people who spoke passionately about educational thinkers, authors, theorists and practicing educators. We designed lessons, shared best practices, met in writing groups, developed publishable professional pieces of writing, and learned together. I grew that summer as I was involved in the only type of professional development that makes a sustained impact. We were, as the NWP motto rightly celebrates, "teachers teaching teachers."

At the end of the institute, I was asked to join the leadership council of the Western New York Writing Project. At the time I was not sure why I was being invited to such an esteemed position. At first I thought it was my refreshing and self deprecating South Buffalo sense of humor, but seven years later I know that I was invited because they saw in me something I was not ready to see in myself.

Now, usually I display all the humility representative of my working class, Seneca Street upbringing, but I need to be very clear about the importance of this organization whose very existence is being threatened by the Race to the Top's new competitive funding formula. Directly because of my relationship with the Western New York Writing Project and, by extension, the National Writing Project, I have become a teacher leader. I am a regular and invited presenter at national and regional conferences, have developed workshops for my school and other schools from around Western New York and am a regular invited guest in local college classrooms. I have been published in The English Journal and next month will be one of eight teachers featured in a national publication from The College Board and Phi Delta Kappa exploring teaching in the digital age. When people have questions about the intersections of teaching and writing and technology, they seek me out.

More importantly, my active membership within the Western New York Writing Project and National Writing Project has a daily impact on my students. My classroom is a 21st Century literacy workshop where my students write, read, and discuss daily in order to help them build the skills to be innovative problem solvers and creators in our rapidly changing 21st century world. My students are engaged, successful, and highly motivated writers, readers, and filmmakers who are being prepared not only to be economically viable but also to be the types of social voices that strengthen democracy.

I voted for you because you are a man of action. You are tireless in your work for our community. We are tireless as well, and will continue to dedicate ourselves to improving the lives of young people. But, we need your help. Our national infrastructure of teacher networks is being threatened by the new Race to the Top funding formula. We are the largest and longest-standing teacher development program in U.S. history, but, as NWP is not a state organization, we are ineligible for funding. Please continue supporting an appropriation for the National Writing Project by signing the Dear Colleague letter by March 12, 2010 ensuring that approximately 90,000 teachers across the country will be able to participate in quality programming that translates into improved writing skills for their students.

Sincerely,

Joel C. Malley

Wordle and Much Ado About My Student's Answers

2010-01-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

I try to vary my final assessments in AP Literature. A test here, a paper here, a writing project here, a movie there. I know I have the final exam to contend with, but I also like to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge in different ways. Hopefully, ways that will help deepen their understanding of a text.I had just finished a podcast assignment based around The Awakening, so when we finished Much Ado About Nothing, our second text relating to gender, I decided to throw them what I thought would be a challenging yet finite one day test.

I threw them some passage identification/explication questions on the first half of the assessment. The old, who said this, what precipitated the quote, unfold the meaning, and connect the question to the larger ideas of the work. On the second half of the test I was looking to construct an extended response question that would give them an opportunity to write about the play, but was getting a little tired of recycling old AP free response questions.
As often happens, I got a little off task while making the exam. I hopped from Google Reader to Twitter to Facebook, etc. and finally ended up at Wordle. Stuck, I decided to paste a full text version of the play into Wordle to see what would happen.

A jumble of words appeared so I decided to tinker a little bit with fonts and colors and orientation. Suddenly it dawned on me that this would make a pretty interesting test question. So, I tinkered a little bit more to see if I could create an image that in some way mirrored the text (I wanted to get John off to the side and Pedro on top). When satisfied, I then had to develop the test question.
Analyze the graphic as an interpretation of the play. Consider the various font sizes, the arrangement of the words on the page, and anything else you might think of. In an extended response, explain what this graphic shows about the play. (There are no wrong answers save those that are undeveloped or which reflect misinformation or misreadings of the play. Use your noggin.)

Now, my AP Literature class is comprised of a group of kids who can handle generally anything you can throw at them. After a few words of complaint, they got down to work. By the end of the class period I realized that my original intent to create a one day test went awry and that instead I had created Frankentest. Two class periods later, every student finished the test. In grading the papers, I was amazed by the meaning they found in all the random disorder. What I realized is that I like this question because it makes students look for (and in some cases invent) patterns and gives opportunities for many different answers.

Here are excerpts from some of my favorites (any spelling errors are my own):
Much like the play, the graphic is unorganized and filled with many things, some significant and some not so significant...it was just one big jumble. When you unscramble the world, you let the play play out and you are finally able to see what it all meant.
The first thing I noticed was how big the main characters names were and how little love is in comparison. This play is very much about the characters, and the love stories seem to be only there to provide a pretext for their interaction. Also it seems interesting that Leonato's camp (Beatrice, Hero, and him) are separated from the soldiers but there is a bridge above them through Pedro. The fact that there is no order and the words are placed seemingly at random are a symbol for the play's confusing nature with all the trickery, traps, and shenanigans that transpire.
Beatrice's name placement is slightly pointed towards Benedick's, showing that their relationship was strong even if it was filled with witty banter. Hero's name is somewhat smaller and placed above her father's, Leonato, showing that she "rode his coattails" so to speak. She was not the most independent woman and when she was ridiculed during the wedding scene, Leonato shamed her and she didn't fight back...The name Pedro is at the top, sort of alone as if it's watching everyone else's life unfold. This is exactly how Don Pedro was in the play. He was very unselfish and helped everyone else out with their own life without thinking about his own. Then in the last scene he is left by himself, happy that everyone is happy, but still a sense of loneliness is about him. Lastly, the name John is small and off to the edge of the paper. Don John was evil and he was shunned after society found out his twisted plan of betrayal. It is almost if his name is about to drop off the paper, just as his character is exiled at the end of the play.
If turned so that 'Claudio" and "Don" lie att the top of the page, the graphic can appear to be a madien (for our purposes, Hero). Claudio lies strongly at the top of Hero's head, as Claudio is a driving force in her woes. However, it is because the "dons" (Pedro and John) are driving his actions. Don Pedro initally helps them together, and Don JOhn attempts to tear them apart. Hero is fond of Cluadio, but the forces driving him cause Hero's world upside-down. This is represented by Claudio and Don's name being upside down on her head in the graphic. Hero's name itself is placed in a smaller font between Leonato and Don Pedro's names, which are longer. Hero is not able to make decisions for herself, and these two control her life. They, afterall, arranged her marriage. Beatrice appears towards the bottom in a larbger font. She is Hero's support, and defends her against all those who slander her, who appear higher in the graphic. Then we have poor Benedick in some of the largest font smack dab in the middle. He is between lal of it, facing pressures from Pedro and Leonato who are trying to set him on Beatcirce, the love who wants him to fight in Hero's honor against the man who happens to be his best friend. All in all, it represents "Much Ado About Nothing" in showing what a tangled mess is created by meddling in other's affairs, which really are, well, nothing.
I couldn't make much of a connection between the groups of the smaller words, but then I thought, maybe there wasn't supposed to be. Everyone in the play is so messed up with their feelings and with the truth of what is going on. We have Benedick and Beatrice who both say that they are never going to get married, yet it turns out that they are both crazy about each other. Claudio gets duped into thinking that Hero has she hasn't been. DThen we have Dogberry who is just messed up in general. So the way that I interepreted this is all of the small words represent the confusion or even the chains that are hindering the formation of relationships.
One thing that caught my eye was that "Don" and "Claudio" were next to each other. I see this as a representation of how Don Pedro wooed Hero for Claudio. Placing these names near each other shows how thte one played cupid for the other. Similar to this, "Pedro" is between "Beatrice" and "Benedict"...Another thing I noticed is that in the forefront, the names are separated to two sides. On the left is Beatrice, Hero, and Leonato. Thesepeople are all of relation to each other. On the right is Benedick, Don, and Claudio. These are the band of men who seem to be together thorughout much of the play. Finally, Pedro is in the middle because even though he was included on the right with the men, he was in many cases the center.
Upon closer inspection, the meaning of the play can be found. The whole play can be summed up by this, may people get tangled in the complicated web of two couple's affetion for one another. It shouldn't take uch for Claudio and Hero and Beatrice and Benedick to fall in love, but for some reason, it does. The main characters are cuaght up in a web of drama, and that is exactly what is shown on the graphic. The names of the main characters names are printed largely, while the themes, names of minor characters, and random words are spinning around them.
That is the play; a few people falling in love, and the world spinning around them. Marriage is almost too small to read, demonstrating that why yes everyone gets married at the end but the only one to actually form a real relationship was Benedick and Beatrice...
Don Pedro is like the bridge that brings the two together and on the graphic thats what it looks like he is doing. One other thing I noticed is Don John. He is all alone in the corner. He is isolated from everyone else which kind of shows how he sticks out not only as a bastard abut also as a villain.

Divided We Fall: Haiti, Wallwisher, and Teaching by the Seat of My Pants

2010-01-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

This past Wednesday I tuned into the weekly Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast featuring The New York Times Learning Network Katherine Shulten. Shulten was talking about the site's resources for teachers who would like to teach their kids about Haiti. In the webcast, produced by the New York City Writing Project's Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim, teachers discussed the different things they were doing to help kids understand and explore the disaster in Haiti. I listened and after an hour I realized something.

I was doing nothing.
Nothing to help my students explore, nothing to help my students learn, nothing to give them space to talk and think.
So, at the end of the hour long webcast, I decided to do something.

The next morning, on the ride into work, I realized that I had no concrete plan. I started to think about the resources shared during that podcast. I talked with a fellow teacher who shares the same mindset about teaching. I talked with the librarian to see if she had any short stories or other resources that might help give my students a way in. My English class is at the end of the day, and I basically spent the entire day trying to figure out what I wanted to do. My problem was, I couldn't answer very basic questions. What was I trying to get my students to learn? What did I want them to make to make sense? Why did I want to get into Haiti at all?

The last question was the easiest. While the first half of my English 10 class is spent doing an inquiry into young adult texts to help students explore the concept of self, the second half of the year puts greater focus on the surrounding world. In the second half of the year I want my students to look outwardly, work to figure out their beliefs, investigate problems, and, ideally, eventually, do something about something they have thought deeply about. Haiti is an opportunity to start that outward focus in something horrific and immediate.

As for the the first two questions, it took me until my lunch period to figure out that I didn't really care about those two things. I finally determined that I didn't need to know what I needed to get my students to learn and that I'd figure out what we'd do with this information after we had a chance to look around a bit.

So, thirty minutes before class I set up a Wallwisher (a virtual bulletin board where posts are limited to 160 characters and a link) with a couple of links to resources from around the web (NYT Multimedia Resources and Boston.com's Big Picture). I started off the class by having my 10th graders do a free write about some basic questions (What do I know? What have I seen that has stuck with me? What do I want to know?), and then gave them the rest of the class period to look over the resources and post their thoughts on our Wallwisher.

The rest of the period quickly passed as I walked around and answered questions here and there. They seemed so engrossed on day one that I decided to devote today's entire class period to the same activity. This is a class that by and large usually sleep walks through our forty minute period. It is a small class and only half of them seem into it on any given day. Our class is a reading/writing workshop and I have a hard time motivating some of the students. But, today was different. They seemed serious and purposeful and passionate which I would argue showed up in their work. One student posted a picture of a woman amid the destruction and pasted a short quote from a Green Day song. Another student pored through comments on the NY Times site and was enraged by inflammatory comments in that space. Another student found a poem and shared it on her blog on our class Ning. Their commentary on the links they were sharing were heartfelt. Today was different.

At the end of the class, I asked students to share three words on the site that captured how they were feeling. There was maybe one minute before dismissal, but they all sat dutifully and did it. In reviewing what they wrote this evening I am struck by the three words provided by one of my students. She wrote "divided we fall." And that's just it, right? I mean, that's why we're doing this? That's why we are asking our students to focus on this world. Because we live not just within ourselves and our immediate spheres and our neighborhoods and our country, but in a larger world. And if that world stands divided, we will fall.

So, next week we meet on Monday and then break for exams. On Monday, I'm going to put some cameras in my students hands and redirect them to the resources, and we're going to make a short public service announcement for the school. The movie is going to be built around that the theme that this young lady started to develop. We'll see if we can't make something that will get others to act, because, ultimately, united we stand.

Much Ado About Wordle

2010-01-08T08:39:00.000-05:00

I've always wondered how one would use Wordle. Today my students are taking an assessment on Much Ado About Nothing, so I figured out I'd give it a test run. And where better to give something a test run than on an actual test.

On the next page appears a graphic. Analyze the graphic as an interpretation of or statement about the play. Consider the various font sizes, the arrangement of the words on the page, and anything else you might think of. In an extended response, explain what this graphic shows about the play. (There are no wrong answers save those that are undeveloped or which reflect misinformation or misreadings of the play. Use your noggin.)

Lip Dub Part Deux: What is "It"?

2009-12-21T13:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I attempted to explain what I loved about those two videos produced by those two high schools. I didn't come anywhere close to articulating the depth of my love for what those kids did. (I think that one of the things I'm having a hard time with is capturing true insight in this space. My time to write professionally seems so limited. Anyways.) I'm going to try to get a little closer right now. I've always been fascinated by choirs. When I see or hear a multitude of voices combine together to create something more powerful I get choked up (in the right situation. Like the childrens' choir in Home Alone, for instance). I mean, that's it, right? That's what it is all about. Dedicating yourself to something or some idea larger than yourself? Isn't that part of what makes humanity beautiful?

A few years ago I discovered flash mobs. Now, I've never partaken, but they seem to be about the same thing. These demonstrations seem to be all about humanity banding together in a loosely organized, zany, counterculture way. These videos impact me in much the same way. In these demonstrations lies the beauty of people trying to search for something more.

When I watched those videos yesterday I felt the same thing. Here are these two large groups of students, led by inspiring teachers, trying to do this really important thing. What is that thing? I'm not sure, but I know it is important. It's like the it that Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty seek in On the Road. It has to do with community and reaching and humanity.

I know some would argue about the academic purpose of it all. What's so educational about a bunch of kids lip synching "Hey Ya" or "You Make My Dreams Come True." In the end, though, I think that this is what education should look like. Kids working with kids designing meaningful and innovative projects that are shared widely.

So, today I showed these videos to my film classes. And they loved them. And they want to try it. And you know what, if they are serious about it after we get back from break, I may just help them, because it looks and feels like something I want to be a part of too.

Shorewood. Shorecrest. Lipdub. Super Awesome Fantastic-ness.

2009-12-20T21:08:00.000-05:00

The following two videos are simply amazing. These two high schools are engaged in some sort of lipdub challenge. Apparently, this Shorecrest high school created a one shot lipdub of Outkast's Hey Ya and threw down a challenge to their cross town rivals, Shorewood. (I'd throw up a link to an article, but I am having a hard time finding one. Maybe watch this newscast?)The resulting videos are two of the coolest uses of video that mine eyes have ever seen. Imagine the work and design and creativity that went into setting up these productions. It's like a big ball of innovation and school pride wrapped up into the shared humanity of a flash mob. Then broadcast for everyone. Or something like that. The Hall and Oates song was memorized and sung backwards.

I know this is kind of a stretch, but what if this is a sign of things to come. Every school has a musical and some schools have plays as well. I have to wonder how long it will take for the school plays and musicals to be supplanted by high school film productions. How far are we from students scripting, shooting, editing, and finally screening feature length films over the course of the year. Is this just a trendy or trendsetting? An abberation or a sign of things to come?

Shorewood - Hey Ya

Shorecrest - Make Your Dreams Come True

Twitterdelphia

2009-12-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Twitter

(originally published on the WNYWP Winter Newsletter)

I cringe every time I hear the word Twitter. Every time the word crosses the lips of some bronzed news anchor I shake my head and say to myself, "fad much?" I opened an account a few years ago, before the craze, but could never quite see the point. Why would I write 140 word posts for an audience of no one? Why bother?

All that changed this past November when I attended NCTE and NWP in Philadelphia.
Before I boarded the plane, I revisited my account (@joelmalley). Basically, Twitter is a microblogging social network where you are able to publish 140 character posts. You get a text box and can publish one long sentence at a time. This network becomes social as you start to follow others and others start to follow you. For instance, you can "follow" Barack Obama and receive regular updates from the White House or the teacher down the hall can follow you and receive regular updates about your classroom.

In the weeks leading up to the conference I received several emails from NWP and NCTE announcing the presence of their hashtags (#NWPAM09 and #NCTE, respectively). A hashtag is a short string of characters you include at the end of your post in order to help your ideas appear in a certain information stream. Every time I would add #NWPAM09 to the end of one of my updates it would be immediately available in an information stream directed at other attendees of the National Writing Project annual meeting.

Now, I've been to NCTE and NWP on four other occasions. My feet have landed in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, New York, San Antonio, and now Philadelphia. Each year was valuable but I always felt like my ideas were isolated and unfortunately, soon forgotten. Twitter changed my experience in that it caused me to assume a more active role in my learning. While sitting through presentations I kept one hand on my phone searching for connections and insights that I could both share and revisit later. If I struck on something worth pursuing, I would explore it in more depth on my professional blog.

And then something started happening. With every 140 character burst directed towards the NCTE/NWP stream, I picked up a "follower" (another person who subscribes to your tweets). Some of my tweets were "retweeted" (republished) by other people attending the convention. Others started tweeting back at me. I read the tweets of others and shared in their experience at the conference. People shared articles and links which were subsequently passed on through even more retweeting. What was once an isolated experience became a connected experience. It became an experience in which ideas and resources and reactions were shared widely.

David Warlick, a widely read and influential edublogger, argues that effective educators need to build themselves a personal learning network. Each of us, he maintains, needs to use digital resources such as blogs, RSS feeds, Twitter, social networks, as well as more traditional media, to be exposed to new ideas and to be engaged in the conversation about pedagogy in the 21st century classroom. He and people like him recognize that we now live in a world where we can utilize metadata to make information come to us, instead of our always chasing information.

This year in Philadelphia, for me, this idea became tangible. I was able to plug into what Yeats terms the Spiritus Mundi, in this case the collective Twitter spirit of the the NWP galaxy. I was finally connected and this time to the collective consciousness of people who care about writing and education. And you know what? I've yet to unplug.

Billy Collins at NWP

2009-11-24T17:47:00.000-05:00

There is something about listening to a master storyteller live in person. A few years ago I had the opportunity to listen to Frank McCourt speak at NCTE shortly after he published Teacher Man. He regaled the audience with stories of his career teaching high school. His pace and timing and wisdom had the audience hanging on his every word.

This past week at NWP Billy Collins did much the same. There was something so wonderful sitting in an audience of writing teachers and listen to the build up and delivery of his poems. I tried to get good pictures. I tried to record his words with my iPhone. But in the end, I just stopped my digital fidgeting and listened. Here are two of my favorites (embedded from another reading):

Tough Love

2009-11-24T13:13:00.001-05:00

I had a conference turn heated today. I was taking a look at a mini-documentary film that two of my male students are putting together. At the beginning of the class I announced that I needed to see a one minute finished segment of each film so that I could take a look at how the films were shaping up.

I watched a few films and dispensed advice. Then, it was time to take a look at these two student's mini-documentary about playing guitar. I sat down, plugged my earphones in, and proceeded to watch two minutes of out the windshield footage of the road as a car drove at night. The audio was some anonymous person talking about guitar. That's it. We've been working on this project for three weeks.

When the footage was done, I decided to rip into the group a little bit. I have a good rapport with both gentleman, so I decided to be truthful and firm. There are four days left in the project and the group needed some tough love.

Or so I thought.

One of the gentleman grew upset over my advice and there were a was a minute that got a little bit tense. I diffused the situation and was able to get the kids to focus on the big picture by getting them to talk about the main idea behind the film and what they were trying to convey. I think the latter half of the conversation went well, but now the class is done and I have to say I'm feeling some dissonance.

If this had been a writing piece, I would have used much softer hands, and I don't know why. I think that a little part of me feels like these films are so important to the students that I can be upfront with the revision advice I dispense. Part of me feels bad because of the tense nature of our conversation, but part of me is excited over the passion the kid had in defending what he had created.

So now I'm wondering how it will play out. Will my tough love inspire these two guys to make something great, or will it cause them to shut down. Right now I'm betting on the former.

What's Next for Me? (Part I)

2009-11-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

This reflection is in response to a debriefing question at the end of Bud Hunt and Troy Hick's NCTE presentation on Saturday.

I go back to the classroom on Monday ready to switch gears in my sophomore English class. For a month, I had planned to shift from a text driven class back into a writing workshop format. This presentation gave me some things to think about and I think the most important thing I am walking away with is the advice to take a look at what I do and see how it can be enhanced with technology to achieve other aims.

So, what am I trying to achieve in having my students write? In having my students read? How can I use technology to help my students achieve those things?

I may look into Youth Voices, or I may take a successful writing project to the next step. I think I'm going to buy Troy's book. Not because I'm easily influenced, but because it seems to be getting a lot of credible buzz. I think I'm going to continue to use Twitter, which I've been experimenting with this past week. I guess those are the next things to do for me.

Thinking in the Margins

2009-11-21T09:09:00.000-05:00

I teach AP Literature, so I need to use conferences such as NCTE and NWP to focus on a couple of different masters. I need to keep exploring new ways my students can make meaning, but also old ways as well.

My AP kids need to be capable close readers. It's part of paying the bills. I feel like this is an area where I can grow as a teacher. So, even though I effectively integrate technology into the meaning making process, I still feel like I need to brush up on more traditional things.

So, on to the presentation. First of all, big props for having a really professional handout. A bound book. Color cover. Ooo la la. Very impressive.

What I really liked about this presentation is that it seems to combine some progressive methods with the more traditional practice of annotation. This was presentation was pretty heavy in New Criticism, but kids were being asked to visualize. Kids were being asked to annotate for motif and symbol and characterization, but were also being asked to visualize and storyboard.

I like the idea of pulling parts of the text and asking students to paraphrase one part and then illustrate the second part. The "Purpose for Reading" on page 9 seems like a doable alternative to comprehension questions. Kids were asked to look for one specific thing in each chapter. That could be useful for me. I want to help kids to develop their own sense of the text, but I also need to model responses that are appropriate and analytical. It seems that a straight up response regimen (for lack of a better word) devolves into repetition or weak analysis over the course of a couple weeks.

I also started to question my own reading habits. Do I annotate? I don't annotate while reading for pleasure. I annotate while reading with purpose. If I want to remember a passage or pass it on, I annotate. If not, I zoom through. I annotate mostly while preparing to discuss a novel or while reading nonfiction for my own professional and personal development.

In the end, this was a presentation about interrogating the text. As an AP Lit teacher, sometimes, in the paraphrased words of Billy Collins, I must force my students to tie a novel or poem to a chair and whip the meaning out of it.

In the Gutters: 21st Century Literacy and the Graphic Novel

2009-11-19T23:11:00.000-05:00

Today I attended a presentation about graphic novels this afternoon from 3-4:15 (21st Century Literacy and the Graphic Novel). It was a great presentation. I felt like I was listening to experts (not sure if it's because they fast forwarded through 40-50 slides of statistics or because the woman in charge won a Fulbright scholarship). I have never used graphic novels in my classroom. I have a few in the classroom library, but I've never read them in common with my kids (I used Persepolis once in literature circles).

Someone raised a point about kids zipping through the panels of a graphic novel (Kevin Hodgson, I believe) and not slowly analyzing the reading and I agree. I know that when I read Bone and The Watchmen and American Born Chinese I zoomed through. I wanted to get through as quickly as possible. As an experienced reader, I just wanted to move on through. The medium didn't demand serious reflection. Graphic novels seemed to be like film in that it's easy to be passive.

But, a woman countered by saying that this is why we must slow down and have these conversations about shot or panel composition and analyze the frames. I think it is no different than when kids read novels or poetry. They are quick to get through. When I read for pleasure, it's not so different. I read quickly through texts so that I can advance the story. I want to know what happens next. As teachers, our jobs it to help students slow down and look around for a little while. Our job is to get them to read deliberately so that when they read independently they pick up on these things.

Personally, though, there is another connection I made during the presentation. I think that graphic novels might be a great way to talk about composition with my film classes. It's hard to analyze scenes and sequences because kids can't sit back and contemplate shots. They move by so quickly. But, in graphic novels the images stay on the frame! Ta da!

Lastly, that statistic and anecdotal story about Japan and its 99% literacy rate was really moving. I think it counteracts any argument a traditional teacher might have about using graphic novels in the classroom. It also makes me take the graphic novel as format a little more seriously. I am not only going to go out and increase my collection to help my struggling readers, I am also going to go out and seek some of these texts for personal independent reading. I think this presentation helped legitimize the genre for me.

PS: The other thing I took away is this idea of a synthesis essay. I think that this pops on the AP Language exam but I got the impression that it is a staple of California high school

Why Not Schools?

2009-11-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

Tonight I attended a presentation at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. The event consisted of an exposition of student work and a panel discussion titled The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create With Digital Media. The members of the panel were Renee Hobbs, founder of the Media Education Lab, Nichole Pinkard, founder of the Digital Youth Network, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, director of National Programs and Site Development at the National Writing Project, and Connie Yowell, director of education in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Program on Human and Community Development (titles and descriptions taken from the NWP website).

Eidman-Aadahl gave an interesting overview about the rapidly changing information and communication landscape and each panel member kind of filled in the blanks about the different ways that their individual organizations were helping kids create within that framework. The people on the panel shared these really interesting ways that they are helping kids empower themselves through digital meaning making. Yowell discussed the aims of the MacArthur Foundation in funding these after school programs and the foundation's role as an agent of change.

Now, I am in no way knocking the things that these organizations are doing, because they are obviously doing wonderful things. But a few things that were said stuck in my gut. One of the panel members argued that traditional teachers need not teach these digital literacies and that programs outside the traditional school day could fill that niche. Yowell also mentioned how the MacArthur Foundation is targeting organizations outside of schools for funding.

I guess my big question is, why not schools? If, as the panelists argue, digital literacies and civic advocacy and rhetorical skills they develop are so important, then why not focus attention and energy and funding to specific teachers who are integrating these skills and modes into their curriculum in a thoughtful and regular way?

I wanted to ask one question. Are traditional public schools so broken that philanthropic organizations have abandoned any hope of encouraging change through funding? If so, what makes the system so broken?

On the flip side, it was nice to hear so many people speak who valued things like digital video and remix creations. It's nice to see others value the things we value at our school.

Randoms

2009-10-30T16:35:00.000-04:00

There's a word I've been looking for. It's what a member of the armed forces does when he or she leaves a war zone and enters the demilitarized zone before going back home. This really has nothing to do with teaching, but I've tried to remember that word a few times and I can't seem to locate it. It's like decompress. De-something. Kills me that I can't remember.

* * * * * * * * *

Today I had two kids in my study hall as seniors left early due to Senior Dress up day. When the one student was leaving I noticed her carefully folding up a sheet of paper.

"Is that a note," I asked.

"Umm, yeah."

"Like, a note to another person?"

"Yeah."

"Wow," I said. "That's pretty old school."

"It's to my best friend," she replied. "Her parents won't get her a phone."

There is something significant in that conversation. I'm just not sure what it is.

* * * * * * * *

Great conversation today in AP. We discussed Friedman's article (finally). It was an interesting discussing, and the second straight snap crackle pop engaging conversation. In the beginning of the conversation they were complaining about some aspects of their education. I asked them what their education would look like if they could redesign it. Most of the students spoke very articulately about being able to customize their education so that they could focus on areas of interest instead of "being made to learn the basics of everything." Depth, not breadth.

* * * * * * * * *

Speaking of AP, today most of the female portion of my class reported to school dressed up as furniture. I had a fully upholstered chair, two end tables with lamps, a six foot bookcase, and a TV showing The Honeymooners. All of these costumes seemed to have been constructed out of cardboard boxes. They were, without a doubt, the most impressive collection of costumes I have ever seen. Earlier in the class I asked students where they were being asked to innovate, create, and be entrepreneurs in their classrooms, as Friedman discusses. They were hard pressed to come up with examples. Here they were, dressed as furniture, embodied innovation and creativity, having difficulty coming up with examples of projects or lessons where they were asked to innovate ad create.

* * * * * * * * *

I am presenting at NCTE in 2.5 weeks. Today, we finally started on the project I will be presenting. I hate when I procrastinate, but I'm pretty sure we can get it done. I'm pretty excited about this project. Today I gave the class forty minutes to write in their journals about how they see themselves being defined and how they are defining themselves. My hope is that each kid has some powerful lines and thoughts that they can use to string together a compelling voiceover. I read over their shoulders today and it was interesting. I told them the overall aim of the journal, and when I looked over their shoulders, what I read sounded voice-overy. Also, there was a serious of purpose. Kids got down and wrote (mostly).

* * * * * * * * *

I'm anxious to have my AP kids create a Google Lit Trip for Frankenstein. Trace Walton's journey and Victor's journey. Trace the monster's journey. Record a little voiceover. Export the .kza file (or whatever it is). I just don't know if there's time as we are already in the midst of a Romantic Poetry film project. Curse you Wordsworth and your overt nature worship.

* * * * * * * * *

Film kids are doing little disposable LiveType projects. I wish I could turn off 90% of what's available in LiveType. I like it because it's easy to use, but hate it because I'll be spending the next six months discussing what one should do rather than what one can do.

* * * * * * * * *

I wish I had the time, energy, insight, and thoughtfulness to write about teaching like the Two Writing Teachers. I sincerely hope my sons get teachers like that.

* * * * * * * * *

I love the new Google Reader "Popular Items" and "Recommended Sources," but I don't see how I'll ever get any work done now. My goodness, I've got so much to read as it is, and now they are tailoring new streams of information based on my reading preferences. Thanks alot Google.

* * * * * * * * *

Friedman on M. Krempe vs. Victor Frankenstein

2009-10-21T20:36:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading the Tom Friedman column today about the need of our educational system to help our students develop "entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity" and I couldn't help thinking about yesterday's blog post. I also couldn't stop thinking about Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind (which I purchased over the summer and still have a section left ("Play")). I had toyed with the idea of running off sections of the book and assigning it as readings for the class, even though on the surface it has nothing to do with the study of literature written between 1500 and the present day. Instead, in the short term, I'll be running off copies of this column tomorrow morning and delivering it into the fingers of my AP Lit students. It perfectly echoes the impromptu hallway conversation I had with one of my reluctant AP free writers. I tried to share the importance of being able to tell a story in the 21st century.

It also echoes a conversation we had about Frankenstein on Monday. A few kids were struggling with the difference between Victor's former course of study (alchemists like Cornelius Agrippa) and the ideas he is introduced to via M. Krempe and M. Waldman, two Ingoldstadt professors who are firmly entrenched in Enlightenment era scientific examples. I explained the differences but highlighted that the reason Frankenstein was able to forge new scientific paths was that he was able to synthesize from the ideas of both schools of thought. He combined the grand goals of the alchemists with the hard science of the enlightenment. This led to his achieving his goal and doing what others dare not even try (I know I'm conveniently ignoring that this leads to his ultimate destruction). This is echoed in one of the quote from the Friedman article. A Harvard scholar argues that while problem solvers and innovators in the business world have succeeded since the crash, "the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly."

I guess the big question is, how can I continue to walk the walk? How can I find balance between the needs of the content and what these theorists suppose are the 21st century "flat world" needs of my students? This is something I need to keep in mind as we amble our way throughout the year.

National Day On Writing

2009-10-20T17:05:00.000-04:00

Today is the National Day of Writing. I'm sorry, National Day on Writing. I'm not sure if I should ask my students to write or sit and stand on books. I asked my AP Literature and English 10 classes to write for thirty minutes and then share out at the end of class. I feel like it was one of the realest things I've done this year.

Before I walked into class, I was excited about sharing this assignment with my 3rd period AP Lit class. They are arguably the creme de la creme. The kids who have worked the hardest and challenged themselves the most. We were scheduled to talk about Frankenstein. Since this was the original intention, I allowed the class to choose what we were going to work on. I told them they could sit in a circle and talk about Frankenstein for 40 minutes, or we could write about any topic they wanted and share out (on a volunteer basis) after 30 minutes. Two kids voted to write. Out of 12. The rest wanted to sit there and discuss Gothic Literature.

Thing was, they were so adamant about not wanting to write, that I threw out the democratic process altogether and told them I decided on the first option.

I know, I know. Oh well. I'll be a benevolent dictator.

So, I had the kids write for the allotted time. I typed away on my innocent personal essay about autumn and the growing collections of pumpkins on my lawn. I played classical music through Pandora on my iPhone (the Baroque channel. Very atmospheric.). I looked up every once and a while and saw their fingers dancing on the keyboard or furiously scribbling in their notebooks. This. Was. It.

Then it came time to share. The first two kids read their pieces and what followed were page long diatribes against the assignment. Well written diatribes, slightly tongue in cheek diatribes, but diatribes nonetheless. "Because two people decided that they wanted to write about something that I'm sure will have no significance," one writer started, "everyone in the class is being subjected to this b.s...This seems to me to be completely pointless." The other student, who was writing somewhat tongue in cheek, shared "I feel that we write enough outside of the classroom that our precious discussion times in the classroom are vital to the AP lit experience...why are we aimlessly writing or typing when we could be discussing the dark nature of Shelley's Frankenstein."

I have to admit, I laughed a little typing that last comment, because under any other circumstances I would print the latter half of his quote and pin it to my shirt. Maybe make a bumper sticker. Possibly a t-shirt on Cafe Press. But it was still off putting, because these two kids are good kids. Nice kids. Kids who will do well. Honors kids. Kids who "got it" and "do it." And, kids who I think I have a pretty good teacher/student relationship with.

Now, I'm not discouraged, because I probably packaged it wrong by offering a choice in the first place. Plus, the two writers who followed showed the wonderful directions the assignment can take a writer unhindered by an assigned task and structure. One piece talked about the day a new brother was brought home, and another piece explained a student's morbid grandfather's version of family bonding; the family planning of his own funeral. Two beautiful pieces that I read later on in the day further reminded me of the need of such an assignment. A girl wrote a touching piece on autumn that was like art on a page. The other student wrote something poignant about finding a path.

So, overall, I think the assignment was successful. In one sense, it allowed students some space to write about things that are on their mind. Subsequently, it also reminded me that I need to make time for these types of assignments. But, it also reminded me that I have to start a conversation with my students about writing and story and storytelling and why they might matter to each and everyone of us. I think that I may be running off some copies of excerpts of Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind. The types of assignments that dominate an AP class: explications, analysis, etc., are not the type of writing that matter most. Synthesis matters. Creation matters. And today, I got a reminder that these types of writing have be more heavily integrated into my more traditional classes.

Taking My Time

2009-09-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

So, I feel like my sophomores have accomplished a little bit so far. It's the end of September and they've made a movie, gone through an extensive drafting process on a poem, and are now on their way to recording their first audio recording.

We've been writing "I Am From" poems in order to focus on identity, one of the overarching themes of the course. I know they're formulaic and a bit on the cheesy side, but the assignment has helped us focus in on the big idea of identity and has given us enough structure to focus in on different aspects of poetry writing.

For this project I led a few minilessons, focusing on imagery, structure, and shifts. As George Ella Lyons' poem is so full of vivid concrete details, I wanted my students to emulate her style. I also wanted to stress to my students that they have to "experiment deliberately" with line and stanza breaks (thank you Nancy Atwell), ultimately leading to some sort of concluding lines.

The assignment took a day or two longer than I wanted, but overall I feel proud of the kids. They all revised extensively, they peer edited, they successfully used Google Docs (and stuck by me when a certain Google Doc complication arose. They now require a cell phone so that Google can text you a confirmation code. So, I had to fudge a little bit on the school rules to help my students access this tool), and they volunteered to read their poems.

It's a small class, but I get the sense that a creative atmosphere is being fostered. Every single kid handed in their final draft and not one complained about being forced to write poetry. Three of the kids have joined my newspaper staff. Tomorrow we are going to discuss the first nine pages of Speak and then I'm going to give them a preliminary look at Garageband.

Things are good!

Edutopia's "Top Ten Tips for Teaching With New Media"

2009-09-26T11:17:00.001-04:00

Edutopia is a cool little magazine put out by the Lucas foundation. You can receive an electronic version of their magazine. Recently they released a mini publication titled Top Ten Tips for Teaching with New Media. It's a great little resource with ideas about VoiceThread, Google Docs, and other mostly free online webtools. If you're looking to dip your feet in the digital waters this might be a great place to start.

Jumping off of the Blocks

2009-09-19T09:36:00.001-04:00

Part of my goal this year is to grab my students' attention early on and engage them in a way that I felt I failed to do last year. Last year I had two sophomore classes that I feel lacked a certain seriousness of purpose. They didn't respond to discussion, they didn't respond to the books we read. Their attention always seemed to be elsewhere. I feel like I lost them early on. Some of this was classroom management, as I didn't deal with a couple of strong personalities as I should have. Some of this was my feeling my way around a new school. Some of it was my inability to use technology in a real way due to my traveling schedule.

Whatever the reason, this year I'm trying to approach my English 10 class differently. We spent the first full week of classes focusing on some decidedly non ELA things. We ended last week by watching Did You Know 2.0, and, as I've discussed previously, our discussion flourished afterwards. Their task the last three days was to take one of the six skills identified as 21st century skills (creativity, innovation, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and problem solving) and create a short sequence of shots that help illustrate that scene. They took most of one period to define, plan, and storyboard, one period to film, and we took one period to communally edit. For homework they were assigned the following journal assignment:

Journal: Your 21st Century Skillz

Your group created a film based around a skill that others deem important to 21st century success (Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Communication, Collaboration). Which skill were you assigned? How competent do you feel at this particular skill? (For example, are you a good communicator? Do you collaborate well?) Consider your education over the past couple of years. What projects or classes have helped you develop the skill you were assigned?

Yesterday we discussed their findings. About three quarters of the class completed the assignment*, and we went around the room, passing around the conch (more on that later), and sharing our thoughts. It was kind of interesting. They easily came up with projects where they were asked to communicate, collaborate, and be creative. They only had a hazy sense of the meaning of critical thinking, and had a really difficult time coming up with examples of classes where they were asked to innovate or problem solve in a real way. Most of the problem solving examples were personal examples like conflict resolution. The only good example raised was by a football player. He explained that on the field players must assess the situation, the flow of the game, and audible if necessary. I thought it was a very astute example of real world problem solving.

It got me thinking. I'm nearing the end of A Whole New Mind, by Daniel Pink, and I'm wondering how often we ask our students to innovate, recombine, and create in the classroom. Aside from creative writing, how often are students innovating in classrooms?**

Big picture, I'm kind of feeling my way through this miniproject. I guess I want students to reflect on their own education as two of the big ideas we'll be wrestling with this year are identity and technology's impact on our lives. Now that the project is almost over, I feel like we accomplished this and laid some groundwork for the rest of the year. I feel like I have their attention and that I've shown that my classroom is a place where we'll take a different approach to things. I feel, for once, that I've gotten off to a pretty good start.

_________________________

* I have to stay strong this year. We've moved to a web based, transparent gradebook this year, and I've moved from a total points system to a weighted category system. As such, I will not accept late responses this year. I. Must. Stay. Strong. My students had too much of a cavalier attitude towards their work last year.

** Tedtalks just released Dan Pink's talk on motivation and rewards last week. It's a must see.

Excuse me sir? Yes, can you fit in another film project?

2009-09-15T14:18:00.001-04:00

I don't think I've ever done this before. Five classes, five film projects. Fortunately, these are all class projects and all the footage will be dumped on my computer to be edited, so I don't have to worry about cameras coming in and out.

It was interesting watching each class work today. The Mass Media kids were all scattered throughout the room, falling on floors, rolling down the hallway (in one instance), juggling soccer balls (in three instances), and pretty much everything short of sacrificing live animals.

It was cool watching the AP Lit and English 10 kids working things out. I abandoned the ice breaker film idea with AP as I preferred to get the subject matter started. We are going to be working with poetry to start off and I want to review some literary terms. Previously, when I taught AP Lit all the kids were coming into the class from different heterogenously mixed classes. I've never worked with a full fledged honors class. There were a few terms they were unfamiliar with, but that's to be expected. Their 10 Random Things lists were so creative that I can't wait to see what they come up with relevant to figurative language.

English 10 worked well too. I'm not sure if it is the group or the time of day (last period) or the small size of the class (16 kids), but they paid attention while I was giving directions and, with some prodding and conferences, worked together while working on their scripts and storyboards. They had a little difficulty imagining how to capture the 21st century skill they were assigned, but for the most part figured it out with a little conversation. Conversation seems to help so much, whether it is to affirm their ideas or suggest that they rework their original plans. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

DynoSpaces

2009-09-14T21:28:00.000-04:00

Taught my first class at UB the other day: Creating Dynamic Online Spaces for Teaching and Learning. It's a 15 hour workshop and the first day went rather well. Only three teachers are enrolled but they seem eager to get a handle on this blogging/social networking thing. Giddyup.

I named the class blog Dynospaces. How wonderfully cheesy.

Did You Know, 2.0

2009-09-14T21:25:00.000-04:00

I showed my sophomores "Did You Know, 2.0" today and their eyes did not leave the screen for the 8 minutes of statistics and factoids. It was actually cool to see. I asked them to write afterwards and they did. And didn't stop. For almost 15 minutes. When it came time to share, they did. And their thoughts were downright interesting. Worries about jobs disappearing. Age old fears of technology becoming self aware and usurping man (ala Terminator). It was a great conversation.

I'm very impressed with this class so far.

I've been racking my brain for some sort of film project and on the ride home I figured something out. I'm going to break them up into groups, give them each a 21st century skill, and tell them to figure out a way to capture the skill in an authentic, non-cheesy way.

I've also decided to abandon the AP ice breaker film idea and instead have them make a poetry term refresher movie. That way I'll be able to get a film under their belts and get us on the road to our first unit of study.

Eeking By

2009-09-14T13:09:00.000-04:00

Still waiting for the computers to be set up. We're officially waiting for Final Cut Express to come in so the computers can all be imaged. In the meantime, we're kind of plugging along. My AP Literature class has lost a handful of students, but my Mass Media & Film Production classes continue to grow. My largest MMFP class has 26 students, which would be a normal sized class if not for the fact that there are only 16 computers. I'm going to have to keep an eye on the situation and maybe rely somewhat on group projects or something.

In film we're starting our first film project; an icebreaker film based on the Facebook meme "25 Things About Me." The students composed their list and today we shared the items in class. Tomorrow we'll begin discussing basic composition and camera function. I have to remember to charge the cameras. Since we have no Firewire 800 cords I'm going to stick to the Flip style USB cameras. I guess it's a moot point as students will all be dumping their footage for this project directly on my laptop. I'm still unsure how I'm going to handle the narrative recording.

AP Literature is essentially doing the same thing, though I am anxious to begin the actual work. Their lists were incredible, but I don't want to spend too much time treading water.

English 10 is in the early prep phases of a film. We finished Obama's speech last week and today are going to discuss why Obama might have made it a point to address the nation's schoolchildren even in the face of the controversy. After that hopefully not so brief discussion, we're going to watch "Did You Know, 2.0" and do some reflective writing.

First Day of School

2009-09-09T21:11:00.000-04:00

Today was the first day of school with kids. Yeesh. Summer always seems longer in June than it does in September. Such is life, I guess. Classes seem good so far. They are all really nice and small. I think my largest class, so far, is 20 students. That would have been my smallest class at McKinley.

Got a whole new bunch of stuff over the past few days. Signed out my new projector, which is 2200 Lumens and, quite frankly, sweet. I also got some USB headsets (must put in work order to get them set up on all computers), three Aiptec 1080p flip cameras, a wireless mic, some headphone splitters, and some minitripods. The Aiptec cameras came with minitripods, which is unexpected awesomeness.

Today my sophomores watched the Barack Obama speech. Well, the first half. We're going to finish it tomorrow, share our notes, and discuss some big ideas. On Friday I'm going to hand out some storyboards and finish a stem statement. They seem a bit quiet. Well, most of them. The other few seem too loud, LOL. I think this mini film project/quilt will be a nice springboard into the minidocumentary project I'm planning for Speak at NCTE.

I'm wrestling with an idea to do a little film with AP Lit as an icebreaker. It's going to be a riff off my 25 things assignment. They'll eventually have to choose one of those 25 things and film it somehow. I just have to figure out the timing, as I think I want to read Billy Collins "The Names" on 9/11 and assess the summer reading on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe I'll shorten up the assessment. I feel like I want to get right into building skills in AP. I don't know if it because I haven't taught the class in a year, or if I'm just looking to prove myself.

As far as the film class, it seems like I have a good group of kids. Each class seems different (I know that this is solely because of the strong personalities in the class). We're going to start our one shot films next week and then quickly segue into the minidocumentary.

12 Ways to Improve Student Achievement in English Language Arts

2008-12-05T00:25:00.000-05:00

I'm cleaning out my basement and finding a whole bunch of things that I've held onto for no particular reason. Tonight I cleared out my tool area and found a sheet of paper nailed to the wall with the following list of ways to improve student achievement.

At my old school it was common practice for the powers that be to develop last minute mindless activities for the staff development portion of half days. We'd attend a hastily thrown together staff meeting in the cafeteria and get harangued for the same 10-12 things (stand at the door in between classes, students aren't to wear hoodies, look for bulges in their pockets that may indicate cell phones, no smoking on school grounds, each department has a specific test day, students on the Do Not Admit list are not to be admitted without admit slips, etc. These were standbys.) After this 45 minute session which effectively sucked the life out of anyone with a hint of professionalism, we were dismissed to go meet with our departments, usually to go and discuss ways to increase Student Achievement (capital letters indicating a heightened sense of importance). Seems one day we had a little fun with the assignment.

Date: January 15th, 2004
English Department Meeting
Minutes:

12 Ways to Improve Student Achievement in English Language Arts

12. Get rid of weekends, summer, Easter, and Christmas vacations, staff development days, and make students live here. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day of learning.
11. Let the robots teach.
10. Repeated interaction with dangling participles, enlarged dipthongs, and Shakespearean wenches.
9. During class time, students must wear hats fashioned with tin foil equipped with plastic straw antennae. Extension cords and power outlets are optional.
8. Teach grammar and parts of speech using profanity and Internet speak.
7. Classroom Management? Give Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis toothpicks and a masonry drill and allow them to get medieval on their buttocks.
6. Actually get permanent records and put stuff on them.
5. Distance Learning classes taught by Brad Pitt and Brittany Spears.
4. Burn the books and watch the movies...but only the good parts.
3. Issue chocolate pens with caramel ink, and let them write on cotton candy.
2. Let the legislators, parents, and critics of public education teach the classes.
1. Ask simpler questions, lower the passing grade.