Remixing Writing: A Digital Essay

In late February, English teacher Jim Burke posted a discussion thread on the English Companion Ning sharing his initial thoughts on a new digital essay assignment he planned to try with his students this spring.  Today, Burke Tweeted one of the student digital essays created in Prezi; you can read the digital essay, which utilizes text, graphics, and videos, to remix and create a new kind of essay.  What other kinds of literacies do you see embedded in this work?  I think it would be insightful if somehow the student could share her thoughts on how this medium worked for her and if she felt her Prezi creation captured the voice and ideas she wanted to convey to her audience; it would also be interesting to know if she prefers writing and composing in this way to traditional writing and how this medium may have impacted her writing and thinking processes.

Ultimately, Burke let students decide what mediums they wanted to use for creating the digital essay; I’m looking forward to seeing what directions his other students take as they complete their projects.  I would really love to hear students (either through blog postings or video interviews) share their decision-making processes and how they went about crafting their digital essays.  I admire and respect Burke for giving his students creative latitude and being willing to work with a diverse range of learning products the students, which can be challenging the first time you pilot a new project.

I am currently collaborating with two of our English teachers to co-design and co-teach research and content creation for digital research projects.   Susan Lester (10th Honors World American Literature/Composition) and I began our project about three weeks ago (read more in this blog post), and I’ll be working with John Bradford (11th Honors American Literature/Composition) as of Tuesday for the next month or so on his twist on the project (more details coming soon).  In both of our collaborative projects, we felt our students were not quite ready  in terms of skill sets or prior learning experiences to completely open up the possibilities for a digital research “paper” or project although students do have creative latitude in choosing and designing their multigenre elements that will be integrated into the wiki based “text”; students also have the option to integrate multimedia into each section of their wikified “papers”.

In both of these learning partnerships, the three of us  felt torn in wanting to open up the options and not setting up students for utter frustration (to the point many would completely shut down) in terms of combining two advanced skill sets (new research skills and content are being introduced); for many of our students in these sections, previous negative encounters with technology as a learning tool have left them a little tentative, so we wanted to find a happy medium of challenging them without completely overwhelming them.  We are all looking forward to seeing what kind of creativity and depth the students infuse into their projects, and hopefully, this group will be ready come August to take the next leap and embrace more freedom in choosing their mediums!

“Beginnings Are Always Messy”: Thoughts on Transliteracy and Inquiry from a Learning Advocate

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In recent weeks, the blogosphere has been abuzz with  a flurry of posts debating the value of the term transliteracy in library circles.  Some of the conversations about transliteracy–what it is, why librarians should care, what it looks like–have been constructive; however, some of the discussions have been outright petty, mean-spirited, and unprofessional, particularly those in David Rothman’s post that question the motives and integrity of Bobbi Newman and others’ work on transliteracy, which really detracts from the more important discussion of why librarians should not only care about transliteracy, but also pay heed to other disciplines whose work informs our practice.  If libraries are about learning (and I think they should be), then you certainly need to be tuned into the conversations in other information landscapes.

One of the problems I see with the conversations in these recent posts is that some view transliteracy as a synonym for “information literacy” when in fact, it is not.  I can see how you might struggle to conceptualize the term if you are looking through just the lens of information literacy, but if we look at the working definition of transliteracy, we’re looking at a much broader picture:  multiple literacies for reading and writing the world.  I interpret transliteracy as an umbrella term that examines how traditional literacies transact with new and emerging literacies; the intersection of these literacies,  I think, is where transliteracy can help us theorize how people may use a combination of literacies in transformative ways to access, create, and share information through diverse mediums.

Like others, I’m still mucking around with this notion of transliteracy; I enjoy examining how it plays out in my practice and my services to high school students in our library.   I think this effort is particularly evident in the work Susan Lester and I have done for the last year and a half with the Media 21 project, but as I’ve shared in several presentations this fall, other librarians at the elementary and middle level are also applying the transliteracy lens to their practice and work with students through collaborative learning experiences they facilitate with classroom teachers.  In 2011, I would like to further explore how libraries can be sites of literate communities (and I use literate in a broad sense of expanding beyond the standard definition of the word) where people are engaging in many kinds of literate practices to consume and create content in thoughtful, meaningful, and new ways that meld traditional and new literacies.  I also will continue to explore how participatory culture and librarianship dovetail with transliteracy.

My inquiry stance on literacy and background study in critical theory in Literacy and Language Education at the University of Georgia  most definitely color my thinking—I am perfectly fine with a working and most likely, imperfect, definition of transliteracy, but I think the cognitive dissonance we’re experiencing as we try to unpack the concept of transliteracy and the process of inquiry is where the real learning takes place.  Whether we (and that includes me) ultimately accept or reject the term transliteracy in the future, there is value in the exploration, questioning, and testing of these ideas.

I think it is important for us to embrace the chaos and messiness of inquiry and learning (as Dr. Bob Fecho at UGA would often tell us) and model risk-taking and being comfortable with being imperfect or “beta”, in finding joy in the joy of learning and of asking questions (isn’t that what libraries  are about?) rather than feeling compelled to finalize answers right now and dismiss the inquiry.  For now, I accept “Beginnings are always messy” (John Galsworthy) and am approaching my disquisition of transliteracy anticipating that ideas may be fuzzy for a bit and not yet clearly in focus.  I will continue to contemplate my inquiry as thoughtfully and purposefully as I can and share those reflections with you through my blog postings and presentations, which I invite you to read in their entirety and not try to interpret out of context or in a piecemeal fashion as some have.    I encourage you to share your thoughts and any examples you may have of how libraries are supporting transliteracy.

Here are some thoughtful reads for your consideration:

• The Whole Elephant:  Librarians Arguing About Transliteracy, Sue Thomas
• Comment #10, ,Martha Hardy
• What is Transliteracy, and How Does It Fit at Empire State College?, Dana Longley
• What is This Buzzword “Transliteracy”? A Q&A with Ryan Nadel, Josh Karp
• It’s Not Nothing, Diane Cordell
• Considering Transmedia:  Literature Born “Digital”, Laura Fleming and John Connell (thank you, Polly Farrington)

A Creekview HS Senior Tells Us What Is So Great About a Kindle

I spent most of today helping AP Literature seniors get started on the “Senior Project” research projects.  Before we jumped into the research pathfinder, I kicked off class sharing the news about our new Kindles—what they are (I had one of our new Kindles in hand!), why students might want to check one out, and how we’ll circulate them as well as our Kindle ebook request form.

In one of our morning sessions, Mary, a senior, showed fellow students her own latest generation Kindle that she received as a gift this summer.  I was so impressed by how well she articulated how she is using her Kindle (as were her fellow students)  that I asked her to share those insights via video, and she graciously agreed to do so.  Take a listen to what Mary has to say about her Kindle–as we start to circulate Kindles on Friday (November 12), I am eager to hear our students’ thoughts and reflections on their experiences of using The Unquiet Library’s Kindles.

Missing in Action: School Librarians and the Digital and Media Literacy Plan of Action

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If I have completely misread this report, then I apologize right now for putting my foot in my mouth, but I’m wondering why school librarians are generally absent from the “Digital and Media Literacy:  A Plan of Action” (A White Paper on the Digital and Media Literacy Recommendations of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy) report written by Renee Hobbs, someone whom I hold in high regard.    Why are Hobbs and the Knight Commission overlooking school librarians as  critical and essential stakeholders who could help leverage this plan into motion through public schools?  School librarians are perfectly positioned in terms of knowledge and skills to help implement the recommendations outlined in the report.

Recommendation 3, which advocates the creation of a Digital Media and Literacy Youth Corps, has some language that I find somewhat disturbing:

Congress should dedicate 10 percent of Americorps funding for the development of a Digital and Media Literacy (DML) Youth Corps. The DML Youth Corps would be a service outreach program that offers training and professional development in digital and media literacy to a group of recent college graduates and places them, in teams, to work in public libraries, school libraries and technology centers, local public access centers, and other community non-profit organizations.”

While this DML Youth Corps is a lovely idea, I would suggest a better idea is Congress providing funding for every public school in America to have a highly qualified and fully certified school librarian.    Instead of outreach in “school libraries and technology centers,” how about providing funding not only to put a school librarian in every building, but to provide funding to build a team of school librarians for every school where we can be embedded in grade or content level teams to truly infuse and integrate these literacies as a seamless and essential part of every student’s learning experience on a daily basis throughout the school year?     Is a “recent college graduate” really someone who is best qualified to provide the kind of instruction and learning experiences on an extended basis to infuse these literacies in the lives of children and teens?  I think it is already well established that “youth” does not necessarily correlate with one’s competencies in these literacies.  I would also say the same for public librarians—while the idea of a digital/media literacy core is admirable, you already have a corp in place with our talented peers in public libraries to serve populations of all ages.

I am normally a huge fan of Hobbs as well as the Knight Foundation, and I do like several of the recommendations and find them meaningful.  However,  I think that this report, while driven by noble principles, misses the mark in overlooking school librarians as an obvious and existing resource in helping cultivate these literacies in more powerful and consistent ways and as sponsors of these new media literacies to help close the participation gap.  Perhaps if there were more of us in place already and if our programs were not being cut across the nation at an alarming pace, we would not be dealing with the gaps we are seeing now with youth in terms of effectively cultivating these literacies  in conjunction and collaboration with classroom teachers.  I’m disappointed that Hobbs and the Knight Foundation seem to be overlooking school librarians as a ready, willing, and able resource who could be powerful facilitators of this plan.

What do you think?  Have I misread this report, and if not, why have Hobbs and the Knight Foundation made this glaring omission?

Respectfully,

Buffy Hamilton

Literature/Inquiry Circles Meets Research: Author Allan Stratton Visits The Unquiet Library via Skype

Last Friday, we were honored to host an hour-long virtual author visit the personable, informative, and dynamicAllan Stratton. Students who had read  Chanda’s Secrets in their literature/inquiry circles as part of our larger unit on Issues in Africa in Learning21/Media 21 enjoyed the opportunity to interact with Stratton and ask questions.  During our hour-long conversation, we learned about Stratton’s life, the influence of his mother on his writing, how he came to write Chanda’s Secrets, how he develops characters, and common themes in his books.  Students also asked Stratton how he went about researching information for the book; since they have been researching the HIV epidemic in Africa, research strategies were something they really wanted to know more about from him as a real world writer.

We also enjoyed Stratton showing and telling us about a range of international covers for Chanda’s Secrets; we even got to “meet” one of his cats (which delighted my 10th graders)!   The students were excited to talk to the author of the book they had read and to actually ask him questions and get real time responses via Skype.  For the students, this Skype experience was their first, and they were impressed at how wonderfully it worked.  After the session ended, students commented on how much they enjoyed the virtual visit, and some even shared they wished they could have had another hour to ask questions and to hear Stratton’s thoughts!

We were all charmed and delighted by Stratton, and if you are looking for a dynamic author visit, then it is without any reservation that I recommend you add Stratton to your “must hear” author list!  A heartfelt thank you to Allan Stratton for his time and for working with us to set up this wonderful Skype visit!