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I found this article in the Chicago Tribune, and unfortunately it has absolutely nothing to do with “naturally occuring literary behavior.” So, I will stray once again from the original intent of this ‘edublog’, but I think this article is worth it.

First if you don’t know what Footwork is, visit these links before reading the rest of this post.

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OK now that you’ve seen a little bit of footworkin’, a Chicago Charter school, Catalyst Charter School has found a way to use Footwork to help keep at risk students in school.  The article in the Chicago Tribune describes footwork as:

Equal parts tap, break and African tribal dance, footworkin’ is the urban equivalent of ballroom.

At Catalyst–one of 15 schools opened in the fall–pupils also have the option of taking a footworkin’ class for credit. Three days a week, pupils learn the history of footworkin’ from instructor Christopher Thomas, a member of the award-winning footworkin’ “battle clique” Creation.

Pupils are also taught basic moves such as “dribbles,” in which the dancer mimics the footwork of a basketball player dribbling around an opponent. Pupils who stand out are offered a chance to try out for the school’s 16-member footworkin’ team

Administrators say the class and team seem to be helping youths get better grades. Parents say their children exhibit a newfound confidence, are more patient and frown at the thought of being absent because they don’t want to miss footworkin’ practice. “It makes them responsible for themselves and it focuses them,” Neis said of the pilot program. “It’s cutting-edge in terms of something that appeals to kids.”

Footworkin’ found its way to the West Side charter school via teacher’s aide Andre Minto, vice president of Chitainment, a group that manages local deejays and dancers in the footworkin’ community. When Neis asked the staff to suggest programs that would motivate kids, Minto dusted off a proposal that his group pitched to Chicago school officials in 2004, “The Jukology Incentive Program.” The idea is to create footworkin’ teams in grammar and high schools to promote academics. Over the years, Chitainment representatives said, they had encountered Chicago public school students who devoted countless hours to footworkin’ but were flunking school. They said they hope to create a citywide footwork league in which teams from different schools would compete for glory.

Full article here

According to the administrators at the school, the results have been very positive for the kids who are involved in footworking. To be involved in the dance team, students must maintain their grades and attendance. The article goes on to talk about a student named Maurice, who credits the school’s Footworkin’ dance team whth his success in school- for him it became that extra incentive to keep his grades and attendance up, so that he could be a part of the school’s dance team.

This is such a great example of a school that has found something it’s students do, out of their own volition, for hours outside of class, and used it to encourage and foster learning. The only down-side to a program like this, would be issues of funding – especially with our current educational lawmaker’s emphasis on standardized test scores. Aside dialogueLittle Jhonny raises his hand, and the teacher comes to his desk.“Yes Johnny?”

“Mr. Kade, where is the section on Footwork?”

“What section Johnny?”

“The part of the test where I get to show you my footwork?”

“I’m sorry Johnny, but there isn’t one. In fact I’m not supposed to even answer your questions during the MEAP exam. It’s just that some people think these tests are more important than finding ways to keep kids engaged in learning at school.”

“Oh man…”

So anyway, without becoming even more sarcastic…I think it’s great how this school has opened itself up to this extracirricular activity, after all, that’s supposed to be the point of extracirricular activities like various sports, music & drama in school right? They are there to help motivate students to do well, to foster good attendance and, hopefully learning.

Sources:

An Inspiration to Step Up – Footworkin’, a Chicago-born street dance, helps pupils toe the line at a charter school

By Johnathon E. Briggs

Chicago Tribune

More stories, pictures & video at: 

chicagotribune.com/footworkin

I ran across this research that makes an interesting follow up to my last post on equal access to technology. A recent study funded by the US Department of Education, “Children Families & Media” which concluded that:

1) A wide range of media and media technologies are owned and utilized by families and young children.

2) Families and individuals at every economic level participate in media and technology ownership and use.

3) There are differences in the incidence of ownership by income level for some media, particularly in more expensive and emerging media technologies that are less commonly found at lower income levels. Other technologies enjoy near universal penetration.

4) Ownership and involvement in media and technology is about both affordability and perceived value(s); not everyone necessarily wants all media.

5) The use of media—or the functions that media technologies serve—is similar across the income spectrum. Once owned, there is little variation in how these technologies are used.

These findings paint a complex portrait of the relationship between income and media technology use and ownership. Certain media technologies, such as television, radio, and CD players, are now essentially universal (over 90% of all households with young children own these technologies). It has taken decades to arrive at these levels of ownership and access. Computers became available to the public a mere 20 years ago and have become part of daily life in many households (computers are present in 63% of all households and 37% of households at the lowest income level—those earning less than $25,000). These current rates of computer ownership reflect their relative newness. Cable or satellite subscriptions are keeping pace, providing Internet and cable channel access for many households (over 80% of all homes, and 58% of householdsearning less than $25,000 have cable access). Further, the rapid rise of mobile phoneuse (mobile phones are present in 75% of all households and 58% of lowest income households), as well as ownership of DVD players (present in 84% of all households and 69% of the lowest income households), and video games (found in 58% of all households and 40% of the lowest income households) all illustrate the rapid integration of media technologies across the income spectrum.

Full study here

I think these findings are very encouraging. While there is still a fairly significant gap regarding access to a computer & the internet between income levels, at the rate that computer useage is increasing among low imcome families, the gap will continue to narrow significantly. This is extremely important in a world where (yes you may roll your eyes as I say it) access to technology and the knowledge to use it, are becoming increasingly vital.

In another article from I&M Online (a Nantucket Island Newspaper) that discussed the prevalance of computer use in highschools:

Like many colleges these days, Colorado College requires all students to bring their own computer, although there are several computer labs with printers on campus. Even if it was not required, though, O’Connor said she’d probably still bring her own computer.

“It’s just easier that way,” she said.

The same even goes for public high school. Phoebe McKee, a senior at Nantucket High School, said that although the school has a two computer labs, it is much more efficient to have her own computer at home.

“More than half (of my classes) require pretty much everything to be word-processed,” said McKee, the other half being science and math courses. “The high school is pretty good at providing for the students in the technology department, but it is harder than just having one at home. Probably about more than half the time, for literature and history definitely, the Internet comes in a great deal (for research).”

full article here

This last point is key – it’s easier to have a computer at home – ownership translates to effective use. Hopefully that gap keeps closing quickly.

Sources:

Education Week

“Home-Based Digital Divide”

The Inquirer & Mirror

“Back to School Survival Gear: Laptops & Cellphones?”

by Gabriella Burnham

 I really like the critical pedagogy phrase we’ve been referring to in class, “reading the word and the world. ” I thought it would be interesting (if not slightly risky) to combine this critical pedagogy this idea of reading the world with some a few things that have been on my mind since the MCTE conference and Jonathan Kozol’s lecture last week. Those things being our current legislator’s unhealthy obsession with standardized testing and the morally reprehensible effects of NCLB on poor urban schools. Why not open up this topic to our own students?

In his lecture Jonathan Kozol made the point that teachers and students have been left out of educational policy-making on the national level. What would it look like to bring your students into this discussion of what do these educational laws like NCLB really accomplish? I think the results would be pretty interesting. After all, all of the stuednts I know love spending hours preparing for these ‘bubble tests’ and obviously, their excited anticipation of that whole day of testing is completely undeniable. Sarcasm aside, I think this issue if NCLB would be worth examining in the classroom through a critical pedagogy sort of lens.

I think the image below would be an excellent introduction to the topic.

                               (Atlantic Monthly July/August courtesy of Secondaryworlds.com)

I also found a website that is a part of the “Race Contours 2000 Project” which combined US census data regarding ethnicity in L.A. County from 1940 to 2000, into animated maps that demonstrate the change in white/minority population distribution. Link here You can literally see the ‘white flight’ from the cities as more minority groups moved into the city center.  I think it’ s important for students to realize how economic and racial factors are unaddressed by the current legislation.  – this is especially apparent when you consider these two maps together.  By and large the areas with the highest minority populations are the areas with the highest levels of poverty and the greatest number of schools with ‘signifigant’ problems.  The hook is that these students are characterized by our policy makers in DC as having the same educational opprotunities as students from wealthier outlying school districts – at least that is what is implied in making standardized testing rather than equal funding the focus of the NCLB legislation.  Regardless of where we end up teaching , I think the critical pedagogy view would be an excellent way to approach NCLB in the writing classroom- a way to give students a voice concerning legislation that so directly impacts their education and their lives. 

Sources:

“Race Contours 2000 Project” maps (http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~philipje/CENSUS_MAPS/CENSUS_2.html)

The second session I attended, “Why Rubrics Don’t Work for Me: Reclaiming Subjectivity in writing Assessment” presented by Maja Wilson, was very thought provoking. She began her presentation by talking about the phrase “Objective Assessment” as semantically contradictory. The word objective is related to distance/disinterestedness, as opposed to the word assessment, whose root means “to sit beside” or proximity. She related this contradiction in terms to educators use of writing rubrics, focusing specifically the way using rubrics to grade student writing forces teachers to change the way they read in order to assign a grade to student writing. She referred to this change in reading as “The view from nowhere,” a view where the richness and power of language is devalued in exchange for an ‘agreement’ about what good writing is – the agreement known as a rubric.  I can’t remember how many times in highschool when the teacher would hand back graded papers, and the only explanation for the grade were check marks next to the items on the rubric.

To illustrate this idea of “the voice from nowhere”, Wilson had her audience turn to one another and describe what came to mind when they thought of the word Grandmother. Several people shared their thoughts, most involved a story and very vivid details about their own grandmothers. She then asked the audience to come up with a definition of the word Grandmother. The difference between the two approaches was stark.  When we asked to be objective, to define what a grandmother was, all of the personal stories and vivid images disappeared. This is what Wilson is referring to when she talks about the difficult of applying objectivity to writing: describing vs. defining, objectivity vs. subjectivity — the evocative power of language is lost when we try to come up with a definition that everyone agrees with.

Maja went on to explain that assessment not only changes the way that readers read and writers write, but leaves no room for dialogue between the two. There were two important questions she kept in mind when reading student writing: What were you trying to do and why? When we are ticking off the items on the rubric as we read student’s writing, are free to think about the writing in terms on what goes on in our mind and why? The idea here is, that by allowing ourselves to read from our own view, we open up a dialogue with the student writer – we share what goes on in our mind while we read the work and ask what were you trying to do and why.

I think this last point is key. In viewing writing as a process, it’s easy to see how rubrics could derail the dialogue between readers (peer editors or the teacher) and writers — a critical component to developing writing. As a writer, when you give your work to another person, you want them to respond to the work, not to how well you satisfied the requirements of a rubric.

The first session I attended, “Hanging on by your Fingernails until you gain a Toehold: Advice for Future Teachers from New Teachers,” presented by GVSU’s very own Dr. Jill Van Antwerp, dealt with the relatively high incidence of teachers leaving the profession. statistics were a little surprising to me; 40-50% of teachers leave the profession within the first five years. While I knew that the turnover rate for new teachers was relatively high, I would not have guessed this high. At first I thought we would be in for a “Shock & Awe” session, where all the pitfalls, bad experiences, and general anxiety about being a new teacher would be expounded upon in detail. What actually happened, however, was a pleasant surprise. The most commonly cited reason for educators to leave the profession was related to Administration. Not surprising. Administrators are the people that set the “tone” of the place where we work and are largely responsible for the type of work environment that’s created. It’s gotta be difficult to work in an environment where you feel threatened, micro managed or tied down by administrative red-tape — things I’ve noticed even though I have yet to work long term in a school setting.

The majority of Dr. Van Antwerp’s presentation focused on the positive things that kept teachers teaching. The most common response was ‘the kids,’ which definitely implies that we have to remember why we’re doing what we’re doing. Essentially, if you don’t love working with kids, you’re going into the wrong profession— duh. (At least for me this is a ‘duh’ point, where it seems blatantly obvious, but Dr. Van Antwerp did give a few examples of people who wanted to teach because it was a ‘steady income’…hmmm) At any rate, she also gave some advice to new teachers for those first five years.

Look for an advocate

Dr. Van Antwerp pointed out that many schools don’t have mentoring programs for new teachers – or if you find yourself with a deadbeat mentor, look for another teacher who is willing to help, but be tactful in your approach.  It’s definitely a bad idea to offend your current mentor or alienate fellow teachers in your first year

Be strong

She also explained that it’s important to give yourself time to relieve stress, get enough sleep, and realize that you’ll be developing an immune system – it’s not uncommon to be sick when you first stop as the kids bring their colds to school. 

Don’t pick sides (at first)

Dr. Van Antwerp cautioned against siding with faculty members early on in your first year teaching – being careful to whom you align yourself with, until you have a good idea of what everyone is about and how they relate to the administration.

I’ve been thinking about what happens in our schools when we deny students access to information on the web. While it’s somewhat troublesome to use class definitions, the largely white middle class students in the district where I tutor can go home and use internet resources, whereas for students from low income families, the school might be their only access to that information. Of course there are public libraries where people have relatively open access, but I’d like to examine what we are really doing by disallowing access to so-called social sites. I’d like to think that a lot of these pages are actually blogs that are discussing very relevant political/social/economic topics; like this post I came across in one of my rss feeds.

“I attend high school. Today I had a free period and with nothing else to do in our half demolished campus [my school is undergoing serious construction] so I decided that the best place to spend this one hour is by going to the library to check progressiveu and read people’s blogs. However, when I surfed the internet, progessiveu was blocked. The reason: personal blogging & something having to do with socializing.

I understand that myspace, xanga, youtube & urbandictionary are blocked and I see the reasoning behind that, but progressiveu???

I do admit that this is a blogging website but it is not just about anything. It is about blogging that interests people’s attention, not just another website like the ones mentioned above. The purpose of this website serves for other causes than the other restricted websites.

For example,I get informed about many things going around in the world, like foreign affairs and US politics. I have the opportunity to express what I feel, just like I am right now. Most importantly, ProgressiveU lets people’s write down their opinions. Their emotions. Their sympathy. “

                                                               link to the full post here

Obviously there are steps that this young student can take to get access to blog pages(and a good lesson in using the system to implement change) but what are we saying to students who can’t go home and write a post like this? I know this is a minor point, as there are so many reputable news organizations whose content is readily available – the issue I think is the missing element of debate and discussion – sure this student can go to the BBC or NYT webpages and get news – but where can she go to discuss/debate the issues that are presented? I’d hate to think that out of (a fairly legitimate) concern regarding child predators/objectionable content, that school districts would simply put a blanket ban on any site that has a social premise – like progressiveu.org. Maybe their hope is that by excluding all content, students will petition for sites like the one discussed above that have some academic merit. After all, most schools have come a long way with their internet filtering policies. I remember wanting to research sex discrimination for an essay in high school and running into dead end after dead end because by search queries contained the word sex; this is largely not the case now as internet filters have become more advanced and better designed. My hope is that we are careful to ensure equal access to what has been called web 2.0 – the interactive, collaborative side of the web which holds so much potential – hopefully potential that far outweighs risk.  I like this example from another high school student really illustrates the kind of meaningful/insightful blogging that happens every day;

Today, as I was blogging, my brother walked in. He didn’t say anything, he just sat down and watched me type. He looked at me in a way that words can’t describe. I was looking into his eyes at what was in his soul.

My brother is autistic. He doesn’t talk. Autistic children don’t usually make eye contact. So the very little communication that I do get from him is rare. It’s hard, like standing on the edge of a cliff. You don’t see anything ahead of you, and life at times seems grim. I have wondered, who will take care of him when my parents are gone? How will he understand? How can I reach out to him and explain? At this cliff, I can’t move forward. I can only look back. I can only look back on how in the past 17 years of my life I have never had a normal brother. I don’t know his favorite color. I don’t know if he would have liked to play scrabble with me on friday nights. I don’t know what its like to have a conversation with my brother. As I write this I am crying. I don’t know why. I don’t know why all feeling hasn’t been numbed, I want the pain to numb, I just want my brother back. I want to know what he likes, I want to know if he prefers chocolate or vanilla, I want him to tease me, I want to see his heart and soul. Maybe I am asking for too much. I just want the 17 years that I have gotten used to him to overcome any hidden feelings that I have left of grief,sometimes anger, and simply “why?”

Today, as I was blogging, my brother walked in. He didn’t say
anything, he just sat down and watched me type. He looked at me in a
way that words can’t describe. I was looking into his eyes at what was
in his soul. I wondered, what is he thinking? He looked at me so intently like he was dying to say something. I thought, there really is a human in there, a being with a mind and a soul. I started thinking, maybe, just maybe he will say something. So far, he hasn’t said it with words. Sometimes, if you look hard, you can read it in his eyes. We sat there in silence. He searching my eyes, and I searching his. What did he find? Understanding. We both found understanding. This is the way it is. That moment we shared I will always treasure. We both have different roles in life. In his eyes, it was like he accepted his. Like he had this far away look that was beyond my understanding. Does he know that he is autistic? He looks far off at times, and we sit in silence. The silence that created a gap between this complete stranger that I live with. This stranger who I know nothing about besides his name. The silence is deafening.

                                                                                      link to blog here

Not only is this student’s writing insightful, but it’s meaningful because the writing is about a topic the writer cares about and the writing is addressed to an actual audience – a small glimpse of what it’s like to live with a family member who has autism.  As far as I can tell, there’s no indication that this is an assignment or something someone asked them to do – they were simply motivated to share their own personal experience.  As an educator this is a goldmine – it can be a struggle to help students find motivation, and I really think that writing of this type can be an excellent way to motivate students, get them writing.  Whats more, I think this demonstrates, in a way, how blogging can be more than a bunch of kids carrying their lunch-hour conversations into an internet environment.

So, as tech-savvy as it is to maintain an educational Blog, there’s still one online phenomenon that I have yet to explore – social networking sites.  Setting up a facebook or Myspace account has been on my list of things to do for the last few years (maybe I should call it, “things I might do”).  I just haven’t gotten around to it.  Meanwhile, as I’ve procrastinated, more than one billion people, according to PCpro online  , subscribe to some form of social networking  sites, which account for roughly one quarter of all internet traffic.  (full brief here) Here in the United States, a recent Pew Survey indicates that,

“More than half (55%) of all of online American youths ages 12-17 use an online social networking sites, according to a new national survey of teenagers conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project. “   full survey here 

That’s a very significant number of American middle & high school students maintaining their own pages on the internet – sounds like a naturally occuring literary behavior to me, and a perfect opprotunity for literary instruction. 

The idea of  social networking sites for literary instruction isn’t new; Bethany Erikson and David Knapp presented the idea at last years Bright Ideas Conference at MSU.  (link to the screen cast here)  They set up myspace pages for characters from two novels, Jay Gatsby from ”The Great Gatsby” Titus from M.T. Anderson’s “Feed”.  The pages didn’t just include these main characters, but other important characters from the novels were added to their ‘friends’ list.  It’s a very interactive way to explore the relationships between characters, and when students construct their own character pages, an excellent way to engage them in the ‘world’ of the text.  And it’s an idea that’ s actually making it’s way into classrooms, according to a recent article in the Republican Herald;

Last year seven students in Kelly Crowe’s advance-placement literature class at Minersville Area High School created a MySpace page for the main character from J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” with the goal of having 25 people add him as their friend.

“After two weeks, Holden had 50 friends,” Crowe said. “It spread to the point that we had kids from other schools adding him because everyone recognizes him. He is the epitome of a teenager and a timeless character.”
full article here

I think beyond a sort of recreational standpoint, that having students create their own character myspace pages  is a great way to encourage the kinds of writing we want from our students: we want them to think in depth about the characters & their relationships, to think within/extra-textually about what motivates those characters, to have an audience in mind when they write.  Structured in the proper way, a student produced community of novel characters could, in my opinion, be as rigorous the kinds of in-class writing instruction we already do. 

Over this last weekend I thought a bit about the angle I wanted to pursue on this blog. I kept coming back to something that Doc. Rozema said in class about using “naturally occurring literary behaviors” on the web (facebook, myspace, etc.) to engage students in reading/writing as well as critical thinking. I really like this phrase for a couple of reasons. First, you’re taking a framework that is already in place, and using it to your educational advantage; most students already know how to maintain blogs. That knowledge can serve as a foundation for a student blogging community that utilizes rss technology to read/write and think critically about current events or other instructor-guided topics that directly relate to materials studied in class. Secondly, it applies not only to technologically driven behavior, but to elements in pop culture: music, films, plays, slam poetry, the list could go on— all of these “literary behaviors” that have been taking place for thousands of years and that students have likely participated in. For now, I’ll be exploring these literary behaviors and the ways that teachers are incorporating them into their instruction -

I’ll be using multiple RSS feeds to gather articles: Two Google News Feeds on high school literature & high school writing instruction, the education section from both the New York Times & the Washington Post, as well as an Google Blog search on high school writing instruction.