Making, Coding, Writing

 

Check out this video archive from the National Writing Project that lays out the theoretical and pedagogical connections between the Maker’s Movement, the use of code for understanding and the writing process.

How would we teach reading if our end goal was that people became strong, powerful, authoritative, engaged, participatory writers? If that was our goal, and then we saw reading, actually, the ability to access the knowledge of others as something that you do on the way to what you produce, would we think about both of them differently? And I think there’s probably actually both on the coding and the making side this notion that if your real emphasis is not on the consumption side, but on what somebody will produce themselves or with their peers, we would shift a million things in teaching.” — Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, NWP Executive Director

Peace (in the shift),
Kevin

3 Comments
  1. Talk, talk, talk. NWP is busy rebranding itself. Marketing itself as a maker platform. I am not sold on the idea of teaching reading through writing. And what is wrong with the comsumption side? Let’s just say I ain’t buying what they are selling, be that brand, writing as reading or coding as …I don’t know what. Thanks for the report. I worry about the future of NWP when I see our leaders going down this rabbit hole.

    • I know we diverge a bit on this … I like the expanded notions of “writing” or composition, even though I don’t want to lose what makes writing special — the ability to write to understand the world.
      Kevin

      • I guess I am thinking that the NWP is becoming a different thing than I bought into originally teachers teaching teachers. I suppose everything has a lifespan I just hate to see that span diminished by abstraction and lack of focus. NWP leadership is running from pillar to post in a St. Vitus dance to be relevant. I have never forgiven leadership for their attempts at censorship in CLMOOC. I suppose I never will and you know why? Because censorship among those who claim to support writing in all its forms, is an absolute non-starter and, in the end, a non-qualifier.

        AntispamCensorship: useful ms
        They held the work in their hands and stated, “Let’s make sure we don’t criticize any of our partners in this.”
        The manuscript muttered, “Yeah, don’t speak truth to money. They might get offended in their pocketbook.”

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