Check out this video documentary of some friends at the Prairie Lands Writing Project (in Missouri) as they use the concepts around the “Make Movement” (build it yourself) and technical writing to pursue connections to the curriculum (Common Core, in particular) around informational writing.

Two years ago, I took part in a National Writing Project session similar to this one (I demonstrated stopmotion animation) and it was a pretty interesting experience, but I have not yet been able to make that leap to the classroom. Documentaries like this one help keep the idea in mind — that our students have talents that we often don’t know about, that they can use that expertise to teach others, and that literacy connections abound in those ideas.

Thanks to the Prairie Lands folks for sharing out their project!

Peace (on the Make),
Kevin

I’ve been doing very little other than reflecting on our current science-based Game Design Unit now underway. But it occurred to me the other day how far back this idea of how to use game design in my writing classroom began to ferment. It all began with the National Writing Project, and a session that I attended at the 2010 NWP Annual Meeting on gaming. There, we learned about the philosophical underpinning of game design theory and how those concepts can intersect with learning. We played games; we made games; we talked games.

I came away from that annual meeting, thinking: this is important.

But I had no idea where to begin. Then, I realized that the youth summer camp program that our Western Massachusetts Writing Project runs would be a perfect incubator for ideas, and with the help of my WMWP colleague, Tina, we launched a very successful and interesting summer camp program for about 15 game-playing boys, using Gamestar Mechanic and Scratch and some other programs for a week-long adventure into somewhat unknown territory for both Tina and I.

I saw enough of what was going on in that small group to think: this has real potential for my classroom.

But I vacillated towards the end of the summer: should I consider offering an after-school gaming program? Or should I bring the video game design ideas into all four of my sixth grade classroom? Was I ready for that? I even emailed my principal, asking if I could get permission to run a for-profit after-school gaming program. He supported the idea. Then, I had second thoughts. Who would come to that program? A select few hard-core gamers. I always complain that some of the most innovative ideas seem to be happening only outside of school. Who did I want to reach? All of my students. I want them all to be engaged. I decided against the after-school idea.

That’s when the National STEM Video Game Challenge came back onto my radar screen, and I realized that a collaboration between my science teacher colleague and myself might lead to something interesting: science-based video game designs that might have the potential for national recognition. That’s where we are right now: in the midst of game development, and it’s hectic, crazy, fun, interesting and exciting to be in my classroom every single day. There are challenges, and collaborations, and technical hurdles, and writing going on. It’s an amazing amount of learning.

And so, this path that began at the conference with the National Writing Project, and emerged in our Western Massachusetts Writing Project youth camp, is now flowering in my classroom for my 75 sixth graders. Sometimes, journeys begin like that, and that is the potential power of conferences to lead to change in the classroom (I say, somewhat sadly, because the defunding of the National Writing Project means no more conferences like that, for me).

Peace (in the reflection),
Kevin

If you read my blog (thank you), you know how much I support and respect the work of the National Writing Project. In my first year of teaching, I found the local affiliate (Western Massachusetts Writing Project) and took part in the Summer Institute, and I have been influenced by its philosophy and work ever since. I’m not sure how I would have been able to teach as I do with NWP friends and educators to turn to for help and for support and for partnership.

So it was a great honor when last year, the NWP contacted me to ask if I would be willing to let a photographer spend the day in my classroom to gather photos for a feature of me for the NWP Annual Report. I was a bit shocked but of course, I agreed. The NWP had just lost all of its federal funding and it hopes to use the Annual Report to make its case with the federal government for support, and for other grant-funding institutions.

As it turned out, and as I planned, the day the photographer came to hang out with us, we were doing a poetry unit and working on Poems for Two Voice podcasts with our iPod Touch devices. I recently received a few copies of the Annual Report, and passed a few on to our school administration, and I love the photos of my kids in the midst of their learning. And Paul Oh’s kind write-up of me was nicely done, too.

I showed the report to my students the other day, and they were duly impressed with the photos of last year’s students, and with me. But I told them that it was the work they are doing as writers that gets attention. It’s another motivational factor for them — the fact that the spotlight might shine at any moment. So, be ready for it.

Here is a link to the NWP Annual Report (click on 2010 Annual Report link) but I have also embedded it. My kids and I are near the end – pages 19 and 20 with one of my students featured in a full spread on page 2.

 

Peace (in the report),
Kevin

Earlier this fall, I saw a call by Bud Hunt to join a class at P2PU, which is a space for open courses. Bud’s class was centered around writing and the Common Core standards. I jumped at the chance not only to explore the Common Core with the writing focus, but also to figure out what a Massively Online Open Course (or MOOC) was all about. I found it fascinating that free courses are available, although what we also found is that while a lot of people join at the start, only a few make it to the end. It’s all driven by intrinsic motivation, by the desire to learn, and not because you paid a few hundred dollars to go to class.

Bud structured the class with various entry paths — from discussions, and activities, and webinars each week. We also were tasked with designing a lesson plan or project, or redesigning an existing one, with the new frameworks in mind. (I did mine on an imaginary land brochure project. I’ll share that revamped lesson plan on another day).

It was engaging work, picking apart the writing strand of the Common Core and then reflecting on what it is all about with other folks. We talked about the strengths (connections to technology, complexity of thinking, connections to content areas, etc.) and weaknesses (shift from narrative writing, etc.) I found the whole process of the course incredibly valuable as our state now has new curriculum standards based on the Common Core and our school district is revamping our curriculum to meet the new state standards. Also, our Western Massachusetts Writing Project is emerging as a leader in curriculum design around the Common Core in our region.

One fascinating thing about P2PU is that anyone can start a course.

If you go to their homepage, you can see the wide variety of offerings — from computer programming to writing poetry to learning how to draw. You could leverage that openness of the site for more online groups and classes, although the connection to graduate credits and professional development advancement is tenuous right now, and depends a lot on the state in which you live. Another interesting element is that all of the classes offered at P2PU, and at most MOOC sites, become “modules” that anyone can then borrow, adapt and re-use for their own purposes.

Think about that. As time moves on, there will be entire databases of learning packets that organizations, such as the National Writing Project, might be able to use for online professional development, even as your own expertise gets meshed into the overall architecture of learning. I suppose there will be concerns about “ownership” of ideas and whatnot, but I think this is an interesting shift around learning possibilities.

The other night, I joined some other teachers on Teachers Teaching Teachers to chat about MOOCs and the online learning experience. Here is the video of the chat we had, posted by TTT host Paul Allison.

Peace (in the open),
Kevin

Sometimes, the journey into new terrain can be awfully lonely.

So it was with great surprise that I recently found that another National Writing Project teacher who was in the same exact session as I was on the topic of gaming at last year’s NWP Annual Conference writing has published an article in the Wisconsin English Journal about taking what he learned from the session (led by Alan Gershenfield, of eLine Media) and how he had brought gaming  into his own writing curriculum. I have been on the same path, using the information and elements of Gershenfield’s talk for my jump into video gaming as another path into learning with students.

(See all of my recent posts about gaming in the classroom.)

Fifth Grade teacher Greg Kehring, in his article “Tech Tools for Teachers, by Teachers: Video Game Design in the Classroom,” does an excellent job of explaining not only the rationale of why he moved gaming elements into his writing classroom. He also outlines the many ways that video game design and writing process are connected (this is the same avenue that I have been exploring). He also has his kids using Gamestar Mechanic, which is the site that I use.

Greg writes:

“When I started this unit. I wanted to offer all students a chance to become truly engaged in the writing process, and all students were immersed in this writing experience (of creating games and keeping a reflection journal). Although it may have been masked in a digital disguise, the traditional writing process was at the core of this project, and all students were able to use it successfully.” – p.30

Check out Greg Kehring’s entire piece at the Wisconsin English Journal.

And Greg’s article helped me sort out something else, too. My ventures into gaming with students so far was with a summer camp project with a certain audience (OK, middle school gaming geeks). I’ve been toying with whether to bring video game design into my school as an after-school activity, or to bring it right into all of my sixth grade classes as an integrated curriculum. Thanks to Greg’s piece, I realize now that I need to bring the concept to all of my students, as part of my regular writing curriculum. There — decision made. And I will have my students do written reflections of their experiences, too, just as Greg’s students did.

Greg and I don’t know each other, but I’m happy to have stumbled onto his work. Thanks, Greg.

Peace (in the games),
Kevin

The third annual National Day on Writing takes place tomorrow (Thursday) and I would encourage you to consider ways that you can shine a spotlight on the ways that writing matters with your students. The day is sponsored by the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), but my National Writing Project is a key partner in the event. This year, the NWP has a theme of “Why I Write” and it has been publishing all sorts of interesting essays from famous people about the writing they do in their lives and why it is so important.

Here is some information from NWP about different ways you can participate or celebrate “Why I Write”:

Submit student essays to Figment.com: Figment will be accepting submissions from September 28 through October 29. Since “Why I Write” is a celebration of writing, there are no prizes, but a curated anthology of selected submissions will be available as an e-book later this winter. Submit to Figment.

New York Times Learning Network: The New York Times Learning Network will present a series of interviews with reporters who cover a range of beats and explore their writing process. These interviews will serve as the basis for lesson plans, prompts for students, discussions, and inspiration. More ›

NWP Radio: On October 20 at 7 p.m. EST, the National Writing Project will air a live radio show to celebrate the National Day on Writing with interviews with New York Times education reporter Fernanda Santos, New York Times Learning Network editor Katherine Schulten, Figment founder and New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear, Figment teen writers, and NWP teacher and author Ashley Hope Perez, among others. More ›

Tweet #whyiwrite: Tweet why you write and include the hashtag #whyiwrite so that everyone can see the many reasons people write. More ›

Post on Facebook: We’d like everyone to post why they write on their Facebook pages on October 20 and encourage others to do so. Let’s create a national dialogue about writing! More ›

Also, the NCTE hosts a National Gallery of Writing that is open for you and your students to contribute to. The gallery can be found here.

A poem I write for the ‘Why I Write’ theme:

Writing

is the echo in the silence

so I write

to find the patterns of reverberations

where the only voice I hear

is my own,

and the clattering chaos of the days

fade momentarily.

I am forever etched in ink

on paper and this digital canvas

and so I write,

as if everything hangs in the balance

of words.

And I am going to be helping my students write about this idea today, with the aim of using our school’s iPod Touch devices tomorrow to podcast their “Why I Write” responses over at our Cinch account, with the #whyiwrite hashtag. I am hoping their voices become part of the conversation around writing.

Peace (in the celebration),
Kevin

The National Writing Project’s new networking space — NWP Connect — is a move towards making connections among various NWP site members and within sites. At the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, we have been using a Ning site for our leadership team (sporadically) but yesterday, I presented to our board the possibilities of using NWP Connect. Among other reasons, we don’t want to keep paying for Ning.

After a tour of the NWP Connect site, we had an engaging conversation about we might best use the main site and our space within the Connect community. There were discussions around:

• Do we make our space public or keep it private? We mostly seemed to lean towards a public space, particularly as one of our missions to visibility to our teachers and our community.
• How do we use our social networking site in a way that does not conflict with our website?
• How do we label and name things in our Connect site in a way that is clear and understandable for users? You’d be surprised at how difficult that can be at times.
• How do we best integrate the Connect site with our website, so that a user can move fairly seamlessly from one to another?
• What activity can we launch (book talk?) to get people on the site and writing?
• Who will be in charge of making sure that every post gets a response?
• And more …

It was interesting and a good discussion. The key is for us to keep designing our WMWP Space with simplicity of use in mind, and to avoid making another site that people don’t need to go to. We don’t want to stake out some ground that is never used, or replicates what people already have in their professional teaching lives. But we also see Connect as another way to bridge connections with teachers who are part of WMWP and maybe need another line to our organization.

Here is a document I created and shared with our WMWP folks, but it may be helpful for others, too. (Note: The NWP Connect space is not just for NWP teachers. It’s an open place for resources on writing and literacy. Take a look. Stay awhile.) All of the members of the Leadership Team pledged to tour NWP Connect on their own, maybe add a few comments to some posts, and then take a critical look at the WMWP Connect space.
Using NWP Connect

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

I kept meaning to share these links earlier this summer but then … eh … forgot. I created two new resources for the National Writing Project’s Digital Is site around gaming and learning and design. The two resources stem from a summer camp program that I ran with a co-teacher for middle school students, and as I was planning the camp, I was videoblogging my experiences. The second resource is about running a game design camp.

These are on my mind right now because I am considering one of two options: I might bring the idea of gaming into the sixth grade writing curriculum OR I might offer an after-school game development club for fourth, fifth and sixth graders. Or, I suppose, I could do both, right? I’m not sure yet.

Anyway, if you are interested in looking at the resources that I created and posted:

• More Than a Game: One Teacher’s Journey into Video Games (in which I dive into some unknown terrain to make sense of the possibilities as I designed the summer program. I wanted our kids not to just play games, but to learn about the design principals and mechanics of game design)
• Bringing Young Gamers Together: A Digital Writing Camp (in which I document the week’s activities and visitors and game design activities)

Feedback at the site or here is welcome. How have you used gaming? And I am most interested in the idea of how we can get our students to create games (active users), not just play games (passive users). This is the crucial shift that we need to make if we want to frame gaming as a learning possibility. I’m not convinced that all of the “gamification” of content area now flooding the Internet makes a lot of difference in how students learn. Oh, I am sure there are great games out there, and I am sure some of them are very engaging. But I want my kids to make things.

You?

Peace (in the games),
Kevin

I know this video is long (an hour — for the web, that is an eternity) but I was at this National Writing Project Urban Sites Conference in Boston where Ernest Morrell gave this passionate speech about nurturing all of our students and acknowledging the multiple literacies of their lives. He’s someone worth spending an hour with.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

I came across this story contest through Twitter and given that it is a partnership between the National Writing Project and a story writing site called Figment, I thought it was worth checking out. It is, and I want to invite you to join in, too. The idea here is that published author Courtney Sheinmel has created the first line of a story. You need to finish it, using the Figment website to do so. The writing concept behind the partnership is all about the craft of catching the reader with an opening hook.

Here’s what Courtney came up with:

“I wish spoken words were things that could be erased, forgotten.  But now I knew, and we could never go back.”

The contest is open to anyone on Figment, which apparently is a boatload of interesting writers writing interesting stories. There are already lots of stories in the contest. I wrote mine about the end of a relationship and the balancing act between letting go and hanging on. (read Plugged/Unplugged)

Here is how you get started (full rules and regulations are here):

1. Sign up for an account on Figment
2. Create something new based on the opening lines given
3. Tag it “NWPstarter” (in the tab called “details”)
4. Press “Publish Now”

The deadline is Sunday, July 17 at 9PM EST. Come on and write. And good luck.

Peace (in the stories),
Kevin