Category Archives: National Day on Writing

What We Were Doing on the National Day on Writing

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(Here is a slideshow of some students at work at their writing and podcasting)

 

(Here are some of the podcasts, taken from Cinch)It was a fun day of writing, reading, sharing and podcasting with our school’s iPod Touch devices yesterday, as my students used the Cinch audio App, and Twitter, and their own voices about why writing is important to them, to participate in the National Day on Writing.(We started the day by turning our Interactive Board into a Grafitti board, with them tagging the board in any way they wanted — within limits for school, of course)

It’s so interesting to watch them jump into the mobile device world, which they seem to navigate with complete ease (maybe that that is more thanks to Steve Jobs than it is to their abilities) and take on an unfamiliar activity. With Cinch, I gave about three minutes of instructions and then set them loose. Soon, all around the room, they were hooked into the iPods, reading and re-reading (and revising, too), as they listened to their own voice. Then, after they published it, we added them into the mix of Twitter discussions around the Day on Writing.

They felt like they were part of something bigger than our own classroom, and our own school. That’s a powerful learning experience all of its own.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

 

Why Teachers Write (for National Day on Writing)

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This video montage was something we at the Western Massachusetts Writing Project created last year during a meeting in which we wrote about why we write, and then shared out. As it turns out, that is one of the theme of today’s National Day on Writing. I’m sharing it here in hopes of reminding us as teachers that writing is an important element of learning and discovery for us, too. Not just our students. We need to model writing for them and then also, talk through our understanding of why we write.
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

Did Ya Know: Tomorrow is the National Day on Writing

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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

 

Considering the National Day on Writing

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I’ve agreed to be on a task force with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) to brainstorm and coordinate more outreach efforts for the third annual National Day on Writing that takes place this coming fall. This week, we will have our first phone conference and our coordinator sent along some interesting data to help guide our thoughts. This data (most of which comes from the 2009 Day on Writing, as the most recent 2010 data is still being sifted) comes from the National Day on Writing Online Gallery.

At the Gallery:

  • There are 29,058 submissions have been published (that’s impressive, isn’t it?);
  • There are 3017 galleries (including 2994 local galleries — such as teachers and schools — and 23 partner galleries — such as larger organizations like the National Writing Project that partner up for the project);
  • The majority of published work is student work, from school-based assignments (In 2009, there were more than 10,000 writers from the age range of 13 to 22 while there were about 2,000 writers from ages 30 to 60);
  • (For 2009’s Day on Writing) most of the writing was done with a word processor (11,000 pieces) while only a few used multimedia (137 used video and 11 used audio). I’d be interested to see if these numbers started to shift in 2010;
  • Most of the writing came under traditional genres (short stories, poetry, etc.);
  • Very few galleries were represented from organizations outside of schools and education (ie, community groups);
  • There are plenty of empty galleries that folks set up but never used.

As I mull over what I can bring to the conversation, I was thinking:

  • I love the concept of capturing writing in all of its glory and power and beauty through a National Day on Writing, particularly the emphasis on daily writing that we do without thinking about it;
  • I wish the online Gallery website were easier to navigate and easier to use. There seem to be too many data point questions to get to the actual submission page (but that data yields information like what I just shared);
  • It drove me crazy that I could not  “embed” media (such as a digital story, or an audio file) right into my submission page. Everything had to be linked to another place outside of the Gallery. I think it is fair to say that most people will not follow those links, but they would watch or listen if they could do it right there on the Gallery page itself. Does the Gallery infrastructure allow for this?
  • The look and feel of the Gallery site is, as one friend put it, like a throwback site from the 90s. I don’t know anything about the resources that are available to NCTE but it seems like the site itself could use a little more oomph.
  • I’m not all that crazy about the homepage design. It is a large library and while I love and adore libraries, it is not quite the message of 21st Century that we want to send. At least, the image should have some technology component along with the stacks of books. Most libraries have made that transition.
  • Given the day of interactions between readers and writers, isn’t there a way to allow for comments on writing? (this may not be within the mission of the effort, though, and the question of moderation would surely come into play).
  • There must be a better way to search through the Gallery — can we create a “Stumble Upon” style of navigation for the site, I wonder. Or a “Surprise Me” feature? I’d like that.
  • If teachers like me are using the Day on Writing to celebrate writing, are students buying in? or is it just another writing assignment? And how can we tell? (We can’t.)
  • I wonder if people even come back to the Gallery to read during the rest of the year? I’ll ask about that kind of data. My guess is that folks submit writing, publish to the site but don’t do all that much reading. The danger is an empty space of writing, right?
  • It would be nice to have a writing showcase are at the Gallery — right on the homepage — for a variety of different kinds of work. That might invite more folks in to look around.
  • How can we best use the tools of social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to encourage, invite and promote the National Day on Writing? This is an area that I will be thinking most deeply upon.
  • How can we promote the idea of the Day on Writing to groups not directly affiliated with schools? I am thinking of YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, Scouts, etc., who might find the initiative valuable but either don’t know about it or know how to access it. This might be a “branding issue,” too, if this effort seems to be only school-based.

I’m really looking for ideas from any of you, dear readers, about how to improve the Day on Writing and the Gallery experiences. If you have thoughts, I would love to hear them. Just write me a comment here and I will be sure to add them into the conversations this week.

Peace (in the writing),
Kevin