I was recently asked in my program to think about who students are these days and the people I might encounter in my classes. I've published my observations online with storybird and they're here if you want to take a look! https://storybird.com/chapters/a-study-in-students/ The illustrations are by Anthony Jegu, and are free to users of storybird. For more information on the site, see my earlier post.
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![]() In preparing an exhibition on publishing companies for UVic's Maltwood Gallery last fall, I came across a program called 826 Valencia run by the folks at McSweeney's. The not-for-profit organizes creative writing workshops across the US to encourage literacy and self-efficacy in under-resourced students. From what I hear, it seems to be doing extremely well... so I guess it was only time until someone in Canada took up the torch. Here in Victoria, an organization called Story Studio, inspired by 826 Valencia, has been in operation since 2012 and has gained such popularity in schools that their yearly docket of workshops fills up immediately. Does that mean schools aren't providing enough opportunities for students to express their creativity? Or simply that teachers are always eager for an extra set of hands when it comes to classroom activities? The Story Studio Writing Society began in 2012 with a hope to bring creativity and confidence into children’s lives by giving them the tools to tell stories of their own, in their own words and with their own illustrations. The aim was to remove boundaries and allow children to lead their stories wherever they wanted. I'll be writing more about Story Studio later, as I'm volunteering with them as part of my Passion Project. Given the time I've been spending in classrooms and with assignments of my own recently, however, I wanted to get some thoughts down about the roles of creation in classes. Have publishing groups like the ones listed here become popular because creative writing is not a central skill in schools? By that I mean that my school English experience was limited mostly to critical writing--essays, speeches, synthesis pieces or whatever they're called these days. I remember authoring the occasional and quickly discarded poem, but no short stories or opinion pieces. When I was asked to be creative, it meant "come up with a new way of reading this canonical work." Those lessons were undeniably helpful with critical thinking, communication, and a few other must-be-ticked boxes in the curriculum, but were they fun? Fulfilling? Personal? I think if you asked a group of students today, many of them would say "no."
Or would they? I think creative writing is a skill people perceive to be innate and thus only possessed by a few. When you ask an adult or high-school student to write a story, I'm guessing their likely answer will be "about what?" There's a lack of... initiative? or maybe a simple lack of ideas. If you ask the same thing of a 7 year-old though, I bet you'd get an earful. Does that mean we school creativity out of our students? By teaching them to respond rather than create and placing importance on non-fiction writing and the canon, do we inadvertently snub the ability to write creatively? If so, then it seems like something easily fixed. Wonderfully, it's also being included in the new BC curriculum (though as a separate and optional elective). UVic Students for Literacy is another group that works one-on-one with students to aid them with reading skills. In my time as an SfL volunteer, I sometimes assisted students with book reports or simply listened to them read to me. I also gained feedback from teachers that even the 10 minutes a week I spent with students dramatically increased their confidence reading overall. When learning to read, I remember my Grade 1 teacher telling me to read aloud to the dog, the cat, the toilet, or anything that'd listen just so I could get the practice. That skill is not something I kept polished, however, because it seems like oratory in older grades is limited to reading a speech or couple presentations a year. Just as creative writing is pushed out of the spotlight in the older grades, simple storytelling is overlooked for a focus on more buisness-like presentations. Yet that switch seems to me to coincide with increased presentation butterflies... I've dumped a lot of thoughts down here and have much more in this area that I'd like to research, but I'll leave off for now to let these questions settle in a bit. Be creative and prosper. I sat in on a Media Arts class today. The course is an elective for students and is separate from a traditional drawing and painting arts class that is offered. One student I talked to loves sketching and was taking this class to broaden her media repertoire. Physically the class has some challenges though. They are about 10 computers short so some students spend the majority of class without a platform on which to do their work (thus either getting other work done or wandering around aimlessly). Today, the teacher gave a demo of some common tools in photoshop and directed the students to work on projects they started earlier.
My teaching moment came as I was wandering around the class talking to students about their work. One student asked the teacher a question about how to fill-in a picture of a sandwich-flip-flop with a burger print (it was excellent). He was an ELL student and asked her through google translate, which was cool to see, but she seemed to have other things to get to and told him to look it up himself. He continued to look a bit lost so I wandered over and asked (with some improvised sign-language because my Spanish deserted me long ago) could he use the clone tool the teacher had demoed earlier in class? At this point the student beside him lent the burger-shoe student his notes and they worked through the process together. This interaction led to others; a student nearby asked how to paste something he could get started with and we worked through that. The student beside him asked me the same question as burger-shoe and I pointed out the notes and process. Another student then asked how one created an image outline and I directed him to the student beside him who had done that earlier. When I left this cluster of students there seemed to be more discussion amongst them then there had been previously, and the teacher was pleasantly surprised when she returned to a student to find that student had solved an earlier problem with the help of her peers. From this experience, I learned that students can be remarkable independent problem-solvers, though they may need someone to initially break down the barriers between them. Perhaps these students were used to top-down instruction from the teacher–they always directed their questions to her first–and simply didn’t know that their peers could also be useful resources. I also discovered that I don’t have to be an expert in something to teach it: I facilitated a learning experience today in a subject I know nothing about. I have never used photoshop before but managed to work through questions about it by referring students to their notes and each other, something I think I can likely apply to almost any situation in the future. In this week’s EdTech class, our task was to explore Education websites and applications we can use in classrooms. Lizzy and I created a Powtoon (Powerpoint Cartoon) as an example of one way presentations can be spiced up a little. The website is free to use (though most of the cool stuff is limited to pricy business plans) and fun to play with, though the opportunities for creating your own animations are somewhat limited. Another cool presentation website is storybird It lets users illustrate stories and format them as picture books, chapter books, and poetry, and has a mighty collection of available images from illustrators around the world. You can also read and purchase stories published on the site, but I believe all the money goes to them. It’s a cool tool to play with and a neat way to get your work into the world, but I think more can be said for the merits of publishing and illustrating your own story… of course, if you’ve been reading about my Passion Project you’ll know I’m a little biased.
My exploration of EdTech so far has been mainly limited to presentation software (if I'm using that term correctly). There's miles to go before I can claim to have an inkling of what's out there, but what I've seen so far has me questioning what all the buzz about classroom tech is for. The sites listed above and others like them essentially seem to be flashier versions of good old poster-board or powerpoint. The sharability of these new tools is markedly better, but has there really been much change in how we expect students to present their ideas? Is there a point to exploring new sites and apps when they might not be relevant four months from now? I suppose one undeniable value of bringing tech and teaching together is that it forces us to constantly relearn and explore new templates and ideas. |
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. Archives
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