Discussion
Do you have work by young people that could be showcased on Digital Is?
Student work is inspiring for educators and youth alike. We'd like to help other educators and youth find there way to strong examples presented in context. We can all find examples of work by young people on the web in various places, but it is rarely accompanied by the explanations and context information that helps us make sense of it as a "mentor text". We'd love the community to help us build such a collection. If you have questions, comments, or web-accessible work to recommend, add them here to this discussion.
Comments
Matt Hurst
on Nov 15 2010
at 22:26
Online Comics for Reluctant and Struggling Readers
Since participating in the NWP Summer Institute in Salem, OR in 2009, I've been working on using my writing (and potentially student writing) to engage reluctant and struggling readers. I decided to publish some web comics (embedded powerpoints) for students to read. I've accompanied the comics with a literary aspect I want students to notice. For instance, pointing out to the reader ways I use figurative language in the text. I think this could serve as a good model for teaching students how to create stories to entertain, while also teaching their peers literary elements they used in their texts. I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions you have. Here's the link if you're interested: http://deviousdevin.blogspot.com Thanks!
Elyse Eidman-Aadahl (Admin ...
on Nov 16 2010
at 09:23
This looks really interesting
Thanks for sharing this link to your blog. The text-heavy (comparatively) style reminds me of some of my favorite graphic works where the story receives as much attention as the comics or illustrations. And I like the simplicity of the b&w graphics paired with a strong narrative line. I'd love to hear more about how you're using your work and possibly student work as a way to engage students and what the results are. This who area would make a useful resource in Digital Is. It would be great to follow up.
Matt Hurst
on Nov 19 2010
at 00:02
Using student work to teach
Elyse - your generous feedback is greatly appreciated. I will try to elaborate on how students can use a similar format (to my blog) to interactively teach a literary concept to their peers through publishing to a blog or website. Let's say you are teaching students to use imagery in their work. You might have students choose a favorite paragraph from their writing to publish into a powerpoint and embed it or attach it to a website or blog (The blog I recommend is Kidblog.org). Below their work, they should be able to explain how they used imagery and why they chose to include the particular images they used (touch, taste, smell, etc.) in their work. On blogs, I always give specifics as to what they should be commenting or quesioning about. I sometimes use sentence frames or starters. This isn't appliciable if they publish to a website where commenting isn't available.
About engagement and results...my students love to view peer work and receive comments from their peers. This seems to motivate and hold them to a higher level of accountability because many care more about what their peers say than what I say. I usually give my students 20 minutes maximum time on the computer. In 20 minutes, students rarely get to view and comment on all their peers' work, but they are able to go at their own pace and choose to read the works that appeal to them. I moderate the comments and give feedback.
Many of the possible similar alternatives seem to be more time consuming or resource consuming: 1. Before the days of blogs, we would use a lot of paper to print or photocopy and pass around the work. Students would comment on the work, but it was more difficult to moderate comments. 2. You could show all the powerpoints (in fairness) in a whole class setting and have each student explain how they used imagery in their work. Students comment on the work on a piece of paper or have a verbal discussion.
My 6-8th grade ESL students are finishing a fairly formulaic compare/contrast powerpoint essay with audio that I could give some examples of if you are interested. It may take a week or so to get time to build a page. Please let me know if you have any other questions.