Where's the Focus

As I have been preparing a curriculum for my new class on digital learning, I have become increasingly disconcerted over the focus of education in general.  There is so much students need to understand about the ecology of the digital landscape--it has been overwhelming to me.  Of course, adults like to believe that young people have the internet and digital technology down cold.  But a growing body of research and anecdotal evidence disputes this view.  Check out this piece by Brian Proffitt from ReadWriteWeb for a compelling perspective.  Yes, young people spend a considerable amount of time online.  However, they are also lacking in the necessary critical thinking skills for navigating through the info rich environment. 

Yet, what am I instructed to spend my time on in the classroom?  College Readiness Standards:  do students know how to "Make sophisticated distinctions concerning the logical use of conjunctive adverbs or phrases, particularly when signaling a shift between paragraphs."  What?  Without a doubt I want my students to be confident, clear, and compelling writers.  This is not an issue of not wanting to invest time in helping students to achieve mastery when it comes to their use of language.  It remains a crucial part of the curriculum.

Although much has been made about our culture's switch from print to image, any time spent online illustrates the importance of writing.  Of course, there are many kinds of writing employed when it comes to the internet and digital technology.  Whether updating status, leaving a comment on a discussion thread, emailing a boss, blogging about an interest, or collaborating with colleagues in a Google Doc, writing is important.  But not when it is taught ACT-editing style or when it focuses solely on the "thesis driven, 5 paragraph essay."

I want to teach writing in the context of how to be a 21st century digital learner.  This means not just teaching how to write with text.  As writing becomes increasingly multimedia, it is imperative that this becomes a part of a student's education.  And I want to feel I have time to help foster the other skills my students need: the ability to "detect crap," as Howard Rheingold puts it, the ability to think divergently and convergently, the ability to shape new ideas by using the information they find on the internet along with digital tools.  This must become our focus. 

Writing the Remix

For the past year and a half, both as a teacher and a graduate student, I have been focusing quite a bit of my energy on digital technology, the internet, and what it means to learn.  This past spring, I completed an MA thesis exploring this issue, which has led me to think deeply about the way I engage my students.  I think cognitive dissonance pretty well sums up what I have been feeling.  And this is particularly acute with writing instruction.

            I just cannot shake the concern that I am teaching students 20th century skills for the 21st century.  True, there are certain elements of writing instruction that will always require mastery: how to write compelling and concise sentences, for example.  After all, it does not matter what format students are writing in or for whom--as writers they should always aspire to convey their ideas as powerfully as possible.

            Instead, my struggles occur as I consider the types of assignments I use.  Looking over my curriculum for junior English, I am struck by two recurring attributes: most prompts revolve around "literary analysis" and the prompt language emphasizes "originality."  A typical assignment asks students to explain what a writer says about a certain theme or idea, like "love" in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," or "self-determination" in Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God."  Of course, students are instructed to select the theme that they find most important and/or interesting, but essays keep a tight focus on how the author manipulates and comments on the chosen theme.  In terms of "originality," my prompts place a premium on "insightful thesis statements" that illustrate an idea "a reader might not see on his or her own."  Tall order for a 16 year old, let alone a 36 year old. The big question becomes, "what is original for an inexperienced reader with considerably less knowledge about life?"  Clearly, students should be able to move beyond a simple observation in a thesis statement, but what should insight look like for a teenage writer?  This is where I now find myself struggling the most.

            Is this fair to ask my students, a number of whom are only reading a given text because they are compelled by the need to get good grades or at least not get in trouble with their parents?  Given that the majority of my students will not be English majors, or even liberal arts majors, how often in the future will they be asked to write something resembling a thesis driven essay? Particularly one that is "assessed" in part according to the originality of their idea and how well they borrow from other texts in order to support it?  Probably not often.

            So what skills, besides the aforementioned need to write well, do people need in our information saturated digital world?

            Maybe my students would benefit the most at this point from investigating an idea by remixing or assembling what others have said, and approach supported by a number of composition theorists (Selber, Johnson, DeVoss, Porter, Webb).  According to these researchers, at least some writing assignments should ask students to focus less on their own ideas and more on how informed thinkers have engaged with a question, problem, or theme.  Whereas traditionally borrowed material provides support for a student’s argument and proves to a teacher that the student has read a given work, writing as remix encourages a different approach.  In essence, borrowed material becomes the focus as it is brought together from different sources in thought-provoking ways.   

            The curation site Storify provides an interesting model.  Writers create stories on a given topic by scouring the web and pulling together relevant information and ideas, while adding in their original commentary.  The writer weaves together these pieces of text, which can come from text based sources like blogs and newspaper articles, as well as from video and image based sites.  By considering movement between the artifacts and employing techniques like juxtaposition and divergent-convergent thinking, the writer does more than just recapitulate what others have said.  There is an editorial function that allows the writer to shape the story in dynamic ways.  As I mentioned, the writer is able to include her own thoughts and questions between the borrowed artifacts.  And this is where Storify’s remix model could be powerful for students.

            As I was completing my MA thesis, "The Kids are Online: writing and reading in the Digital Age," my adviser constantly reminded me that there is already a robust conversation taking place regarding my topic.  Yes, ultimately I wanted to add my voice; however, his point was that I should "be a reader before a thinker" and get a sense for what others were saying, how ideas interacted, and what questions inevitably arose.  In other words, I should not try to immediately transform the field with some ingenious and original concept.  I found this advice both liberating and reassuring.  It made me feel less pressured to be the expert and more willing to simply listen and reflect on the incredibly rich debate already in progress.  In some ways, my whole MA thesis could be viewed as a remix of ideas by some brilliant people: Larry Lessig, Henry Jenkins, Clay Shirky, Roland Barthes, Jane McGonigal, and many more.  Undoubtedly, I found places to add my own perspective.  But my role was to analyze and synthesize (remix, assemble), not revolutionize. 

            I thought about my students often and wondered if similar instructions would make them feel more comfortable and even engaged with the texts we read.   Currently, the onus for a great idea is on the student.  As I mentioned, the expectation is that the student will generate and articulate a penetrating, novel idea and usher key moments from the text that prove the prescience of the student’s reading.  Pretty high stakes stuff. For example, an intriguing question raised by O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is “how do soldiers deal with the guilt from seeing their fellow troops die?”  The “original thesis” approach requires students to analyze and explain O’Brien’s answer to this question, and to do so while being “insightful,” i.e.: not imitative or clichéd.  Hence, “soldiers use violence to deal with the guilt from seeing their fellow troops die,” will not cut it.  Instead, the follow-up question they must entertain from me is “why?”  So then most students will add a “because” statement meant to complicate and introduce some complexity: “soldiers use violence to deal with guilt because they are frightened and embarrassed to show other emotions.”  And there is a continuous back-and-forth between the student and me until “we” reach a point where “we” think the student is adequately insightful.  At which time the hunt for support and quotes begins. 

            As I mentioned, this is the opposite of the approach I have pursued in my own thinking and writing.  What if, instead, students started with a question raised by the author of a text, but then explored how this question appears elsewhere.  They would still need to practice higher order skills: analysis, evaluation, synthesis.  Not to mention what Howard Reinghold calls "crap-detection".   But it could also relieve them of the high stakes, anxiety inducing requirement to be the expert on the book.  To be the reader who has mined a novel for the hidden gold missed by other readers.  And it can give students a fuller, more nuanced understanding of a question or idea by bringing one author’s perspective into relief against what others have said.

            Increasingly, this feels like a lesson I need to share with my students.

It Begins

After pushing for a course in media literacy for the past 10 years, I have finally succeeded.  In a few weeks I will begin teaching an elective course, "Media Collage."  And I am a bit overwhelmed.  Over the 10 year gestation period, the focus of the course has changed pretty dramatically.  When I began campaigning for its approval, I envisioned a class that examined media in the age of conglomeration.  This was before Web 2.0--there was no Facebook, twitter, tumblr, youtube. . .

So now the course is much more about being a learner in the 21st century.  It is about the ways people use digital technology to engage with ideas, create content, and share their visions.  Very exciting.

But while plotting out the course, I have discovered that this is also about what it means to be a teacher in the 21st century.  In the past few days, I have realized that many of my assumptions about my role in relation to the student role are about to be challenged.  Again, very exciting.  But also daunting.

As an educator, I have read about, listened to, and discussed how learning is changing.  About how we are living in a transformative moment when our outdated education system must finally catch up to the 21st century.  The ideas are easy to repeat: we need to harness digital technology in order to create student driven, flipped classrooms that foster participation and engage learners in meaningful ways.  I haven't even taught the first day of my new course yet, but already I understand how challenging this will be. Very exciting.  But also nerve-wracking.

Even something as simple as how I will manage the online nature of the course has caused consternation.  For my classes, I am used to running everything through a Google Site, which includes a page of blog links to the blogs my students have created.  Their blogs, my platform.  However, this needs to shift.  Yes, I still want them to blog.  However, they need to be in control of it, just as they need to be in control of the content so they can manipulate it in ways that make the most sense.  In essence, using Google Drive, each student will have his or her own platform to which I will subscribe.  Course documents will still be located and shared from my account; but students will be in charge of how they use them and contribute to our investigation. This set up is my first taste of the decentralized nature of Web 2.0 learning.  I can only imagine how beautifully strange this is going to get.

Very very exciting.