American Lit or American Ideas?

I woke up this morning wondering, "how important is it that students have a course called 'American Literature'?"  Ok, so I didn't wake up thinking that, but actually arrived at the question after reading a piece discussing the skills students will need to be successful in the 21st Century. The list was predictable: collaboration, creativity, adaptability, curiosity, communication. Predictable is not meant as an insult.  It doesn't mean this list is incorrect; if anything, predictable denotes how critical these skills are. Predictable signifies that there is a consensus surrounding the importance of these skills. I've read  blog posts, reports, articles, interviews with education leaders, books, and tweets that equate one or more of these skills to becoming productive and successful 21st Century existence.

So back to my original question.  Is "American Literature" necessary?

Of course, as an English teacher, and literature fan in general, I am not asking if literature is important or necessary.  Reading fiction, and simply being a reader, is also a critical activity.  But is there a compelling argument for insuring that students have read canonical American Literature?  If students do not experience Fitzgerald, Twain, Melville, or other classic American authors, will they be deficient citizens, unable to fully grasp the American Experiment?

America is a place founded on ideas about equality, opportunity, and freedom.  Undoubtedly, it is crucial for young people to struggle with these ideas, especially as the ideas move from the plastic-wrapped sanctity of our founding documents to the messy, conflict-laden reality of day-to-day life. Naturally, one way to get young people to do this is by having them read and consider Huck's dilemma as he navigates the Mississippi or Tom Joad's relentless stand against a venal, inequitable system.  

But is it necessary that students know these names to understand what democratic citizenship requires?  If young people have less familiarity with these names, does it jeopardize our cultural heritage and generational cohesion, making it less possible for the American Experiment to flourish?

While colleagues will disagree with me, as an American Lit teacher, my answer to these last two questions is 'no.'  

While I grant that cultural literacy has been and will continue to erode, I am not particularly upset about it.  Sure, I'm surprised, even saddened sometimes, by the growing list of dead references I encounter in the classroom.  However, this seems inevitable as our access to information grows and our media experiences become more diffuse.  All the same, this does not mean that we lose sight of our deeply held principles.  It is imperative that students confront the tensions inherent in the American Experiment, even if these confrontations do not grow out of reading The Scarlet Letter. 

As I said earlier, I will continue to stress how important it is for them to be readers.  I will continue to make a case for how fiction works as a testing ground where we encounter great minds asking difficult questions.  I will continue to help them become confident, thoughtful, tolerant thinkers and communicators.  And I will continue to look for ways to help them ignite their curiosity and find the questions and ideas that make them passionate.  I will continue to do these things because I believe this is how the American Experiment remains vibrant.  

My point is not to forgo all classic works simply because they are classics.  Instead, what I am trying to figure out is if a regimen of canonical American works somehow creates a more motivated, conversant American citizen.  This seems unlikely.  Instead, more and more, I'm confident that it's important to teach "American Principles" or "American Ideas", where the curriculum is flexible enough to include any media texts that are compelling and can enrich my students as human beings and as participants in all that America has to offer.

What I am less sure about is how critical it is for students to know that James Gatsby was born Jay Gatz.  If not, they can still understand what it means to be an American.  

More Than a Map, It's Polychrome Fingers

During the latest make cycle for #clmooc, I found

myself thinking less about the general theme,

maps, and more about the bits of paper stuck to

my fingers and the relationship between the brain,

eyes, and hands.

As I worked, I was reminded of the great origami documentary, Between the Folds.

My favorite scene is when artisan/craftsman Paul Jackson is working with his colored paper.  As he busily roughs up and colors the parchment, what always grabs my attention are his hands. Covered in greens, yellows, reds, and blacks, they're the hands of a maker.  They're a badge announcing his membership in a group to which I want to belong.  They're the embodiment of a thought process and signifiers of a passion to make tangible one's idiosyncratic vision.

Those rough, thick, polychrome fingers always stir within me a determination to make.

So now, as I tore pieces of New York state and swaths of New Mexico geography into strips and shreds and re-imagined borders, rivers, and landscapes, I paid attention to my fingertips. They were blackened and covered with worn, cottony pulp.  I paid attention to the way my eyes narrowed and I naturally held my breath as I slowly ripped the paper along some imagined, but no less important, line.

As Jackson says during his own moment of deep crafting, "The process of making is the point of it."

I wasn't lost in the activity, even though that would be a great metaphor for a project about maps.  Instead, I was subsumed by the activity. The materials, the journal page: I was creating a landscape, and I had the fingers of a maker to show for it.

The Bottom of the Bag

I had not poked around in this particular bag for quite some time: the white mesh one we used to take to the beach when we lived in Chicago.  Having pretty young kids, it is easy to guess the objects within: small shovels, various sand castle molds, an assortment of dinosaurs and action figures. While we now live on a smaller lake with a little beach about 300 yards from our house, this particular bag has not seen much action. The kids are older, and this collection of toys no longer garners much attention.

Therefore, it was the perfect bag to dig through for the toyhack.

So what did I find?  A little dumptruck.  A rubber shark.  A small Cro-magnon-looking action figure. I can't even imagine how this last one found its way into the bunch.

But the bigger thing I found was a sense of challenge and purpose.  Add to this the fact that it was an engaging way to spend a couple of hours, and I had the three necessary ingredients for a creative endeavor.    As I worked with the toys and shopped through our tools and art supplies for needle nose pliers, Gorilla Glue, Sharpies, pipe cleaners, and more, I focused on the evolving vision and on my hands, breaking apart the objects and putting them back together.  Of course I wanted to make something in order to share it with the #clmooc.  But this became secondary to crafting something with which I would be satisfied.

And I was ultimately satisfied.  The end result was a bit goofy, but it made sense in some '70's cartoon universe way.

Thinking more about the white mesh bag, I have to admit that the first time I looked through it I felt unimpressed with the materials. Nothing grabbed me. I actually put the bag down and started to pick around  in the garage. Before long, however, I decided to challenge myself with an obstruction: I had to use this rejected material.

So, here comes the educational payoff.

Digging to the bottom of the bag and using the less obvious materials:  How many times have I implored my students to do exactly this?  To move past initial ideas?  To resist their first thoughts, which are usually obvious and reactionary?  To embrace ideas that are only partially formed, a bit jumbled, possibly confusing?  So often it is in the murkier recesses that we find the makings for more compelling creations.  The toyhack proved to be an excellent reminder of what it is like to practice these directions instead of just saying them.  And how much easier it is to do so when interested in the task.

It's About Individual Vision

What do the following have in common: curating an online presence regarding a particular topic or question, using creative commons footage to craft a video in YouTube Editor, or considering how best to employ digital technology to explain to others why a question is important?  Besides the fact that students in my classes currently are engaged in one of these activities, all three pursuits require people to be active producers of content and exercise their voices.

Take for example the work students are completing with YouTube Editor.  As a class, they decided to each film at least three clips during a typical school day, upload the footage to their YouTube channels with the title DITL (Day in the Life), and designate them with creative commons attribution.  With 40+ clips uploaded, they then searched for each other's clips and used this raw footage to each construct their own 2 minute movie of a day at Glenbrook South High School.

Of course, the trick is to take some really disparate footage and make it work like a narrative so that somebody watching the movie understands that there is more going on then random shots of teenagers at school.

One student, for example, wanted to show his weariness as a 4th quarter senior.  As he said in a reflection, he "doesn't hate school."  He just feels done after four years.  To convey this, he decided to repeat certain clips--students listening to a teacher lecture, students walking in the building. He also decided that he did not want to add audio, but, instead, wanted to retain the natural sounds captured in the clips.  This way, he could provide a truer version of the atmosphere that contributes to his apathy.  Another senior wanted to focus on how random the school day is, even though most people have the opposite view.  With this in mind, she decided on the first and last clips, but then let chance guide her decisions for the intervening material and the order in which it would appear.

To achieve these narratives, the students had many decisions to make: which clips work best?; from these clips, what five seconds are most powerful (a limitation decided on by the class)?; what order best expresses a story?; if transitions are used, which ones should they be and why (same with filters)?; what kind of audio should be included?  Navigating these possibilities requires students to maintain a focus on what they are trying to achieve and how best to get there.

Regardless of how well these movie turns out, and they are, of course, amateur creations, one might ask, "what's the point?"  After all, the amount of content uploaded to YouTube is staggering, so chances are slim that these movies will be viewed by people outside of the class.  This criticism, however, misses the point of the activity.  "Will anybody see this?" It doesn't really matter. And it's the wrong question to ask.  The right question is "how important is the creative act for the individual's sense of self?"

As I catalogued above, these students are deeply involved in every decision regarding how this film is constructed.  It should be obvious that this kind of control breeds a sense of ownership.  Once one feels ownership, there is a greater probability that one wants to make something worthy of the time spent.  And this sense of worthiness most likely fosters a feeling of pride in making something that never
before existed in this particular way.

I can't stress this last point enough.  Amateur or not, when an individual creates, even if he or she is remixing or appropriating from other sources, the process and product can only come to life in relation to the autonomy and dedication of the individual. True, there is a collaborative aspect to this YouTube assignment: students in the class are all working from the same collection of raw footage, so there are bound to be certain clips that show up in multiple films.  But in the midst of the creative process, students do not consider themselves as part of a group making a movie.

Creating, whether one is an amateur or profesional, is an act of idiosyncratic expression.  In this respect, it is the opposite of a standardized approach to education.  There is no objective test and the right answer does not appear on a form.  Instead, the right answer is the one that makes students feel they have presented their vision in the most powerful, articulate way possible.

Acknowledging "Failure": Transparency is Tough

Today, I attempted to express to my students my suspicion that an ongoing project has outlived its usefulness before we could make it to "the end." But my students witnessed more than a teacher suggesting we head for the escape hatch.  In a larger sense, what my students have been witnessing the whole semester is the difficult process of creating a class dedicated to using technology for meaningful learning experiences.  As they can see, it’s messy.  

But it's more than creating the class. While attempting to structure a course that it is authentic, useful, and fun, I am also in the midst of rethinking much of what I thought I knew about teaching.  Which is scary.  After all, I entered a profession that functions according to some pretty entrenched beliefs; I tried to map these out for them in class:

I have the information, which I impart to my students.  Along the way, I create a number of activities to gauge how well you are understanding the information.  Finally, I establish a way for you to demonstrate mastery.  And we do this within an established timeframe: three weeks for a novel, for example.  Then the process repeats itself with the next discrete unit of information.  Clearly, the teacher is in charge and it is a closed system in which the communication of ideas moves between teacher and student, but rarely ever extends beyond it.  To a large degree, education still functions like this.

However, as I have learned more about how to foster creativity and how people use technology to engage in meaningful learning, this model feels less genuine, less purposeful, and less acceptable.  Yet, like my students, I have been trained extensively in this system and have learned my role well. Disrupting it has required some serious cognitive dissonance for all involved.  

And this is why I get concerned when the project we have invested the past four weeks into suddenly stalls out.  Projects aren’t supposed to stall out.  They are supposed to end when the paper has been collected, the speech has been given, the grade has been assessed.  To acknowledge that the “Designing a Learning Environment” project might be over before those aforementioned actions have taken place feels like failure, like I am abdicating my responsibility as a teacher.

I mentioned to my students that I saw educator Jim Sill at the Illinois GAFE Summit last week.  On Thursday, 3/28, it was so easy to nod along with his pronouncement that creating a culture of creativity requires risk and failure, and that sometimes, in such a class, one must accept that there is no tangible endpoint to projects: the process becomes the end in itself. On 3/28, this was invigorating.

But it became considerably harder to accept on Monday, 4/1, while standing in front my students.  

I suggested that they place post-its on the board with comments about what the project helped them to learn or at least see in a new way. They made prescient statements about learning, and how school needs to be more flexible to allow students to explore their passions. They understood the importance of considering the size and scope of a proposed change to the education system--that it's not possible to go for it all at once. They even suggested that those groups who are passionate continue working on their projects, and that maybe students from disbanded groups could assist them in some way. So, yes, the four weeks provided them with some thought-provoking moments. But damn if I didn't feel like a fraud.

I could only tell my students to bear with me and try to enjoy the ride. After all, few of them have had the opportunity to be involved in the creation of a brand new class.  I know I have not.  I could only assure them that I am constantly thinking about what will best serve them and me as we try to make sense of how technology changes the ways that we learn, create, and communicate.  This transparency is unnerving.  

Working Analog

A few examples of my students' latest work in their Mindbooks.  Sometimes you can't beat paper, scissors, thread, paint, and glue.

Based on "Humument"

Based on work by Vik Muniz (thread and pencil)

Mashing up Vermeer

Group mindbook assignment

The Newest Addition To My Digital Routine

While my own Twitter usage is dwarfed by most of the people whom I follow, I feel that the time I have invested in this tool has already been repaid many times over.  It has become an important part of my digital routine.  In this post, I will explain why.  Ultimately, whether my students make it a part of their own digital routine is secondary to my reasons for this post.  I am not trying to shill for Twitter or TweetDeck, which I will also discuss.  Instead, my intention is to explain why, after years of doubting its benefits, I decided to explore what Twitter had to offer me.  This exploration is the take-away.  The internet is wonderful.  And overwhelming.  What's important is that individuals locate the tools and create a routine to make it a little more comprehensible.  Here we go:

Why Twitter?  To say I asked myself that question often would be a lie.  In fact, I asked myself that question pretty seldom and always answered it in the same way: there's no reason to use it.  Yes, for the last few years I was confident in my belief that Twitter had little to offer me beyond inane chatter.  After all, how could 140 characters provide anything of substance?  Not to mention the language required: #, @, RT--it seemed like every tweet was more a jumble of letters and symbols than a coherent thought.

RT @spundge: Top moments frm ‘What’s So Funny about Innovation’ panel @ #SXSW buff.ly/14JJUu3 feat. @baratunde & @method_inc #sxfunny
— Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman) March 10, 2013

But my thinking has shifted over the last year in general and in the last few months in particular.  I attribute my changed attitude to three experiences.

• Last spring, I came across an interesting article by Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker.  Frere-Jones listed the benefits of Twitter, and a number of them made sense.  Foremost among his ideas are that Twitter actually "promote[s] long-form nonfiction by circulating a blurb leading to the full text" and that Twitter is quite good at sorting truth from fiction because it "is good at letting facts circulate through argument."  This article alone did not convince me to make Twitter a part of my digital routine, but it was the first piece that made me seriously reconsider my resistance to the tool. 

In fact, I liked the article so much, I decided to make it my first tweet.


Interesting article about this very platform.Good Things About Twitter newyorker.com/online/blogs/s… via @newyorker
— scott glass (@sglass771) March 24, 2012

• While Frere-Jones's article was thought-provoking, attending Educon this past January really drove home why Twitter could be an indispensible resource for my professional life.  As a teacher, I am convinced that an important part of my job is to help students understand how to use the internet and their devices for more than social purposes; they must know how to leverage these tools in their burgeoning professional lives as well.  So it is a bit ironic that my ongoing dismissal of Twitter resulted from my own inability to see this social media tool as more than a platform for socializing.  While at Educon, a trend repeated itself in virtually every conversation I had.  In the middle of a discussion, I would notice people looking at my name tag.  Most people's showed their name, location, and twitter handle.  Mine was missing that last bit of information.  "How should I find you?"  Eventually, my answer to this question was to write down my unused twitter handle, along with a promise to myself that it was time to find out what Twitter could provide for me as an educator.

• Having decided to give Twitter a more concerted effort, I uploaded the extension TweetDeck.   My previous experience with Twitter was characterized by confusion and a general sense of uncertainty: of course important ideas were zipping through the Twittersphere, but how was I to find them?  Tweetdeck helped me organize by providing me with columns dedicated to hashtags that I wanted to follow.  Not only did I find worthwhile links, but the contours of a vibrant educational community materialized: so many individuals and organizations grappling with the same questions as me. It was and continues to be thrilling.

A colleague of mine recently told me what he tells students to ask themselves when they resist a novel or painting or piece of music introduced in class: "How familiar am I with what I am about to reject?"  A great question.  And one that applies to countless situations beyond the aesthetic experience.  In effect, it is the question I was compelled to ask.  And I'm happy I did.