My fourth field notebook reports findings from Blog #1 in which students interpreted ways that the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird interacts with important themes. My inquiry project investigates how blogging provides opportunities and pitfalls for students when they analyze texts and develop as writers. Before presenting my findings, I will discuss my methods and tools for analysis.
Methods I will track ten students (five from each class) as they progress through this initiative. I will look for patterns in the students’ work based on these five subtopics: Writing Techniques and Approach How does the student write about To Kill a Mockingbird? What details does the student include? What details does the student exclude? How does the student arrange the blog content? Who is the student’s primary audience? What is the tone of the student’s piece? These questions are meant to capture how students write when blogging. How might the blogging platform influence students’ writing about To Kill a Mockingbird? Skill Development Is there visible improvement in the students’ work over time? To explore this concept, I will compare earlier and later blogs. Since this field notebook exclusively covers Blog #1, it will not cover this subtopic. Experimentation and Innovation How do students take risks as writers? What might these risks look like? How can students use this medium for personal and textual exploration? Do students simply follow the guidelines for this project or do they see this assessment as means to voice authentic opinions and questions? These questions should speak to students’ desire to use writing as a means of exploring both literature and the world. This subtopic is of significant personal interest since I approach the classroom as a space for students to grapple with issues of authentic importance in their communities and the world. Perception of Self as Writer Do students self-identify as writers? One of my goals for my future English classroom is to help students find their voices as writers. Consequently, I believe that all students should feel confident in identifying as developing writers. Perception of the Writing Community Do students see their peers as writers? Do they feel like this classroom is both a rigorous and supportive space? This subtopic is designed to explore the nature of the classroom writing community. Findings by Subtopic for Blog #1 Writing Techniques and Approach The students organized their work in an easy-to-read format. Their summaries are chronological and focus on big ideas, such as the main characters and the general plotline. For these ninth-graders, blogs are highly-organized spaces in which they present their ideas in a logical fashion. Blogging is not cacophonous. Students focused their blogs on a narrow topic, even when the prompt limited their possible responses. Students often repeated words that identified the central idea of their blog posts. For example, Howie repeated the word “slow” three times. John repeatedly used the term “dark.” Moreover, students found ways to personalize their responses. Paul chose details from the text that resonated with him by specifically mentioning Dill’s interest in Dracula, a seemingly minor detail. Laura focused her writing on poverty. As seen from this output, students focus and organize their ideas when blogging. These skills are important as their final assessment for this unit will be an analytical essay in which they hone in on one character and one theme from the text. Nonetheless, students did not polish their work for grammar, spelling, and capitalization errors. Most of the blog posts included consistent errors in these areas. One student even used texting language. This suggests that the students see blogging as an informal writing activity. This can be helpful in allowing students to write easily and quickly, but it does not help them practice writing using standard English conventions. Inherent to this subtopic is the tension between structure and creativity or exploration. As a teacher, I hope to create assessments that negotiate these poles in a way that works for students. In this initiative, each blog prompt provided a general structure that allows for freedom in interpretation, content development, and style. I was pleased to see that students moved in myriad directions in their first blog. Structure allowed for sufficient exploration. I like likewise pleased that the students’ blogs are well-organized and demonstrate an understanding of major events and characters, which is important in assessing student understanding. Experimentation and Innovation Students use figurative language, mention literary devices, and employ unique diction in their blog posts. Tara writes, “Maycomb is foreshadowed by secrets and being not well taken care of.” Tara mentions foreshadowing to make an inference about the direction of the narrative. Meanwhile, Laura uses imagery when discussing Maycomb residents, writing, “…truths of the town spilling.” Upon reading this, one imagines an uncontrollable deluge of Maycomb residents’ secrets becoming public. Finally, Tom uses his title, “Scout and About” to express his creativity and play with rhyme. In his comments, Tom applauded his peers’ witty titles. These techniques suggest that students used blogging to push their own writing into new directions. Through this initiative, students are discovering what feels most comfortable for them as writers and how they can develop their craft. Perception of Self as Writer Students use the first person in their writing. They show ownership of their analysis and assumptions. Olivia writes, “I think Maycomb is different than other towns, there’s nothing exciting happening.” Olivia asserts her opinion about the text. While she does not substantiate this opinion in her blog post, using the first person reveals a willingness to take a position on the text. Perception of the Writing Community Students ask their peers authentic and interesting questions. Often these questions have multiple parts. For example, John wrote, “Who do you think was in the house of the Radleys? Do you think it was Boo or just someone who now lives in the house? If so please explain to support the idea. What do you think the cootie was in chapter two? Rat, mouse, or bug from hell(roach)?” The detail in this question suggests that John wants his peers to be able to identify this moment in the text and provide a meaningful answer. John also poses two questions, going above the expectations for his blog post. This suggest that his inquiry about the Radley House is authentic. The sheer number of insightful and largely constructive comments on each blog post suggests that students are interacting with one another in an intellectual and respective manner. Moreover, students responded to each other using first names, which suggests a respect for each person’s craft and effort. All the comments provide encouragement and note the various ways that these blogs helped the students see the text in a new light. This initiative aligns with Lenox School’s core value of collaboration. While commenting is a deceptively quiet activity since it provides students the opportunity to interact in a highly productive and academic way. The comments reveal an engaged and intellectual community. Final Thoughts These findings reflect one of the six blogs students will complete. The following field notebooks will investigate change over time and provide additional findings on students’ interactions with this platform.
1 Comment
Becky
4/13/2017 10:39:55 am
HI Amy, Over all this format is working better and you do a good job of displaying your s’s accomplishments. I suggest that once you’re up on the weebly, that you don’t need the typed out explanations but rather hyper link each category’s tittle to its explanation. You work well with the direct quotes from your s’s blogs however; you still should include an image of the blogs themselves, esp when you mention its format. The final thoughts section feels tacked on. You might want to beef it up with more implications for future practice or delete it all together.
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