Calling All Resources: Fostering the Right Time to Write

(The traffic light BYOD management system used by John Hardison of Studio 113)

"Calling All Resources: Fostering the Right Time to Write" (Originally published at GettingSmart.com on 11/20/12.)

Creating the ultimate writing atmosphere that inspires students to produce their very best level has always coincided with a constant search, a continual revamping, and an open platform for students’ suggestions. As a collective writing community, Studio 113 students and I seek the most powerful writers’ tools; they may range from Stephen King’s On Writing to the soothing writers’ website OmmWriter to a simple online dictionary. During this incessant quest, we remain open to any ideas that will help us produce a setting conducive to crafting excellent, heartfelt prose, rhetoric, and poetry. In essence, we seek to create originals, and fostering the right time to write requires a number of resources. Here’s a glimpse into our classroom writers’ sanctuary:

The Traffic Light: Classroom Management for BYOD

Students in our class are always fully aware of the availability of writing resources. In fact, all it usually takes is a turn of the head to view a specific color of the traffic light. Using a simple, homemade traffic light to manage the use of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has been very powerful and efficient. Whereas an illuminated green allows students to appropriately use all mobile devices and desktop computers to access any writing resources, the yellow light asks all students to quickly and momentarily disengage from their tech devices by closing their laptops, turning their tablets and smartphones facedown, and directing their attention to the teacher or student who patiently waits with a raised right hand. At this time, a directive, suggestion, or creative idea is disseminated to help all writers move forward with their assignments. This seamless transition normally takes no longer than a minute or two from start to finish, and after communicating, the yellow light is switched to green. Students are then free to dive back into their writing, hopefully a bit more enlightened following a succinct statement. The red light is too simple. Although not often used, a red light eliminates the use of any student-owned mobile devices. In fact, students know to put away their smartphones, tablets, and laptops when the red light is lit. Students usually see the red light when working certain quizzes and tests or when participating in learning structures that benefit from intuitive, old school modes of class interactions.

Background Music: The Mood of the Writing Atmosphere

To set a relaxed mood in our classroom when writing, the students and I create a playlist of appropriate instrumental tunes. Students select from songs such as Alan Silvestri’s Forrest Gump and Cast Away instrumentals, and from collections of the greatest instrumental songs of all time, and from a vast array of nature tracks. To be perfectly honest, the constant favorite is a soothing track of light rain and soft piano music. Students normally relax into a state of contemplative and intuitive writing once this track has permeated the classroom. Oftentimes, students are also allowed to listen to their own music as long they use headphones and the volume does not disturb the other writers. Flexibility and understanding all students have unique ways of writing have been the keys to inspiring students to produce their very best.

Soft Lighting: The Students’ Favorite

The decision to use soft lighting while writing is always unanimous. Just ask the students, and they will tell you how annoying the overhead, way-too-bright bulbs are. Although the above video may portray a dimly lit room, please remember the video was shot with an ancient, 7 megapixel, non-HD Sony Cybershot. Trust me. The lighting is perfect, and the students’ constant input is evidence of this fact. Setting the appropriate lighting and musical atmosphere is always first on the students’ wish list, even before their concern for using mobile devices.

Writing Gadgets: Students Choose Personal Preferences

By offering the options of writing with their smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, or pen and paper, all students find their own comfortable writing zones. Some students choose to couple their smartphones and tablets with the use of powerful apps like Evernote, My Writing Spot, and Blogger, while others choose more simple apps like Notes, iBrainstormer, or Scratch to organize their thoughts and plan their essays. Of course, students also use their mobile devices and our school wi-fi to access any useful writing resource on the web. Students basically use the laptops and desktop computers in the same manner. Since students with internet-ready gadgets are able to use most of the same writing applications, there really is not much of a difference between writing with smartphones and tablets versus laptops and desktop computers. The only exception that comes to mind is the students’ mode of typing. Some like the more concrete feel of an actual keyboard as opposed to the totally flat feel of the virtual keypad. As always in Studio 113, students have a choice to use pen and paper with hardback dictionaries and thesauruses as their resources. Let’s face it. Some students still sense the power of holding a pen in their hands and watching their compositional visions come to life on paper in the form of very personal handwriting. I never want to deny students this powerful option. The bottom line is this: I want students to absolutely fall in love with their writing by any appropriate means of composition available. The end result is most important, not how they arrived.

Nonverbal Communication: Editing without Speaking

Students are encouraged to share their writing with others as a source of inspiration and as a means of acquiring constructive criticism and feedback. However, during designated writing periods of about thirty minutes, students are asked to communicate nonverbally. They should not speak a word during a silent writing session. Using websites like Todaysmeet.com, Twitter, Wiggio, or a shared Google document, students can help their peers without disturbing the writing atmosphere. By asking for all communication to be nonverbal, those who choose not to speak are not annoyed by those who do “speak.” Students are even allowed to text a portion of their essays to their in-class peers as a request for feedback. Think about it. How many times have you written something and immediately shared your new creation with a trusted friend? Pretty powerful, huh? It is no different in our class when we write. Whether they are sliding sheets of paper across the table, texting thesis statements across the room, or holding a discussion about their essays on an all-too-easy site like Todaysmeet.com, students are encouraged to increase their audience and thicken their skin by sharing their original thoughts and writing.

Breakout Sessions: Students Walk and Talk

These silent writing sessions are often separated by breakout sessions of five to ten minutes where students are invited to walk around the class and verbally share their writing with others. Just like there is power in a silent atmosphere to bring forth authentic and personal writing, there is also great strength in moving about the classroom while seeking writing advice and offering editing insight. It presents the students with much needed balance. As I finish this essay, I can already hear some of my colleagues’ agreeable comments and criticism, especially as it relates to the freedom I grant my students with their smartphones. I totally understand and welcome all comments. Simply pick up a tablet, smartphone, laptop, pen or any resource available and drop me a line. I would love to collaborate with you. Besides, it may be the right time to write, and I’m quite sure your writing will be awesome.

Rise Above Classroom Walls on the Wings of a Bird

"Rise Above Classroom Walls on the Wings of a Bird" (Originally published at GettingSmart.com on 10/29/12.)

Ronald Reagan once said, “There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.” This quotation has huge educational implications. I remembered these inspirational words the other night when participating with my students in our first-ever tweetup, a Twitter chatroom using a specific hashtag to discuss rhetorical strategies witnessed during the second presidential debate. Although a small minority of my students chose to attend the virtual classroom, I was overwhelmingly struck by the enormous potential. My enthusiasm was immediately evident by the barrage of tweets I sent out during the tweetup. One of those tweets kicked off a side-discussion with Chris Kervina (@ckervina), a high school and college English teacher in Northern Virginia. The topic involved creating a shared tweetup for the final presidential debate. The idea of extending my students’ classrooms beyond the boring cement walls made me absolutely ecstatic. Suddenly the thought of my students collaborating with other brilliant minds from different regions of the United States, from a diversity of sub-cultures, from a wide range of educational backgrounds lifted me off the ground. I felt ready to take flight, ready to transcend and rise above classroom walls on the wings of a bird.

Teachers Soar High with Twitter

I truly believe there is no educational “ceiling.” Twitter proves this theory by providing educators with a means of transportation to lift forward thinkers to new altitudes. Whereas a quick walk down the hallway to a colleague’s classroom in years past usually elicited an armful of handouts, transparencies, and lesson plans, the same sharing, only in a digital version, often occurs in the fraction of a second, or roughly the time it takes to send a tweet. Such a powerful tweet occurred the very same night Chris Kervina and I were collaborating when he invited two other educators of English, Michelle Lampinen (@michlampinen) and Sarah Mulhern Gross (@thereadingzone), to participate in a future tweetup involving our students. In just a matter of seconds, our virtual classroom without walls doubled in size. But that wasn’t the most awesome part. We needed a bit of structure, something to tie our shared vision together, and we needed an organized manner of presenting this vision to the ones who matter the most…our students. Michelle Lampinen provided this structure when she shared her lesson plan via a Google Document. From learning objectives to literary terms to dates and specifics, Michelle Lampinen had it all covered. And shared. Perhaps the best part of the lesson plan was the list of students’ options. Whether taking part in a Twitter chat, discussing the topic on Todaysmeet.com, or reflecting on the rhetorical strategies from the debate on a teacher’s blog, each student is able to take flight by engaging in a real-world, 21^st Century activity that surpasses the confines of the “one-hand-at-a-time” classroom conversation.

Students’ Full Expressions Reach New Heights

No longer do students get overly excited to write an essay or deliver a presentation for one teacher and a class of peers. Sure, they still enjoy expressing themselves and sharing their thoughts and opinions with others, but compared with the many modes of connecting to a larger, worldly audience through social media, blogs, and other creative technology tools, a paper copy just doesn’t cover the same ground. Covering such an expansive area requires flexibility, an educational necessity validated by Mahatma Gandhi who once said, “I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.” With inflexible, rigid walls that restrict students’ intellectual reach and deprive them of new, diverse audiences, students often are not challenged enough. Interesting and original concepts may go untested in a traditional classroom where many students may have already reached a consensus based on boredom from predictable peer responses. Much needed and different points of view from distant students across the country may never be heard. In essence, students may be unable to fully express themselves due to a simple lack of exposure. So, if classroom confinement is the enemy of students’ freedom of expression, then surely technology tools such as Twitter are the symbols of educational liberty. Like the great American Eagle flying high above a majestic mountain range, students who post their original comments via social media and blogs have a bird’s eye view of their learning. They see the peaks and valleys and mirror images of their own original thoughts, and the path ahead from such an elevation always provides a clear view.

The Results of the Tweetup? Well, They Have Yet to Land

Just under an hour after participating in our first multi-state, multi-school tweetup, I am struggling to wrap my mind around the enormity of what I just experienced. What began as a “Let’s give this a try” educational idea turned into a ninety-minute tweetup with 155 different participants and over 1,500 tweets. Simply amazing. To grasp the concept of the virtual chatroom created through a Twitter hashtag, imagine a classroom of over a hundred participants who freely voice their detailed and focused insights without being encumbered by raising their hands and waiting for permission to speak. It was a refreshing showering of brilliant ideas and rhetorical insight. Students from schools in New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia engaged in a real-time analysis of rhetorical strategies such as pathos, ethos, and logos used by President Obama and Governor Romney during the final presidential debate. Using the hashtag #bamrom12, students connected with peers from different areas and with various viewpoints. Students retweeted other students and replied to interesting comments. At first, the interaction was a bit slow as most were merely concerned with posting their own opinions. However, they soon caught on and began to interact with each other. As I did my best to participate in the Twitter tweetup and the todaysmeet.com chatroom, I found myself mesmerized by the sheer freedom of the students. I returned to Reagan’s quotation again and marveled at the lack of intellectual constraint, classroom walls, and obstacles that ultimately deter students from fully expressing themselves. Then it dawned on me. They were free as a bird. I can see it so clearly now. No obstructions blocking my view anymore. After all, there are no walls this high up. (Click here for a sample of the #bamrom12 tweetup.)

Life Is Writing: Two Apps for the Reluctant Writer

"Life Is Writing: Two Apps for the Reluctant Writer" (originally published at Gettingsmart.com)

I can’t even begin to quantify how many times I have been blessed with the challenge of working with a reluctant writer. During 14 years in the Language Arts classroom, I have heard “I hate writing” a thousand times. Sure, everybody loves those students who scan the writing prompt a couple of times just before their minds and hearts connect with the pens and bleed ink onto the paper in an effortless representation of creativity and mastery of rhetorical strategies. Taking natural writers to the next level is also a daunting task, but I will forever be grateful for those who stare at the paper with confusion and anxiety while hoping words will magically fill up the empty lines. Their apathy for writing shakes me to the core in such a way that leaves me scratching my hairless head and searching for any angle to prove how essential self-expression is to living. To me, life is writing.

How to Ignite Passion Into Reluctant Writers

Some of my attempts to ignite a passion for writing in my students have failed, and no doubt various students have left my class on the last day of school still detesting the writing process. Any teacher faces this reality at times. However, the one bona fide solution that continues to yield excellent results in our classroom is one rooted in common sense. When prompted by a student’s unintended verbal challenge in the form of “I hate writing,” I smile, take a deep breath, pull out a chair and give it my best shot.
“So, you hate writing, huh?” I ask. After hearing a courageous and honest, “yes,” I continue. “I want you to pretend you’re sitting on a front porch somewhere absolutely beautiful – near a beach watching the sunset, up in the mountains hearing rain tickle a tin roof, wherever.” I pause just before finishing the final touches on a canvas colored with Southern scenery, “And the one person you trust more than anyone in the world, a person who is a solid rock, a person you can tell anything to, is sitting right next to you on the front porch swing. You’re sipping on that ice cold glass of sweet tea, and you begin to talk about anything, whatever is on your mind. You don’t stop and wonder if your grammar is correct. You don’t stop and check your spelling. You just open up the tap and let it flow.” Usually by this time, I sense if my strategy is working, and whether it is or not, I still end with my best writing advice. “Simply talk to the paper,” I say.

How to Leverage the Dragon Dictation App for Reluctant Writers

Where students see empty lines on a paper, I want them to hear a voice – their own voice. This is exactly why the Dragon Dictation App works perfectly. Some students fight the physical part of writing but can’t seem to slow down when allowed to talk about the exact same topic. Think about it. Have you ever had a student in class who was always more than willing to give his impressive insight or opinion on any given topic only to clam up when you offered a silent writing session to the class? This need not be a problem with Dragon. Simply open the app on a tablet or smartphone and ask the student to talk. This technique serves as a kick-starter for the writing process, and a student’s confidence immediately soars once he copies and pastes his text into a writing app and views multiple paragraphs of a rough draft. The editing comes later.

Use the Tripline App to Write Everywhere & Anywhere

As my family so often points out, I am a nerd. I always want to put myself in my students’ shoes, so when possible I test all my theories before implementing them in class. Whether I am grilling burgers on the back porch, spending some quality time with my family, or riding a road bike in the North Georgia mountains, I feel like I am swimming in a sea of imagery. Every sight, every sound, every smell, every sensation is an invitation to fully participate in life and express one’s self. With this foundational belief in mind, I decided to experiment once again. I figured if students could see every present moment as an opportunity to express themselves, their love of writing would grow even greater. If they could “check-in” to the moment wherever they were and simply write about their experience, I knew they would believe in the power of self-expression.
To test my theory, I took my eight year-old daughter, my thirteen year-old son and his out-of-state friend to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. I politely informed them that at each stop I would complete the following steps:

1. Take pictures with my iPhone of any interesting sights
2. Use the Dragon Dictation App to talk about our experience
3. Copy the unedited text from Dragon and paste into the “story” section in the Tripline App; and
4. Send pictures and writing by selecting “check-in” via the Tripline App.

Each time I selected “check-in,” the Tripline website created an interactive, GPS-located map of our travels. Just like the diver we witnessed in the Ocean Voyager tank at the aquarium who was surrounded by whale sharks, manta rays, and other aquatic life, I felt immersed again in a sea of imagery, and I could capture each moment in words and pictures. By showing the pictures, writing and exact location, viewers get a sincere account of our travels. To make my experiment as realistic as possible, I assigned myself the following writing standards during our Georgia Aquarium trip: technical, narrative, persuasive, expository, and descriptive. Furthermore, I chose to keep our trip “private” until I returned home, logged in to Tripline, and edited my writing.
Our trip, and my experiment, was a resounding success. We had an absolute blast. Not only am I excited to jump back in the classroom and offer these tech writing tools to my students, but I am eager to create more opportunities that foster students’ passion for writing. One thing hasn’t changed, however. When I hear on the first day of school, “I hate writing,” I will be prepared.
I will smile, take a deep breath, pull up a chair, and say, “Want to talk instead?” Click here to join the discussion on Voicethread or comment below.