Resource Book Review: The Digitial Writing Workshop

The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Rooted in sound process writing principles, Troy Hicks leads you through many possibilities of transforming at least a portion of what you do in your class. I liked that he stresses the concept that we shouldn't be writing digitally just for the sake of using a computer or a slick new program. The core of what we are working are still the principles of effective writing and that should always be the primary concern.

Understanding that that is platform Troy Hicks builds upon, The Digital Writing Workshop covers RSS, Social Bookmarking, Blogging, Podcasts, Wikis, and Collaborative Word Processors just to name a few. He offers many well documented sources and authentic examples of teacher and student work. We can see both in the book as well as by typing in any number of the sites Hicks suggests what modes we can influence in our own classrooms.

One of the strengths of the book is its clarity of purpose, audience, and execution. Each segment is covered thoroughly in a language which can comprehended by any teacher with any level of experience of technology. He offers links to wonderful sites which can take the beginner step by step through the basics, as well as links for the intermediate or advanced.

I borrowed the book from a library and took extensive notes in my daybook, but I am already committed to buying my own copy to have on-hand as a resource.

His style and vision is so helpful that I went and borrowed his second book, a collaboration, Because Digital Writing matters...which I plan on beginning once I end this sentence with a period.

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The Big Picture: Bringing mentors into your classroom...

On July 6th I will be presenting a presentation entitled The Big Picture: Bringing mentors into your classroom through videoconferencing tools such as Skype, iChat, and Google+.  The following is the supplement which I will distribute to the teachers.  This is a part of a National Writing Project summer workshop hosted by the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project at West Chester University.

 PAWLP Presentation

National Writing Project Day 4: Character

One of our peers, Katie, presented an engaging lesson on character which can be easily adapted to any classroom at any grade level.  The focus of the presentation was having students analyze and create character within the same lesson--of course you could break this up over a couple of classes.  We completed the lesson within the hour.

We were first asked to think of a strong character who appealed to us and then write a list of all of his/her traits.  I chose Granddaddy from Jacqueline Kelly's The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.  I remembered his many strengths even though I'd read the book several months ago: intelligence, curiosity, humble, loving to his granddaughter, mysterious, private, independent, strong, perceptive, generous, and courteous.  I failed to add that I imagined him physically as the spitting image of Mark Twain.

After we shared some of this prior knowledge, we were reminded that strong characters are alive, believable, and relatable.  All of these applied to the character I chose.  It was a grounding moment and a good way to build a sense of community within a lesson.  Many heads nodded or carried pleased grins because their characters also fit the attributes presented by the teacher.

Using Ralph Fletcher's tenets of a strong character (What a Writer Needs) our next activity was explained.  We were to use physical traits, personality, a telling detail, spoken words, and gesture or motion to build a strong character.  We would generate this by writing in our daybooks.  However, Katie used a charming method of moving the group into having some fun with the task while also providing us an unobstructed path into writing almost immediately.

We sat in groups of 4 or 5 and were told we were cooks in a diner.  We even had fun short order cook hats which she made.  Katie came to each table and placed her order as our customer.  At our table she ordered one of each of the tenets of strong character.  Her specific request for our table asked us to focus on height, frustration, a pet, whispering, and the adjustment of something.  Given ten to fifteen minutes to write I found that this specific request was so focused that it immediately gave me a way in.  Yet, it was also broad enough so that our creativity was not corralled into so narrow a chute that our group developed similar characters.  Quite the contrary, everyone came up with dramatically different characters.

We were then asked to read our entries to our group members and then highlight the lines which they believed captured one of the tenets quite well.  We searched for lines within our group until we could fill the columns labeled: physical traits, personality, a telling detail, spoken words, and gesture or motion.

Katie asked for two volunteers to share their character for the entire class and a partner for each.  As one read to the room the partner would ring a bell each time he/she heard one of Fletcher's tenets of building strong character.

I don't have the direct quote, but Katie posted a quote on the board by education pioneer Donald Graves which nailed the importance of doing such an activity with students: fiction offers children an opportunity to analyze human characteristics.

This struck me as a perfect lesson to process summer reading in districts where students are given a variety of choices.