One pathway for student success: Joining the HS newspaper or yearbook staff

Student Journalism Provides Literacy Learning and Motivation to Write” is the perfect headline for Sean Thompson’s two-part series about the importance of journalism. And for me as a journalism teacher and adviser, Thompsons gets at the true essence of why journalism students do better than their peers: “When a student journalist writes an article that will be published and distributed, they are doing so with the knowledge that it will be read by a number of potential authentic audiences.”

When authentic student voice and choice meet authentic audiences, true learning occurs because such occasions have the potential of producing excellence. Such occasions demand close reading and a deeper understanding of facts and supporting details. And at the best moments, student writers who are in the zone discover truths and write with clarity and balance that is often neglected when they find themselves writing for their teacher.

Last week I sent out this two-minute promotional video to encourage students to register to join the high school newspaper staff or the yearbook staff:

On a Path to Change: Examining the Heart, Persona & Structure

Free-Photos / Pixabay

Two months ago I shared a synthesis of reading strategies I had been using with my high school students in the May 11 session of Virtual Viral Hangouts through the Media Education Lab. In the presentation, I had participants focus on three of Beers and Probst’s signposts and one of their disruptive heart questions with Jennifer Fletcher’s ideas about having students do a PAPA Square with some of Renee Hobbs’s ideas about structure. 

I had originally envisioned that I would add to this work, make this presentation better, and possibly share it at the Fall Conference of the Iowa Council of Teachers of English. Sadly, Covid-19 has changed many of our plans for having large group meetings this fall. And Covid-19 also cut short more frequent use of these reading strategies.

Priority 1 for my school district involves “Education Equity and Improvement,” and I was working on these guiding questions with ALL of my students when the governor suspended school:

    • How can I broaden my perspectives?
    • How can I improve my reading skills?
    • How can I transfer essential rhetorical ideas to my own writing?

The presentation below attempts to bring together four writers and six works to analyze Justin Baldon’s TED Talk “Why I’m done trying to be ‘man enough’”: 

    • Renee Hobbs’s Create to Learn (2017): “What are the consequences of your creative work as it may affect the attitudes and behaviors of others?” (p. 19). In essence, this driving question for my students also became a driving question for me. What disruptive teaching practices am I creating to affect the attitudes and behaviors of others? How am I creating a “lifelong learning process that involves accessing, analyzing, creating, reflecting, and taking action, using the power of communication and information to make a difference in the world” (p 18)?
    • Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst’s Notice & Note (2013), Reading Nonfiction (2016), and Disrupting Thinking (2017): “Reading ought to lead to thinking that is disrupting, that shakes us up, that makes us wonder, that challenges us. Such thinking sets us on a path to change, if not the world, then at least ourselves” (2017, pp. 160-1).
    • Jennifer Fletcher’s Teaching Arguments (2015): Teaching for transfer to “enable writers to write for diverse audiences, purposes, and occasions.” This touches on a core standard in Multimedia Composition. Fletcher’s Teaching Literature Rhetorically (2018): “Teaching for transfer prepares twenty-first-century learners for a changing world” (p. XVI).

References

Beers, G. K., & Probst, R. E. (2017). Disrupting thinking: why how we read matters. Scholastic teaching resources (teaching strategies).

Beers, G. K., & Probst, R. E. (2013). Notice & note: strategies for close reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Beers, G. K., & Probst, R. E. (2016). Reading nonfiction: notice & note stances, signposts, and strategies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Fletcher, J. (2015). Teaching arguments: rhetorical comprehension, critique, and response. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Fletcher, J. (2018). Teaching literature rhetorically: transferable literacy skills for 21st century students. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse Publishers.

Hobbs, R. (2017). Create to learn: Introduction to digital literacy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Creating to learn is how we strengthen our core in this amazing ‘network of mutuality’

Image by Darin Johnson

As I’m creating to learn, I’ve been exploring concepts of creativity. Following my own directions to students, I did a brain dump followed by switching to “creativity” as I explored Quora, Google Scholar, and Google. I found several posts on Quora. Gunjan Mehta writes: “Creativity is nothing but the connectivity. It’s all about how we can connect the mechanisms of different products and apply those mechanisms to solve the other problems. You are not creating actually. You are just connecting things.” Supporting his argument, Mehta then includes this gem from Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

Image by Darin Johnson

In Multimedia Composition, we’ve been trying to connect ideas and immerse ourselves in media. In the last month, we’ve read about creativity in Create to Learn (2017) by Renee Hobbs. (And, yes, I have thought about the irony of reading about creativity rather than creating.) In Create to Learn, Hobbs writes: “Creative people are voracious readers, viewers, and do‐ers. But it’s worth thinking about the quality of choices you make. If you want to learn by creating great stuff, seek out and find great stuff,” (p. 20). So I’ve been trying to surround myself with great stuff, and I’ve been wrapping my mind around the idea of learning by creating versus learning to create. To me, this is a subtle but essential distinction. When learning, too many think “one and done” is “won and done.”

Last week I met with the district’s Literacy Curriculum Review group, where we touched on such concepts of endurance and leverage as we prepared once again to review essential standards. For me, creativity is an enduring concept with timeless leverage. And I must not be the only one with this thought because Creativity is a Universal Construct of the Iowa Core. And one of the greatest challenges I see before us in education is that it takes a creative mindset to truly grow and make connections in the modern age. We “create to learn” and through that creation we improve our learning and our creativity. 


Characteristics of a Blog Post – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Last week I was having students in Multimedia Composition work on their first blog post after reviewing the Characteristics of a Blog Post (Thank you, Professor Troy Hicks, for your part of that lesson!) when an administrator did a walkthrough evaluation. 

  • Principal: What are you learning today? 
  • Student: What a blog post is and looks like. 
  • Principal: What does success of that learning look like to you? 
  • Student: When I post the blog. 

Now while some would have preferred the Student to say: “Today we’re producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. . . .” And while I support this core standard, I believe that a dedication to the Universal Constructs is equally essential. And so in Multimedia Composition, I will push students toward clear and coherent writing, AND we will continue our immersion in good things and push ourselves to make connections. Our blogs will not be a “one and done” activity. 

Image by Darin Johnson

And as we move to an evaluation stage of our second unit, I’ll borrow Prof. Hobbs’s questions for reflection this week: “How are you adding value to the world with your creation? How will audiences react? What are the consequences of your creative work as it may affect the attitudes and behaviors of others? What have you learned about yourself through the creative process?” (p. 19).

Creating to learn is how we strengthen our core in this amazing “network of mutuality.”

 

Enter the Zone!

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