What I've learned about the genres and digital media

Learning about the genres was my favorite part of this course! As a future teacher-librarian, I will need to know the genres well so that I can identify quality mentor texts that will serve both teachers and students alike. I’m glad I took this course and know that the knowledge I gained will benefit me in the future.

At the beginning of the semester, I felt like I had some background knowledge on all genres except descriptive writing and letter writing. However, I was only thinking of the genres in terms of books that were written in these genres. While I understood how to write descriptively and had studied letter writing formats as a kid, I couldn’t think of any mentor texts that were written in these genres.

I now understand that the word “genre” refers to more than a published work. I enjoyed learning about the features of each genre, identifying those features in mentor texts, and writing my own examples of the genres. For example, I knew that nonfiction means writing that is based on facts, but I never knew the features of a nonfiction text and how to approach reading them (shout-out to my classmate Stephanie for an amazing genre presentation on this topic!). If I were sharing a nonfiction text with students in my library, I would teach them the features and show them how to approach reading this text like I learned in Stephanie’s genre presentation. The process reminded me of close reading where we went back and reviewed different parts of the text to understand it better. I think doing this would help demystify the concept of nonfiction texts, which many students may find intimidating.

Researching the benefits of letter writing for my genre presentation was eye-opening for me. I never knew that letter writing was valuable because it’s an authentic literacy activity. I read several studies that demonstrated a significant increase in students’ reading comprehension and writing skills through the process of writing and receiving letters (see annotated bibliography on my genre presentation handout for more information). Furthermore, Tompkins (2012) said that “because letters are written to communicate with a specific and important audience, children think more carefully about what they want to say, write more legibly, and are more inclined to use spelling, capitalizations, and punctuation conventions correctly” (p. 130). I am now a firm believer in the benefits of letter writing and would want to incorporate a letter program in my future school, perhaps through a pen pal program.

As future ready educators, I appreciated that part of this course was Hicks’ text on digital media. Despite having a communications/digital media background, there was still much for me to gain from Hicks. In a previous post, I wrote about my realization that anything can be a mentor text, both in print and digital formats. While I’m not intimidated by the prospect of seeking/using digital texts like audio and video in the classroom, I didn’t realize how they could be beneficial as mentor texts to demonstrate the elements of author’s craft. I would like to use them in my library to demonstrate elements of craft and the different genres.

I also really enjoyed Hicks chapter on what makes for a quality digital presentation (especially the “stickiness” factor), a skill that I believe many students lack. If students were tasked with creating digital presentations for a class, I would love to give them a crash course in how to use a platform like Google slides or PowerPoint and provide them with pointers for making a sticky presentation.

After learning about the different genres and types of digital media, I can honestly say that none of them intimidate me. I understand their features and how to evaluate them for elements of author’s craft. I may be hesitant if asked to create an audio or video text, but this course wasn’t intended to focus on how to produce audio or video text. However, Hicks provided me with many sites and free digital tools I can access going forward. I plan to keep his text and will use it in the future to access this information! I will also keep Tompkins’ book on my shelf, especially as a reference for mentor texts in the different genres. Both of the textbooks for this course will serve me well in the future.

My copies of Tompkins' and Hicks' books, with my notes on craft on the covers!

Reflections on this assignment

Dear Dr. Jones,

I hope you are doing well. Since I will be presenting on letter writing in class next week, I thought it appropriate to continue to hone my letter writing skills through framing this blog as letter to you.

It’s wild to think that eight months ago I had no concept of how to teach (or develop) reading and writing skills in elementary level students. When we first met, you asked me what grade level I wanted to work with. Since my classes at Nazareth have been geared towards working with elementary students, my eyes have been opened to the possibilities of working with this age group. At this point, I see myself either in an elementary library or a middle school library. I believe there is a level of creative thinking and wonder in these age groups (as well as an excitement for hands-on projects!), that I don’t think I would find at the high school or college level. I also discovered how much I love children’s literature, and reading it means so much more to me now that I can view it from critical lens. I want to thank you for laying the groundwork for my future professional endeavors as I continue down this path.

You’ve asked me to reflect on how keeping a blog this semester helped me reach the student learning outcomes for this course. Looking at these outcomes, I believe my blog has helped me meet them all in different ways. Writing this blog has helped me realize that writing and reading are interconnected processes, as well as the role metacognition plays in reading and writing proficiency (outcomes 4 and 5). While talking in class about a reading is one way to learn, I found that taking the time to write about my takeaways from the readings and how to apply them to my own professional life was highly beneficial. Writing this blog has been my “medium to think,” and reflect on the readings, assignments, and discussions from this course.

My favorite part of this course was learning about the genres (outcome 1)! I loved reading mentor texts as I learned the key elements of each genre and how to teach them. Through this blog, I explored the journal genre, narrative genre, and poetry genre further. I believe my writings on these genres will be a useful resource for me in the future as I introduce these genres to students.

Another big takeaway for me was learning that ANYTHING can be a mentor text, both in print and digital formats. I learned to assess texts by looking for their purpose and form, as well as the elements of author’s craft (outcome 2) or Hicks’ M.A.P.S. criteria for digital texts. While I came into this class with a fairly strong understanding of composition strategies for digital texts (outcome 3) based on my professional work, I didn’t realize that the compositions themselves (ex: video, audio) are mentor texts.

Finally, I made tremendous strides this semester is learning how to help others revise their work, by understanding the role of assessment and evaluation in determining reading and writing proficiency (outcome 6). Prior to this course, I thought evaluating student/peer work meant looking for misspelled words and grammatical errors. Now, I realize that purpose, audience, and form should take first priority when assessing/evaluating student work. The writer’s workshops have helped me hone this skill, and I had the chance to write a little about what I learned on the topic of revising work in a previous post. Since learning about the genres, I can also help look for the hallmarks of the genre in the work. For example, I helped Anna with her argumentative genre piece this week by drawing on what I learned about the structure of arguments/counterarguments from Tompkins.

While this assignment was challenging at times, I’ve never had the opportunity to evaluate academic texts at a critical level on a regular basis like this. I think this was a fitting assignment for this course and I hope to continue using “writing as a medium to think” in the future!

Sincerely,

Michelle Shippers

How do you teach students to revise their work?

How do you teach young writers (or any developing writer) to revise their work?

For this week's readings, we were asked to read Giving Feedback: Preparing Students for Peer Review and Self-Evaluation, by Zoi. A Philippakos, and Chapter 4: The Writer's Craft from Gail E. Tompkins' Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. 7th ed.  Philippakos provided useful advice for teaching students to revise their work. Tompkins reviewed the writer's craft and the various elements that make up strong writing.

When I was completing my undergraduate degree, I worked in the writing center at Nazareth College. My job was to help students review their papers and offer commentary. Many of them didn't know they needed to  revise their work to make their papers stronger. They were looking for a proofreader, someone to review their citations, or to check that they had fulfilled the basic requirements of the assignment by reviewing an assignment sheet. One way I helped them revise their work was by asking them to locate their thesis statement, or main point of the essay. No matter the subject matter, the thesis statement should have been located near the beginning of the essay or in the introductory paragraph. After they located this statement, we would then review the rest of the essay to see how they used the writer's craft to prove/maintain their thesis. I would help them identify weak points by asking questions that went beyond conventions, and provide suggestions for revisions. 

According to Tompkins, during the revising stage, "the focus is on making changes to communicate more effectively" (p. 56). That was my goal as a tutor in the writing center was to help my students communicate more effectively. Even though I didn't always understand the subject matter of their papers, by asking them questions that related back to their thesis and how they used writer's craft elements like ideas, organization, and voice, the students were equipped with ideas for revising.

Since all teachers don't have the time to work in-depth with each student on revisions 1:1, Philippakos recommends peer review. Philippakos cites several studies that prove a symbiotic relationship through peer review: the writer benefits by understanding the reader's needs, and the readers are exposed to more examples of writing which will positively impact their own approach to writing (p. 14). Of course, teachers need to first model what peer review should look like, possibly by doing a think-aloud with various samples of writing to show stronger and weaker papers (Philippakos, p. 14). I think this is a great idea and one I would implement should I ever need to work with a group on revising their writing. 

Philippakos also recommends creating specific evaluation criteria (and genre-specific criteria) so students know what they should look for when reviewing their peers' essays (p. 17). In class this week we developed genre-specific criteria for evaluating narrative texts as a group before taking the time to do some narrative text review. I think it's a great idea to empower students to create their own evaluation criteria (under the guidance of the teacher). It activates their background knowledge on the topic, and empowers them to feel confident during peer review time. A popular project in middle school libraries today is a "fake news project," where students are asked to review several articles and determine what is more likely to be credible and what is more likely to be fake based on the sources provided. If I had the opportunity to do a project like this in my library, I could start by asking the students to help me develop criteria for what constitutes a credible source. While students wouldn't be revising a writing project, they may "revise" their choices after reviewing their own student-created evaluation criteria.

I enjoyed this week's readings, and it was a good reminder to me that revising and editing are truly two separate parts of the writing process. I will be looking at my own writing for this course more closely so that I can question, elaborate, and clarify when needed! 

Sources outside class textbook
Philippakos, Z.A. (2017). Giving feedback: Preparing students for peer review and self-evaluation. The Reading Teacher, 71(1), 13-22. DOI: 10.1102/trtr.1568

The writer's craft and digital writing

I have always loved to read, which I’m certain has contributed to my skills as a writer today. By reading quality literature, I can increase my vocabulary, expand my knowledge, (or in the case of fiction) expand my creativity and imagination. However, I can’t say that I have consciously recognized the elements of writer's craft in my reading. I need to learn to read with a critical eye so that I can help students recognize the elements of good literature.

Hicks quotes the work of Fletcher and Portalupi (1998): “When we help students get a feel for the setting, voice, tension, inner story, or recurring detail, we are helping them develop new lenses with which to develop their own writing. Such lenses are critical if they are going to develop into the writers they want to be (cited in Hicks, p. 12).”

In order to create better writers, we need to teach readers to identify what matters in a text, and how the author uses the elements of craft to communicate this message. Looking at my bookshelf, my favorite reads are the ones where the author has a strong voice—whether given to the protagonist in a first-person narrative (The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb) or by the author in a biography (Bossy Pants by Tina Fey and Yes, Please by Amy Poehler). While I’m not consciously seeking it, I now recognize that voice plays a strong role in my favorite reads.

Tompkins identifies six elements of writer’s craft: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation (p. 71). While I don’t consciously consider these while reading traditional or digital texts, I definitely consider these when writing. My ideas flow naturally into my composition’s organization, and through consistent writing, I have developed my writer’s voice. I choose precise words to communicate meaning, and will often go back through my work during the editing/revising stage and substitute words or phrases to emphasize what I want my reader to know. Sentence fluency is a natural part of this process, followed by use of proper conventions (also a focus during editing/revising). The sixth trait, presentation, comes earlier in my process if I’m writing for digital communication. When I was writing a blog on wedding planning for the Democrat and Chronicle, I sometimes located photos and videos that would accompany my text before or during the writing process. While I couldn’t place them until the writing was complete, presentation wasn’t an afterthought of my process, but (as Hicks says) an intentional part of the writing process.

Following this week’s readings, my understanding of the author’s craft has changed. Tompkins' six traits are the ones I remember learning in school, but Hicks has expanded on this principle in writing for digital communication. No longer are students expected to write all stories by hand as word processing is an expected part of the elementary curriculum. Even the youngest digital writers today will learn about selecting legible fonts, choosing font sizes, and adding spacing between lines and paragraphs when typing their stories. Furthermore, they are introduced to other digital storytelling tools like video and audio at an earlier age. As a future library media specialist, I would thrive on the opportunity to work with students on how to use digital resources and/or best practices for using them to tell compelling stories.

References (outside class textbooks)
Fletcher, R., and J. Portalupi. 1998. Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8. Portland, ME.
   Steinhouse Publishers.