Assignment #3
I remember when I was getting my undergraduate degree at Iowa, I took a class on Early Silent and Avant-Garde European Films. We did a unit on Dadaism. A common Dadaist experiment was to pass around a piece of paper. Someone would write a line and without seeing the first line the next person would write a line until finally a piece of writing was created. The purpose of this exercise was to think beyond the boundaries of conventional writing. I was surprised this weekend while perusing the newspaper I found an article about the Iowa City Book Festival incorporating a similar activity using Twitter called Novel Iowa City. It is interesting how a major criticism of technology is how it is an impetus to formal writing, most notoriously text messaging has turned writing for purpose of communication into half-phrases and emoticons. It is even more interesting to think of how technology can open-up new ways of thinking about creative writing.
Link to website: http://www.iowacitybookfestival.org/noveliowacity
Link to Iowa City Press-Citizen article: http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20110708/NEWS01/110708009/Iowa-City-Book-Festival-novel-written-tweets
Link to Twitter page containing final thoughts and product:
http://twitter.com/search?q=%23icbfn
For this project I would like students to contribute lines to the construction of a “stream of conscious” style writing activity. I will project the Twitter page on a screen in the front of the room. As a homework assignment students will be given the parameters of the narrative and must construct one sentence to contribute to the project. In real-time students will submit their sentences to be used in the project. The objective of this project will be to:
1) Have students think about the nature of writing in the digital world?
2) What does this type of project say about the nature of writing in general?
3) Think about writing as an individual activity versus as a collective activity (bias).
Finally students must post their reflection on the class blog, that will be used for a grade. In the reflection students will be asked to think about the above objectives.
This activity will be introduced to students a few days in advance. Students will be asked to have their sentences prepared before the day of the live feed. I will create a “hashtag” on my account that students can use to submit their sentences. As the project is being streamed live I will submit the sentences via my Twitter account. Students will nominate their sentences in class as the project is streaming live. The product of the project will be a completed narrative submitted digitally by my students, authors, and bibliophiles from the created digital writing community on Twitter.
I thought this would be a fun project to incorporate into the classroom but also one that encourages creativity, collaboration, and collective learning. Connecting this project to learning theories, it exhibits ideas of both social cognitive theory and social constuctivism. Social cognitive theory because this activity will be modeled by professionals and peers while at the same time, because it is relatively anonymous, it will not affect student’s self-efficacy towards creative writing. It encompasses social constructivism because students are developing meaning and knowledge of creative writing collectively as a group. Both of these models illustrate effective ways for fostering student learning. As far as using higher orders of thinking, particularly within Bloom’s Taxonomy students will be using there knowledge of creative writing to form their sentences. They will then analyze and evaluate the final project while thinking about the proposed objectives.
A project like this will require extensive planning and preparation. How much inside and outside time will the project take? Another struggle is, the project starts at noon on a Friday. How can I use this project in multiple classes when the deadline is so specific? Possibly, because most students have cellphones I can work something out with other teachers that between certain times students are allowed to use their phones in class to post and follow the novel’s progress. Another concern is getting the student’s work submitted into the project. I am hoping that the motivation for the project is the excitement of getting a line published, along with other writers and book lovers. I do not want students to get discouraged if none of their work is used in the project. These are very general problems I foresee with the project. As far as problems in the application of the technology, I can see students having problems thinking about Twitter, not as a way to talk with friends in a very informal way, but as a tool for creative writing. I will have to get students to understand that most technology has a use beyond its intended, basic function.
This project meets Teaching Standard I. Students use technology to foster creativity and write a narrative in a virtual environment. Standard III using technology to think about creative writing in new ways. This project meets Student Standard I. Students will be using technology to create a piece of experimental writing and will be forced by participating in the writing project to think about how technology can be used for creative writing purposes. Standard II is met, students are collaborating in a virtual environment with other students and authors to create a piece of writing.
I had to rack my brain to come up with a unique bias, in my first project I discussed the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic value, which is evident in this project and comes close to the ultimate goal of teaching, creating a intrinsic value in a subject. I addressed in my second project the bias of thinking about writing as an individual versus collective activity. That bias is also present, I discovered that many bias in technology exist across the applications of those technologies in the classroom, but for purposes of not being redundant I found other potential bias. For this project I am choosing to address how creative writing in the digital age favors “non-professional” writers more than “professional” writers. Historically, when it has been possible for an aspiring writer to collaborate and hone their craft with writers who do it for a living? Even thinking about the accessibility of writers has changed. You can follow your favorite author on Twitter, where in detail they may describe their process or progress on their current novel. Because of the digital age we are all capable of being “professional” writers, even though there be no monetary reward, a “non-professional” writer can have their writing discriminated on a massive scale. With a project like Novel Iowa City “non-professional” writers can have a taste of what it is like to be published and read by a larger group of readers than what was traditionally possible.
There was a plethora of research discussing collective writing in a digital environment but most of it cost money. Which in and of itself says something about writing in the digital age. I did, however, find a group that supports and answers questions regarding digital writing. The group asks, Why teach digital writing? I found that they made some great points in favor of implementing some kind of digital writing. What is interesting is, they address one of the questions I ask students to think about when writing their reflections. How does digital writing change our ideas on the nature of writing. I thought the line, “Connectivity allows writers to access and participate more seamlessly and instantaneously within web spaces and to distribute writing to large and widely dispersed audiences” was particularly appropriate for my discussion. I liked the idea that the digital age has not only made writing easier but also has a social impact. The authors of this article are focusing more for teaching students how to write in a digital medium but also address the importance of digital writing and how it can potentially change the way people think about writing and the writing process. http://www.technorhetoric.net/10.1/coverweb/wide/kairos2.html
I remember when I was getting my undergraduate degree at Iowa, I took a class on Early Silent and Avant-Garde European Films. We did a unit on Dadaism. A common Dadaist experiment was to pass around a piece of paper. Someone would write a line and without seeing the first line the next person would write a line until finally a piece of writing was created. The purpose of this exercise was to think beyond the boundaries of conventional writing. I was surprised this weekend while perusing the newspaper I found an article about the Iowa City Book Festival incorporating a similar activity using Twitter called Novel Iowa City. It is interesting how a major criticism of technology is how it is an impetus to formal writing, most notoriously text messaging has turned writing for purpose of communication into half-phrases and emoticons. It is even more interesting to think of how technology can open-up new ways of thinking about creative writing.
Link to website: http://www.iowacitybookfestival.org/noveliowacity
Link to Iowa City Press-Citizen article: http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20110708/NEWS01/110708009/Iowa-City-Book-Festival-novel-written-tweets
Link to Twitter page containing final thoughts and product:
http://twitter.com/search?q=%23icbfn
For this project I would like students to contribute lines to the construction of a “stream of conscious” style writing activity. I will project the Twitter page on a screen in the front of the room. As a homework assignment students will be given the parameters of the narrative and must construct one sentence to contribute to the project. In real-time students will submit their sentences to be used in the project. The objective of this project will be to:
1) Have students think about the nature of writing in the digital world?
2) What does this type of project say about the nature of writing in general?
3) Think about writing as an individual activity versus as a collective activity (bias).
Finally students must post their reflection on the class blog, that will be used for a grade. In the reflection students will be asked to think about the above objectives.
This activity will be introduced to students a few days in advance. Students will be asked to have their sentences prepared before the day of the live feed. I will create a “hashtag” on my account that students can use to submit their sentences. As the project is being streamed live I will submit the sentences via my Twitter account. Students will nominate their sentences in class as the project is streaming live. The product of the project will be a completed narrative submitted digitally by my students, authors, and bibliophiles from the created digital writing community on Twitter.
I thought this would be a fun project to incorporate into the classroom but also one that encourages creativity, collaboration, and collective learning. Connecting this project to learning theories, it exhibits ideas of both social cognitive theory and social constuctivism. Social cognitive theory because this activity will be modeled by professionals and peers while at the same time, because it is relatively anonymous, it will not affect student’s self-efficacy towards creative writing. It encompasses social constructivism because students are developing meaning and knowledge of creative writing collectively as a group. Both of these models illustrate effective ways for fostering student learning. As far as using higher orders of thinking, particularly within Bloom’s Taxonomy students will be using there knowledge of creative writing to form their sentences. They will then analyze and evaluate the final project while thinking about the proposed objectives.
A project like this will require extensive planning and preparation. How much inside and outside time will the project take? Another struggle is, the project starts at noon on a Friday. How can I use this project in multiple classes when the deadline is so specific? Possibly, because most students have cellphones I can work something out with other teachers that between certain times students are allowed to use their phones in class to post and follow the novel’s progress. Another concern is getting the student’s work submitted into the project. I am hoping that the motivation for the project is the excitement of getting a line published, along with other writers and book lovers. I do not want students to get discouraged if none of their work is used in the project. These are very general problems I foresee with the project. As far as problems in the application of the technology, I can see students having problems thinking about Twitter, not as a way to talk with friends in a very informal way, but as a tool for creative writing. I will have to get students to understand that most technology has a use beyond its intended, basic function.
This project meets Teaching Standard I. Students use technology to foster creativity and write a narrative in a virtual environment. Standard III using technology to think about creative writing in new ways. This project meets Student Standard I. Students will be using technology to create a piece of experimental writing and will be forced by participating in the writing project to think about how technology can be used for creative writing purposes. Standard II is met, students are collaborating in a virtual environment with other students and authors to create a piece of writing.
I had to rack my brain to come up with a unique bias, in my first project I discussed the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic value, which is evident in this project and comes close to the ultimate goal of teaching, creating a intrinsic value in a subject. I addressed in my second project the bias of thinking about writing as an individual versus collective activity. That bias is also present, I discovered that many bias in technology exist across the applications of those technologies in the classroom, but for purposes of not being redundant I found other potential bias. For this project I am choosing to address how creative writing in the digital age favors “non-professional” writers more than “professional” writers. Historically, when it has been possible for an aspiring writer to collaborate and hone their craft with writers who do it for a living? Even thinking about the accessibility of writers has changed. You can follow your favorite author on Twitter, where in detail they may describe their process or progress on their current novel. Because of the digital age we are all capable of being “professional” writers, even though there be no monetary reward, a “non-professional” writer can have their writing discriminated on a massive scale. With a project like Novel Iowa City “non-professional” writers can have a taste of what it is like to be published and read by a larger group of readers than what was traditionally possible.
There was a plethora of research discussing collective writing in a digital environment but most of it cost money. Which in and of itself says something about writing in the digital age. I did, however, find a group that supports and answers questions regarding digital writing. The group asks, Why teach digital writing? I found that they made some great points in favor of implementing some kind of digital writing. What is interesting is, they address one of the questions I ask students to think about when writing their reflections. How does digital writing change our ideas on the nature of writing. I thought the line, “Connectivity allows writers to access and participate more seamlessly and instantaneously within web spaces and to distribute writing to large and widely dispersed audiences” was particularly appropriate for my discussion. I liked the idea that the digital age has not only made writing easier but also has a social impact. The authors of this article are focusing more for teaching students how to write in a digital medium but also address the importance of digital writing and how it can potentially change the way people think about writing and the writing process. http://www.technorhetoric.net/10.1/coverweb/wide/kairos2.html
Very well done. Your discussion of bias makes a lot of sense. YOu might be interested in a book by Andrew Keen called "the cult of the amateur".
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