Response to “Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe”

First, I have to say that I love Wikipedia. You know the quote from Alice in Wonderland, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”?

Well, sometimes I’ve looked up as many as six random things on Wikipedia before breakfast. I’m a curious person! I just like to know how things work. With that being said, I really wish you could use Wikipedia as a source in research.

But wait! Along comes “Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe” by Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot (shout-out to Dr. C!) Okay, so they don’t necessarily tell you to use it or to allow your students to use it as a sole source of information, but they do give awesome guidelines for how it can be appropriately used in the classroom. They explain an assignment done in a classroom where a topic was given (Abraham Lincoln) and the students collectively made a list about what they knew about him. This gave the students an idea about what not to focus on. They then looked through the Wikipedia entry to look for something they did not know that they found interesting, or places where there seems to be a gap, which allowed for more research to be done.

One important feature of Wikipedia is “citation needed.” I have noticed this before, and most of the time I feel the information is fine. What I think is important to point out is most students, especially high-schoolers, have pretty good intuition. They’ll know if something seems strange. I can always tell when someone writes something on Wikipedia like, “taylor swift is stupid” or “Tyler Swift wuz born in Nu Zeeland” that they don’t know what they’re talking about. There are always exceptions, though, and sometimes people make good guesses that just aren’t correct.

Finally, I’d like to end with this very fitting image.

Response to chapter two of iWrite

The first thought that struck me regarding chapter two of Dana J. Wilber’s iWrite perhaps looks a bit too deeply into what she is saying, but I feel is an important idea, nonetheless. On page 23, she is discussing the idea of texting as a new literacy, and says “Cell phones weren’t originally designed for texting; the practice came about because the phone allowed for it, and now people send hundreds of texts each day.” I was comparing my use of texting to this number—I don’t believe I send hundreds of texts in a day, but I know at one point I did. I definitely text more than I talk on the phone—some months I get my phone bill and I’ve used 40 of my 400 minutes. I avoid talking on the phone at all costs. I don’t think this is because I’m antisocial; to be honest, I’m not sure why I hate talking on the phone. But I know my peers are all the same, and I know many probably do send hundreds of texts in a day. While I know this book is all about finding ways to make reading and writing more appealing to students, I do think it is important to note that verbal communication is also important, and the implementation of texting takes away from this.

As familiar as I feel I am with digital literacy, one thing Wilber mentioned that I am less familiar with is fan fiction. Because of this, I’m not sure how prevalent it really is. I’ve heard of it, but I am not very interested in reading it. However, last semester we had to come up with an abbreviated unit plan for teaching a text set, and I found that many of my ideas involved having students write creatively about their texts. These assignments could be considered fan fiction—I asked students to write blogs or create Facebook pages from the perspective of a character.

On page 40, Wilber discusses the view students have about “real” writing versus “school” writing. I was reminded of my last post, where I discussed how I feel reading novels (“school” reading) seems more important than reading Facebook statuses (“real” reading). More so than reading, I believe getting students to write anything is more important than focusing on having them write something for “school.” Anything to get practice in. In addition, “real” writing is more likely to be fun, and if students perceive something as fun, they are more likely to continue to write. Finally, I think it is important for students to self-reflect, which can be done through “real” writing.

Response to chapter one of iWrite

My initial reaction to chapter one of Dana J. Wilber’s iWrite was that it seemed out-of-date. There were references to MySpace, a social network that hasn’t been popular since 2006. It also appeared that she was or would be explaining, in-depth, various online websites and tools as if they had just been introduced. I did have to flip to the copyright page to make sure the book was as old as I thought, and was shocked to discover it was published in 2010. Either more has changed in the past two years than I thought, or this book is meant for (older) people who have no idea what they’re doing! I had to remind myself that this chapter was more of an introduction, and that later on Wilber would be making these tools more relevant to teaching in the English classroom (as the remainder of the title states—Using Blogs, Wikis, and Digital Stories in the English Classroom.)

I did appreciate the insight Wilber gave into the lives of the students in her remedial class. I think this is a great reminder for all teachers—there are various reasons a student may end up in a remedial class (English as a second language, an inability to focus due to responsibilities at home, etc.) Also, as a future high school teacher, I was reminded how important it is to fully prepare students for all aspects of college. The idea of remedial classes in college is one that interests me, but that I am still unfamiliar with. One interesting opinion I thought of can be found here.

As for the remainder of the chapter, Wilber discusses the idea that Millennials are actually reading and writing more than we give them credit for. Again, I am torn about how I feel regarding this subject. As a Millennial, I would like to give my generation more credit than I feel we are given. I, personally, read and write a lot (clearly). I do think I read and write more than the average Millennial (not to mention I am required to do both in my program).  I think my friends are intelligent, and I think they read and write more than some would assume. But then I think of my best friend, a very intelligent college graduate who is proud of the fact that she refuses to read. She is, however, an incessant online news reader. What she and I think of as reading regards novels; however, I would argue that reading news is just as worthy of our time.

Even if my generation does spend all of their time online, they are still reading and writing. Reading their friends’ statuses and writing on their friends’ walls on Facebook is still reading and writing—it’s just not in the traditional sense. In my opinion, reading any novel, not just something by Fitzgerald or Hemingway, is more valuable than reading something on Facebook—but we, as a generation, are not illiterate.