Any of it online anywhere for viewing?

Ha! Subversive distribution!

Are these available for wider viewing anywhere?

I'm curious about how this discovery and curation of related materials was done by students ....

I can imagine both responses. We're teaching in a time of standardized testing, where our students/children are too often being taught that the right answer is the only answer, so freedom and flexibility feel strange to them. "Tell me what to do" is the underlying mantra. Opening up the classroom to student input and agency (thinking: Project-based Learning) creates excitement in some, and anxiety in others.

This is the power of time and inquiry, and room to reflect. I'm thinking of how hectic and harried a teacher's life can be, and how quickly we lose track of the most important moments. Writing can surface some of those events and give us a bit of breathing room to realistically examine our actions, and how we might make change for the future. (this writing space is what makes NWP sites so important, in my experience)

That's quite a dramatic moment, for sure ... when that realization hits ... it demonstrates the power that the teacher has over what students are exposed to ...

Scott Smoot -- Word Sanctuary blog -- wrote about his own experiences of using this book to transform his thinking in the classroom.

Disrupt Texts site https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHRRsQ76vtw

Very valuable to have these kinds of charts .. thank you

sayhername, explained -- and the fact that I didn't know what it was says a lot about society (white society) at large, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBY-Dk-PxrI

School to Prison Pipeline, explained

Interesting contrast for me, as I am reading The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, in which the teacher is the exact opposite of Mile's teacher.

“The class was focused on US history since the Civil War, but at every opportunity Mr. Hill guided them to the present, linking what happened a hundred years ago to their current lives. They’d set off down one road at the beginning of class and it always led back to their doorsteps.”

-- from The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, page 30

Great quote ...

And often leads to trolls and others pushing back on the racebending initiatives with anger and vitriol -- Another example is Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel --<br>

Information from a study on this ... you have to go to pages 13-15 to see the charts ...

Black male students represented 8 percent of enrolled students and accounted for 23 percent of students expelled. Black female students represented 8 percent of the student enrollment and accounted for 10 percent of students who were expelled. Latino male students accounted for 13 percent of students enrolled and 16 percent of students who were expelled. Latina female students accounted for 13 percent of student enrollment and 6 percent of students who were expelled.

Read more about the character of Miles Morales at Wikipedia -- he did exist before this novel and the movie from last year

This is a good insight ....

This was a great podcast from NYT: The Daily -- it starts with a report who was a front-line soldier during The Surge and ends with a reporter who wrote about the Afghanistan Papers

Some friends

leave such words, threaded

into the architecture

of a shared humanity --

an act of something

beyond the self;

Finding traces embedded

here, now, then, there

reminds us

that tokens of kindness

resonate farther

than we can ever see

One on hand, this is a pretty bold assertion -- all white people is assumed in this sentence. Painting large brush strokes like that is always precarious. On the other, the second line is very poetic and attuned to the nature of change.

Is this the project?

And if he talked "black"? What would have the reaction been then, I wonder? I appreciate the storytelling here, of bringing us into an important moment, and being confronted by a student (in a way that clearly has resonated over time).

The power of story .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfBTIhKEXy0

I tried to highlight this entire sentence but the page break broke my highlighter -- this insight seems important to me in this context of race and identity (and ultimately, how teachers in the classroom can become more attuned to race and equity and access). So, this is a note to myself (and you, if it is helpful) to come back to this sentence as an anchor point.

Hmmm. I'm not sure this is true, actually. There are many others who push against white supremacy who are white, who are organized and active, who confront it. Maybe not enough. We all need to do more. But to claim that the force of disruption is only people of color seems to overgeneralize the real world.

This is a pretty strong and powerful, and provocative, way to frame this piece. I had to pause here. To think about this. For it is true, but is it true for everyone who is white? Everyone who is not? This is a signal that this piece will push to us examine our own identities.

Trying it out: https://record.reverb.chat/s/XP4rJnZLWWMQxVjq8egK Nice and easy to use

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC10VWDTzmU

Time

passes, if you

know what I mean -

the words gather

and possibly reconvene --

maybe when we sleep

the poem, dreams

Here we are ... on the page There we are ... off the page An invite to write ... please do

Moving my blinkblinkblink from Thimble to Glitch -- this project has jumped platforms more times than ... you can blink ... somehow, it still survives ...

Amy joined Rich Novak and others for a video chat about the article ... this gives more context to the piece and the interactions here ... https://youtu.be/0faB6_8BrbM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wLDGQWl0ko

The Write Out Collaborative Where We're From Poem

Thank you, Amy, for giving permission for us to annotate your article for Write Out.

I agree ... the expanded notions of literacies open many doors for the English classroom to overlap with other curriculum areas more readily and more easily than the other way around (but that is not impossible, either, for the creative teacher).

I am stuck today with an overabundance of words. Multi-syllable symphonies strung together like nonsense. Shall I plant them as seeds to grow you a tree to sit under for dreaming? Do you need more? Dreams, I mean, not trees. But maybe that, too. Maybe all these ever are are just seeds for trees, trees for dreams. Listen. I am watering the soil. Wait for the poem, and it shall bloom and blossom and wither and fade. This is what my words always seem to do. Then I forget and do it all over again.

One seed: https://play.soundslides.com/BL6JLBbd

When I wonder

where it is

I went, I realize

that all I ever was

was spent

nine

eight

seven

six

five

four

three

two

one

Appreciate the practical turn here ...

barrier to many academic writers, for sure, who guard their words and ideas with barricades and language

or set up a system where more writers of color and gender and viewpoints are invited to the pages ... and do academic institutions value this 'public facing writing' or do they devalue it?

THIS point seems important to the academic world -- of the role of the writer to build,find,nurture an audience -- to carve out a role for original ideas -- I think more and more fiction writers are doing this, with some success (and some, not so successful, and others, aghast at the role of the writer in the social media age)

always ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCTqZhZRYl0

eh, narrow space for sure ...

Huh. Interesting conflict here ...

Ah, yes. Love this phrasing ...

interesting phrasing .. I like it .... certainly striving for the "imperfect" is not often what we hear in educational circles, is it? This is the other side of the coin of the standardized testing era we are in -- and also, the more true way of seeing learning as a process forward ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1loyk2U6yU&feature=youtu.be

Important insight ... which points to some of the weaknesses in the whole MOOC wave that has sort of fallen apart because open was never enough for transformative practice ... I think ....

https://clmooc.com/

Curious if there are thoughts by facilitators (or the authors of the study) to setting an open document for folks to add annotations and resources to, if they have some of their own? Just wondering how to put Connected Learning into action, here, as an extension of annotation on Connected Learning.

This is so important ... it's crucial that new folks feel not just welcomed but invited to participate or to just observe ... this requires diligence on the part of facilitators ...

This kind of curated work is important -- particularly in the kinds of spaces where information can get lost. There are lots of great ideas and resources but they seem to be all over the place, sometimes scattered, loosely connected. Perhaps more of this kind of weaving will help others see the possibilities of a Connected Learning underpinning.

Nicely articulated ... I guess we can't say this enough ... I am thinking here of Audrey Watters' work around how the technology industry has long influenced the educational systems in order to sell more stuff to schools, and how those relationships at the top have filtered down into the classroom -- so, more high-end technology seems to equate to deeper learning, and we know (right?) that is not true.

Experiment=Play

as if ...

I'm still pretty mixed on the value of digital badges. I have yet to be convinced that they mean anything in the long run ... can someone convince me otherwise?

Definitely helpful to use technology to spread the learning, but there are also other ways -- newspapers, fliers, forums, etc. https://letters2president.org/

I've seen this happen and been one asking for help via networks -- either through classroom connections or through adult mentors or through gathering resources. Leveraging networks can be powerful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNcet150S5A&list=PLB494592AA0A4AE1F&index=5&t=0s

This is where the technology might play a role -- making it easier to make connections with mentors who live elsewhere ... global connections ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9xyrAsCe0M&list=PLB494592AA0A4AE1F&index=6&t=0s

Get 'em playing ...

Thanks for sharing ... this does sound like CLMOOC to me ...

pretty but not too pretty ... there's always a sense of "draft" in the work of the community ... I think it's important to articulate that most of CLMOOC is always "in process" and the reflection element is key to the experience, not the finished products ... I'm not sure if I am articulating what I am thinking ... It's a compliment to say CLMOOC always has some rough edges ...

I'm glad this element is surfacing ... sometimes, I feel like I get so wrapped up in the fun and creative work that I lose track of the meta-thinking of it all ... and how it might play out for students in classrooms (which is one of the aims of CLMOOC -- get educators into the field of play so they bring their students into the field of play).

CLMOOC Name the Thesis Contest ....

Wow .... that's a lot of stuff ...

Word Cloud from these words

The "planning for the unexpected" is the best part of the CLMOOC experience (at least for me), and the most difficult, and requires facilitators to be ready to highlight an unexpected thread of conversation or creativity, and go with it, supporting both the initial spark and the map that suddenly appears.

here is a key phrase, I think. If it's not playful, people won't engage. And if it's not creative, they won't continue. The first year of CLMOOC, this was a key conversation because we knew teachers in summer wanted to do something different, something fun, something interesting. All of the Make Cycles were designed with this in mind (in hopes that this ethos would then shift into classroom experiences later on for students)

network of networks

And as you often note, you use Chicago because that's where you are and where your work is situated ... but many places have networks and organizations that people can tap into ... it takes some looking. Or it takes creating those networks yourself for others to find.

Yep, and we have yet to reach a place where these things are balanced out. It's a struggle, for attention, for action, for connecting to our neighborhoods, to others.

This seems most important ....

Maybe she did this but it would be neat to see this as a map ... maybe even a layered map, with student narratives overlayed on top (like with ThingLink or something)

and maybe history is another layer in this dense geography -- what has happened before echoing (for good or for not) into what is happening now in any given space ...

via https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/introduction-to-poetry/

Fresh air; breathing -

seemingly uncaring, deepening

the world, packed full of sharing,

pairing up city rhymes to street rhythms

in a line of ideas - go on and fill 'em -

feel 'em, they're all about the scaring you -

white 'burbs with earbuds dangling -

regaling you with words you've never heard,

the air fresh, from the breathing:

this is the season for believing in the poem

I am a sucker for internal rhymes. Although these lyrics (for me) don't always hold up as a poem on its own, the art of internal rhyme to create rhythm against the backdrop of bass and drums is a key element of HipHop that I greatly admire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfgR2bEjAFg

A riff? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9paCprUC0E

Making a choice? Or maybe not ...

This is where

we go when we

have no other place

to take us

Not just alliteration here, but also evocative of standing on the cliff, looking out ....

In the neighboring town, middle school students pushed and argued for this change, which has had some ripple effect in our communities. read more

While my gut reaction is not to monetize learning, this viewpoint of mine seems naive when you take a larger look at why people do what they do, and why finding economic success with creative endeavors is important.

I find this interesting -- that the child's interest sparks the interest of the parents. I'd love to hear their story about what they saw unfolding with Amy and Ravelry.

This is powerful insight.

I am thinking of how the recent trend in adolescent literature is finally doing some of this -- showing us the lives and thoughts of people from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and how valuable that is for understanding each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-huIZghog8o

Such a stark contrast between sense of identity inside the school vs outside in the community/world. How do we as teachers find a way to bring those worlds together in meaningful ways? This is what we need to be considering ... (as we are, here, and elsewhere). His voice here is a powerful reminder of that.

This is the narrow element -- of finding others with your niche interest -- that makes online Affinity Networks potentially so powerful. It is also empowering to find others of your tribe when you didn't even know your tribe existed.

This is now the third or fourth reference to Ravelry that I have come across in the past month in terms of spaces that are incredibly supportive as Affinity Spaces for all newcomers and mentors. It's been referenced in Networked Narratives, and in DS106, and now here. I wonder what attributes Ravelry has that make it such a powerful experience for so many? And is it replicable?

Start annotation here ...

This is a way to annotate part of the book for CLMOOC book club. Go down about halfway and a first section is shared here.

Is there a common tag that we are using for annotations here?

Connected Learning connections?

I agree, too. I wonder how the Charter School debate plays out in this, though. Charter Schools are public schools, but they exist off to the side. Do they also contribute to the greater good? The ethics of what happens to existing public schools as Charter Schools siphon off resources is a real debate.

Important concepts. Also, in online places, we often refer to the idea of Affinity Spaces, which has similar resonance. From Gee's work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B29PLiltESs Social Justice is at the heart of our mission statement for the Western Massachusetts Writing Project -- all programs designed through WMWP must reflect our mission statement. This all comes out of work done years ago with NWP's Project Outreach, whose resonance continues at our site today.

What's your take on his work?

How has the word and term "Alchemy" been misused over the years? Anything come to mind?

Whoah. Whatever your spiritual leanings (if any), this is an interesting query, right? I imagine the debates sparked by this must have been fierce.

Interesting spelling and word ...

I wonder if this is due to the need to belief in the unknown -- which is always something that has stirred the creative spirit in a lot of people.

Hi John I am curious about how one leaps from history of science into digital learning -- I can see a path but wonder about you found it (or maybe, how you created that path).

I hope more people take you up on your offer ...

Conundrum ...

So important ...

This tree has a story to tell

its white leaves memory

its roots dug deep underground

its song a silent reminder

of the connected soil

Imagining

things, again

things I can't see

things I only wonder about

when snow covers all still to born

What it is about dark ink? Gel pens -- those light pink and yellow and green ink things that my students love to use for the color and the sparkle-- will be the death of my old eyes. I want dark on light. Words etched into stone. Thick black sharpies leaving trails on white walls.

Where we walk

among the brambles

where dead bugs

tell no tales

the spine of this dead

tree never fails

to intrigue me.

I like this examination of both inside the text (and with the text) and outside the text (alongside the text). Both have value but both are different. In one (innotation), I am writing WITH you. In the other (annotation), I am writing BESIDE you. Where does one merge into the other?

Ontological:

I don't know this word. Or at least, not enough to automatically recall its meaning. That happens sometimes, where a word has some faint echoes -- like, maybe you looked this one up before but only now remember that you once looked it up -- and yet, you can't draw the lines. So, I looked it up. The definition (below) is more confusing than the word. So here is where I pause, stop and think: this word is my hurdle to understanding, and the flow of my reading has come to a stop. I think I might just hop/skip/jump over it, then. I am the master of this distraction.

from Wikipedia:

Ontology is the philosophical study of being. More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.[1] Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology often deals with questions concerning what entities exist or may be said to exist and how such entities may be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

Take a moment to wander outside, and kneel down, into the grass and soil, and look closer. Give yourself some perspective on this world. What you see is the micro of our place. It's interesting to do this now and then to remind us that we are not the only creatures and living things inhabiting this space, that other worlds turn inside of ours. We just never notice. Take a moment to notice, won't you?

I have a friend, who works at the Wall Street Journal, who texts me and my friends regularly about the coming economic crash. I have trouble telling if he is overreacting to the political events of the day (he is a fine conspiracy theory activist) or is right in tune. I, too, am wary of where the economy is going and while numbers suggest some stability, it all feels false. Too many people still struggling. Too many Wall Street companies getting rich quick. If the crash is coming, is anyone ready?

I like to think that all of us are researchers, to some degree. In the various regular writing I do -- looking at the small moments with SmallStories, for example -- I think of this as research, of examining the world. Researchers notice things. They put a larger frame around what they see. They write to understand it. Even if it is only you, stopping a moment to see something you might otherwise pass by, that's some kind of research. It won't get you that PHD, but it will give you pause. And pausing is something, too.

We're in a sort of strange time here in our house. Two of three boys don't really live here -- they are in college -- and the third boy, 14, is both blessed and curses by all of our attention now. We do joke about this, a lot. Even he joins in. Still, I am sympathetic towards him and yet, feeling a bit nostalgic for the crazy, hectic days of three kids in the house, and I even appreciate (now, later) the chaos of it all. This is life, though, and another chapter. At least we have the baby, 14, for a few more years.

Anna -- I am reading your rewriting and finding key words for small essays in the margins. Kevin

How is it that writing became so important to me? I'm thinking back, trying to remember any one single event or teacher that hooked me into it. I only draw blank. Perhaps it was my mother's love of books, and my own love of libraries and books as a child, that led me to understand the power of story and writing. I don't remember loving writing in school, at any grade, although a few classes here and there in college -- mostly, electives -- gave me more freedom to write in different genres, and that opened the door a bit. I'd like to think that, as a teacher, I can inspire some of my students to become life-long writers, but maybe that is just the hope of teachers everywhere. And who knows if it comes true?

At teacher lunches, we often talk about our students, and a common refrain over the years has been a lack of patience and perseverance by young people. Our students don't want to mull over something or to dig deeper, the criticism goes. They want the answer now. Many of my colleagues blame video games and technology on this decreasing attention, and it may be true, but I often find myself resisting this blame game, and I wonder about how it is we are teaching and what learning looks like to our students. It does no good to cast blame on the kids in front of us if we aren't reflecting and changing what we're doing to ensure we meet their needs.

My mom had a blue car -- a blue Grenada, if I remember right. It looked like a police car, if the blue of a police car had been lightened by a spray paint can. I remember driving her car -- it was a standard -- to high school parties in woods and sometimes, people would scatter, thinking the police were arriving to break up the party. Only to discover me, in my mom's blue Grenada.

I stop and think of a compass. The way north always seems to pull us forward into some unknown space. people follow a compass rather blindly, don't we? We expect it to work. Same with GPS. We expect it to work and walk with faith that north is where we'll end up. Sometimes, we get lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Dz8oz3Sb4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIsma9GtJlU

This word is interesting ... is it a barrier? An entry? A closed door? An open window? Is there a note? Entrance? Exit?

Here we are ... another path off the map ...

My Compass - this old song of mine kept ringing in my head --

https://app.box.com/s/k4xr2huq3jog4epbl926nkgxbbz1cqq1

This seems like a real anchor point of the piece for me ... how to ensure our classrooms are spaces where this kind of sharing and understanding, and compassion and empathy, might happen.

And later, through deeper narratives

Words matter.

Good to acknowledge this. The votes didn't come out of nowhere. They came from within various communities, and communities of practice.

This sounds like something I said to my wife. And she said to me. And we all said to each other.

All the more reason that voting is important -- they are our elected officials.

Thank you for this piece. For its power and beauty and insights and experience.

This is the center of the whole piece, to me.

We are the readers ...

Interesting insights ... writing about many lingers longer than writing about one person.

The writer pivots here, to self.

(found poem from text)

from you

comes I

for I have

become you;

these words

now of us

co-mingle,

indistinguishable

in these long moments

where we both emerge

accidentally shattered

by story.

Here is the contradiction of the translator, I suppose.

Wait.

So the stories above are not her stories ... she is translating and then writing of their experiences. Ok. Some sort of formatting should have made that more obvious to the reader. (Is that just me who feels this way?)

I get this was a literary approach, and now I see the rest of the piece unfolds from a writer as translator, affected by the stories of the women bloggers.

I think what I mean is, by annotating as I was reading, I felt as if I were with her -- now, a composite her -- speaking to her in the margins (along with all of you) -- and realizing the writer was removed, and only telling the stories of others, makes me want to go back and edit my remarks. I won't.

But I never had that feeling before with annotation activities.

Interesting ....

Reading on ....

I looked up the meaning of the name. Fatma. From this site:

... a girls' name is of Arabic derivation, and the meaning of the name Fatma is "baby's nurse". Fatma is a variant form of Fatima (Arabic): also possibly "one who abstains".

I am thinking of that second meaning -- "one who abstains" -- and thinking of war and the powerless nature of those caught up in the war. Abstain from the chaos was not a choice Fatma or her mother (the writer) or the father had here.

Interesting ...

Why capitalized? Wondering about the context here ....

I don't know who this is. So, I am wandering away for a bit to try to figure it out.

Pierre Bourdieu

Paulo Friere

Read deep with us. You're invited.

Here we are, going beyond skimming. In the margins. Terry took this piece over into Diigo for his annotation. Read his thoughts: https://www.diigo.com/annotated/30d001f7e33fbb45a08b27cbdc58e9a4 Others are here, off to the side. Please join in.

Huh

This age -- eight to ten years old -- seems critical in so many areas, not just screen reading and comprehension. It's also the same age here in the US where standardized testing kicks in, and where so many kids lose their love of learning as a result. That's my opinion, anyway.

maybe from here?

Be helpful to know why ... what was different for the students?

I agree with Ciara on Twitter about this term -- I like it.

Cognitive Patience

As a teacher of children, this is a key point -- one I grapple with every time I use technology with my young writers and readers. Am I providing a richer and more engaging content with digital text? Or am I teaching more surface reading of text with media intrusions? (prob neither and both)

Thank you -- we want to make it clear that this is not an either/or situation here. Appreciate this statement early in the text

interesting .... the act of reading is always deeper, and forges deeper connections, than we think it might be ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFWM7-yIbYA

This has long been a concern, and I know there is all sorts of research happening in this field. I don't doubt this at all... what I don't know yet is whether this change in the way we read text is good or bad or neither. This article suggests a negative shift, and that may be true. Always hoping for some balance.

Girls play video games, too. Boys read books, too.

Answering the call with this annotation activity .. thanks, Troy!

Need to explore? Me, too.

https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/

During one round of Hear My Home, I had taken my friend Anna's soundscape and refashioned it into a multimedia piece, complete with poem:

Check out Anna's Soundscape on Zeega

Found Poem from That Passage:

starting pulse;

the streets

make rhythms of

our voices, heard,

the American acoustics

of politics, march

in protest, explore

contemporary sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIZ-uG2UTgI

(with apologies to Cassie and Jon)

Hear My Home

f you are an educator, in what ways can you imagine incorporating and building soundscapes into your curriculum and practice as a classroom teacher? What benefits and/or constraints do you anticipate for yourself and/or your students?

If I may, I have a Flipboard Magazine that I try to curate pieces about writing, teaching, learning and technology -- and how digital writing is pushing the boundaries of composition.

Along the Edges of Digital Writing