Putting Visualization on the Map

Here's a link to a storymap made with Knight Lab.

I decided to put together a small map of some of the street art around the Milwaukee area. The images I used were inspired by the fact that they were images of street art around Milwaukee, but the platform that I decided on had a little bit more of a decision process. I was going to use Thinglink.com, but to start making a project (or even have access to explore the site and what it can be used for) I needed to enter an invitation code. Maybe I set my account up wrong. After that, I decided to give Knight Labs/Storymaps a go. Knight Labs was a lot more accessible, and after logging in using google (that’s right, there wasn’t even an account creation process for me to mess up like I potentially did with Thinglink) I was able to go right into putting a map together.

The process of creating the map really only furthered my understanding of Milwaukee’s street art in one way. Although it was a single aspect of understanding that was furthered, it might have been the most real aspect of my understanding so far. Before putting together the 8 major street art installations onto the map, looking up the addresses of each, and being able to see them organized together, I hadn’t really considered the actual location of the murals. After making the map, I realized I drive past most of these on a daily basis. Even though furthering this aspect of understanding might seem insignificant, being able to situate aspects of a texts in the real world is valuable when trying to get readers to engage with the text. It was even enough to make me go back and read an article that I’d already read several times looking for (and finding) new information about some of the murals.

I don’t now nor have I ever questioned the value of visualization since having learned about it. In fact, I really found value in putting together this map, and I’ll probably head out to see some of the art that I’ve been mindlessly driving past as soon as the weather turns. My one hesitation, though, is that even just googling images and locations of street art and then plugging them in to the site that I found to work was a bit time consuming. Of course, my students would have the benefit of me suggesting a site (and maybe even having a fancy invite code for one), so their decision for which site to use might take up a significantly smaller amount of time. I think because of the time it might take I could see myself using multimodal visualization to introduce topics that might be difficult to connect with for some students. I could also see using it for groups of students to put together information to teach their peers something, but I don’t think that I would have developed the same connection with the material if I hadn’t produced the map myself, so I’m not sure if I buy into having students create things for demonstration in the hopes that their peers will learn as effectively from just consuming the project.

Multimodal Blogging Text Set

For those of you used to my blog's normal tone and brevity, I'll offer a word of caution. That tone ends with this sentence, and this is lengthy post describing a set of texts to teach A Thing. This text set was developed with the purpose of introducing students to a daily writing activity that will be ongoing for the entire semester in a 9^th grade English Language Arts classroom In Milwaukee. Students will receive a writing prompt each day and have time to make a blog post in response to the prompt in class as well as a prompt to photograph something in their lives for the following day's prompt. The texts here will be used to shed some light on the benefits of writing a blog, show students how effective image use in conjunction with short writings can be, and present students with blogs that can be used as models for their own multimodal blogs.

Culturally relevant text

Miller, Anna, et al. “Your Guide to Milwaukee's Street Art.” Milwaukee Magazine, 16 Jan. 2018, https://www.milwaukeemag.com/guide-milwaukees-street-art/

This culturally relevant text showcases a wide variety of street art that has been created by local artists all around Milwaukee. Each photograph of art is accompanied by a short description of the artist(s) and the artwork at each location.

Complexity:

StoryToolz gives this text an average rating of 10.7 for quantitative complexity. I agree with this rating and don’t think this would be overly challenging for a 9^th grade student to consume. Qualitatively, I would say this text is only slightly to moderately complex. The photographs are used only as support for the written text and give images to the descriptions of the artwork, the language used is very straight-forward and conversational while using very little vocabulary that will be challenging, and the writing relies mostly on geographic knowledge of the city that most high school students will be familiar with.

Some vocabulary for this text includes reclusive, bienvenidos, prominently, breadth, proverbial, and haven.

Task and reader complexity:

As the first text to go along with the semester long assignment of keeping a multimodal blog, this task is only slightly complex. This text will be the first introduction of using images and short passages together to form a coherent message. This will also be used to motivate students’ interest by connecting the idea of creating blogs that express the world around them as they see it. The text builds on cultural assets of the students because they’re all likely to have experienced the art around the city, even if only by accident. It also builds on their cultural assets because the format is similar to Instagram/Facebook posts with an image and then a short description, so they’ll be quite familiar with the format. Finally, it will build on their cultural assets because it’s a text expressing some of the beauty around the city that they all live in. The accessibility of this task is high, because students will only be required to take a photo of something in their lives and add an explanation of the photo using this text as a model.

Print-based text

Sullivan, Andrew. “Why I Blog.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 19 Feb. 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/

This print-based text situates blogs in the modern world among other types of media production and communication. It’s designed almost like a persuasive essay to encourage others to blog while describing the benefits to the individual producing the blog and the society that consumes blogs.

Complexity:

StoryToolz rates this blog’s average quantitative complexity at an 11.8 grade level. I don’t disagree entirely with this measurement, because the sentence structure isn’t overly complex, and the vocabulary is only occasionally demanding. Qualitatively I would say the text is mostly very complex. Some of the connections to other forms of media are implicit making the text structure very complex and the knowledge demands sometimes on specific related knowledge like the idea of something being postmodern. However, the purpose is easy to recognize and, again, the sentence structure isn’t overly complex.

Vocabulary words for this text may include postmodern, transitory, scant, posthumously, circumspection, and superficial.

Task and reader complexity:

The task associated with this text and the reader will be slightly complex. This text will be included as part of the ongoing introduction to blogs and will be used to motivate students to get involved with their blogging assignments. Because it will be a new subject that they may not have dealt with before, it will have some unfamiliar vocabulary and there won’t be a ton of connection to background knowledge outside of a general familiarity with news and other media. The task associated with this reading will be to create a blog post that explains why they are blogging. This may be more or less accessible to students based on their motivation level regarding their blogs, but the text will give them plenty of knowledge to build a rationale for blogging.

Multimodal text

 “A New Exhibition Looks at Our Complex Relationship with Animals.” Feature Shoot, 14 Oct. 2019, https://www.featureshoot.com/2019/10/a-new-exhibition-looks-at-our-complex-relationship-with-animals/

This is a multimodal text that is explaining an exhibition that took place at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. The exhibition is about the positive and negative realities that animals face because they share the planet with humans.

Complexity:

StoryToolz tells us that the quantitative complexity of this text ranges between an average of 8.8 and 13^th grade level, depending on the section. Some of the captions on the photos are easy to follow because they’re accompanied by the photograph and aren’t exceptionally wordy, while some of the other information can be a little more demanding. This difference explains the varied level of complexity, which I agree with. Qualitatively, the text structure is very complex. Although the knowledge demands and meaning are only slightly to moderately complex, the text structure is at least very complex because of the contrast between some of the pictures that extend the meaning of the written text and the language features border on very and moderately complex because of sentence complexity and vocabulary.

Some vocabulary from this text may include rambunctious, solemn, euthanized, sanctuary, anesthesia, sow (noun), and cyanotype.

Task and reader complexity:

This text will be used to begin the conversation about how impactful images can be on a narrative. Though it may not build on urban students’ cultural assets (because of the extensive reference to farm animals and the rodeo) it will build well on the students’ background knowledge established by earlier readings and assignments to take pictures at home to use as writing prompts in class. The task with this text will be accessible as the students will be asked to photograph something in their lives that could be used to call attention to some injustice, either tangible or perceived, and explain what that injustice is.

Other Texts

Culturally relevant - catdiggedydog, Written by. “A Day in the Life of a High School Blogger.” Catherine Zhang, 2 May 2014, https://catherinezhang.me/2014/05/01/life-high-school-blogger/ 

Print-based - Bullas, Jeff, et al. “9 Reasons Why A Blog Is Important for Your Career and Life.” Jeffbullas's Blog, University of Phoenix, 8 July 2019, https://www.jeffbullas.com/sponsored/9-reasons-why-a-blog-is-important-career-life/

Multimodal - Eldon, Dan, and Kathy Eldon. The Journey Is the Destination: the Journals of Dan Eldon. Chronicle Books, 2017.

Should We Trust Students to Take Charge of Their Learning? The Answer May Surprise You!

From my brief time working with adolescents in my field work (and a few interviews conducted with some students), I’ve started to get an understanding of “teen literacies” that aren’t all that different from my literacies when I was in high school. Some of the biggest takeaways from being around students and interviewing some of them are the importance of choice (which is a huge surprise only if you’re not paying attention), how a school workload influences students’ abilities and willingness to take part in reading and writing for pleasure, and of course how varied teens are when it comes to their literacies.

Without contest, the biggest insight gained from both interviewing students and just talking with students in general is how important the aspect of choice is when completing things. I know that I also grappled with the notion of reading as an adolescent because so often the only thing that I was reading were things that were assigned to me in classes where I felt less than autonomous.

Because of that (and honestly even before these interviews, because I’ve been paying attention) one of the things that I plan to implement into my teaching is choice. Even if it’s a choice from a list of things, it’s still better than no choice at all. These choices don’t stop at what a student reads in class, though. The students I interviewed all said that they didn’t write much for fun, and the ones that had a strong opinion on the matter said that if they could make a writing assignment that they wanted to do they would enjoy it more. The suggestions for composition always trended toward other forms of academic writing, so I’m sure that bringing multimodal production as an option of a “writing” method into class would certainly get some student buy-in.

Another factor is the school workload. Of course, there are assignments that need to be assigned to evaluate where students are in their learning, but I remember being in school and being assigned things that I had to constantly wonder what purpose they served. I suppose that leads me to something that I might consider trying. Instead of having a “read this by then” approach, maybe I could get away with assigning just a certain amount of reading from some variety of text. Of course, this sort of relates to choice, but I’d also like to keep the workload as small as it needs to be so I can instead encourage students to really engage in texts (both consuming and creating) that bring them joy to foster that healthy long term relationship with literature.

A third thing that I would love to incorporate into my classroom is a vast classroom library because of the varied interests of teens. Naturally there’s the issue of cost and making sure that all the texts are things that aren’t going to get huge backlash from students, but I’m sure with the help of sites like donor’s choose and with a little time an excellent library for a classroom can be pieced together. This is, again, just an extension of choice. It seems like allowing students to choose what they read, when they read, what they write, and how they write might be the best approach to getting students engaged with literature. It’s almost like we should let the students run (or, maybe, lead) their own learning. I wonder if anyone’s written anything on that yet that would support my hypothesis (:O).

Inquiry Blogs: The Real Question

One thing that I’ve given serious thought to because I saw the movie Freedom Writers ages ago and I have a Hollywood image of how powerful it could end up being to build an ideal classroom environment is, of course, keeping a daily write journal. Another thing that makes me want to explore journals in the classroom is that I’ve recently been tricked into picking up journaling by someone who gets paid to talk. An article from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way about something called morning pages was thrusts onto me, and after reading it I figured I’d give it a go, because why not. I don’t follow all the directions, but essentially, you’re meant to write 3 pages by hand first thing when you wake up to get the creative juices flowing and the cobwebs cleared out for the day. I don’t write it longhand because, well, it’s 2019. But otherwise, I find it really helpful when I engage with it at doing just what I was told it would do, and it’s definitely shaped how I write a considerable amount in a far less considerable amount of time.

Like the example blog that seems to be addressing journaling that was linked on a resource page, I too have too many things in the running for my attention in this blog. There are so many things that I want to know more about that I mean to try to incorporate into my classroom, so deciding on what I plan to do for this blog has been a tough one.

Of course, I have to consider my field work and what experience I have with high school aged children in my life, and that makes me want to explore using multimodality more often and offering it as a choice that can be made on any project. But, I took an entire course on that not too long ago, so I’m not sure I would be willing to devote more blogging to it right now (even though in honesty, it’s probably the single most helpful thing that I can imagine to get more students to engage with course work). There’s a lot of potential with multimodality. It allows for a lot of choice for students and it engages them with technology, which are both likely to get you that precious student buy-in that I keep hearing about.

Hang on a second.

Not to slam on the brakes of your internal reading voice, but I believe my writing what you’ve just read has led me to a painfully obvious resolution to my now silly dilemma. Blogs are multimodal journals. For my inquiry blog I’ll be exploring the use of blogs in the classroom. For anyone that knows me or has read anything I’ve written, I’m sure you’re shocked at the slight meta level that blogging for a classroom about blogging for a classroom has about it, but it does honestly remove the need to choose between the two.

What I already know about blogging is expressed below this in previous blog posts and above this very sentence as I described (as vaguely as possible) what I know about journaling and multimodal composition. A few things that I’d like to know going forward is how to effectively set up a blogging platform that might be able to stay in a closed loop for my classrooms (so it can provide the level of privacy that the classroom walls do), how to ensure that students that may have less access to technology have a chance to participate with the blogs, and probably a ton more that I haven’t even considered yet. I'm not sure right now what resources I'll be using to further research this outside of the book I mentioned earlier, the internet, and perhaps even an instructor that has integrated blogging into their classrooms well. This is about twice as long as this has to be (I mean, if it had to be any length, but, as you may recall, this is certainly not required) so I’m done, for now. Thanks for your time.

this is a digital notepad. it's a metaphor.

Welcome Back

Hey there folks, I'm still James Thomas, and I'm still blogging entirely of my own free will. I’ve put below this post one warning not to proceed, and if you’re reading this you’re probably in my blogging group or just really lost on the internet. I’m currently enrolled in a Currins 545 apparently inaccurately titled “Reading in Content Areas: Middle, Junior, and Senior High School.” As someone that often allows my learning to spill over into my very personal and voluntary blogging, it’s likely that any post following this one for some time may be related to what I learn there, so be ready for that. For now, though, here’s a picture of my two cats, Cat (the mostly white one) and Charles. Also, a link for your clicking pleasure. 

Whoa Now, Slow Down!

Past this point on this blog (a blog that has definitely been created out of ambition and not as a result of force) is content from a previous stage in my life. In that stage I was a different person, doing different courses, and addressing different topics. If you continue reading, I can make no guarantees about the quality and relevance of the information. 

Final Required Blog Post

So, I have a confession to make. I haven't been entirely honest with you (my audience of 2) about the purpose of this blog and how it came to be. The truth is, it definitely was a required blog, and all of the posts were also required. Now that that weight is off my shoulders, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the content of the blog because, well, it's required. Reflection has always been the hardest part of any composition process for me, and I'm sure this will be no exception. We've been asked (we is myself and other students in my class for the internet archaeologists that will inevitably  stumble upon this some day) to reflect on the posts we've made on our blogs and decide which posts best fit the categories of "professionalism, design, creativity, and people’s choice (as defined as a class)."

All of the posts I'm going to address will be able to be found under this one so long as the meaning of the word under or the default layout of this blog doesn't change, but I'll also be including links in case your scroll wheel or space bar is broken.

For professionalism, I'm going to go with my first blog post titled Smartphones and Social Media can position a class in the Real World. I'll pick that post because it's the least unprofessional, not that any posts are immediately unprofessional though. It was early in my blogging career, and my mind hadn't yet been corrupted with the notion that I can write something relevant and then ramble to get credit for the posts.

For design I'll have to settle on What Does Multimodal Even Meme? this one is mostly because of the fact that I designed something for the post. Though it may be small, I actually had to design that 1st class meme you'll see if you click that link (or scroll down just a tiny bit, it's just below this one). I suppose that makes it my most well designed post. I'm not sure I'm doing this right, but who cares?

As far as creativity, for me the most obvious answer is Getting Drunk on Writing. I felt pretty creative just rambling on, pouring my actions out as words in a blog post in real time to create the post. It's probably technically the least creative in that aspect, because it required such a small amount of actual creativity and was just a documenting of movement in its own creation, but again, who cares if I'm doing this wrong?

After all this self reflection, we've (same we as before, please try to pay attention) been tasked with picking a blog that best satisfies the categories established by the people (this people is the aforementioned we). I'm going to go with Maggie's Blog for obvious reasons if you just click that link (this time you can't just scroll down, turns out that's an entirely different website). Most important in my decision making process was voice, and I couldn't really care less about the other categories the people established (though her blog performs exceptionally by those standards as well). Other categories the people set are categories that could probably be achieved well by a program designed to use relevant images or have "engaging media" and post a ton of videos, but voice is probably not something computers are at the level of creating on their own. So, before society is overrun by Skynet, go read Maggie's blog and experience some human voice.

Also, images are required, so here's the first entirely original image to be posted on this blog. It's a screenshot of the blog. I hope you enjoy it.

What Does Multimodal Even Meme?

I’m going to take a moment and be more vulnerable than I have before on this blog. Multimodal compositions are painful. Their production (and even being sure what is and isn’t one) is very outside my comfort zone. I missed a previous post that I could have done because it also focused on multimodal things, and those sorts of things are apparently scary. The internet defines multimodality as “The use or availability of several different modes, methods, systems, etc.” (en.oxforddictionaries.com), and as you can tell by that very clear and precise definition, a lot of things are probably multimodal. But how multimodal is multimodal enough? If I use my computer to type half of this blog post, and then seamlessly transfer to typing on my phone, have I accomplished multimodality by using multiple systems, though? My computer has Word (where I’m currently typing) and my phone doesn’t, so I’d be forced to use something else to continue my composition. Maybe my notes app? Unfortunately for me, this is likely not multimodal enough. Maybe just a regular run-of-the-mill meme with a picture and some texts pasted over it is on that line of enough? That also takes my phone and many other methods than just typing words, because there’s no way I’m going to make a meme that’s as outdated as the ones https://imgflip.com/memegenerator suggests I make on their home page (though I'm sure they're very helpful in actually producing memes). No one’s seen the Philosorapter in ages (they’re extinct), and Chuck Norris hasn’t been funny since 2007 (though, I suppose there’s potential he could swing back around (that’s a roundhouse kick joke, for the uninformed)). Anyway, I’ll have to see what sort of memes are doing well today, so standby.

Okay, don’t read the next part for about 15 minutes, that’s how long I was gone. I imagine memes have real names in whatever community just loves memes, but I don’t know what those names are, so I’ll just do what I can to explain them. A few that seem to be doing okay today are Charlie Day playing his role in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia standing by a wall he has strung out a conspiracy on, the boyfriend distracted by a passerby meme, and “You vs the guy she tells you not to worry about.” I can’t stress enough here that I have no idea what I’m doing, so the following attempt at a meme that I’ll try to pass off as multimodal text should be extraordinary, as all things I produce are.

I'd like to thank twitter user @pixelatedboat for posting the meme she told me not to worry about, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for having such an outrageous character for the internet to latch onto so I could use it later, and her, for telling me not to worry about that other meme.

What an experience. The picture really guides what the words can say, because you expect something outrageous from Pepe Silvia (I've learned recently that's the name of the Charlie Day meme) as well as having to have contrast because of "you vs what she tells you not to worry about." Appropriation is the real meat of memes, because without a TV series to take a crazy character from or previous memes having been popular and already having an established meaning On The Line, they would just be pictures. I suppose the real challenge is in the production of new memes, and I honestly don't know enough about internet culture to be able to work toward making something new that would be popular enough to be categorized as a meme, so I'm happy I was able to appropriate nearly all my work other than a single sentence from other sources.

As for amplifying learning, I don't know where this would fall. This surely invites the creator to learn more about the culture that the memes exist in. It makes me question what the memes are outside of my culture, and even if I would recognize them as funny. There may not be a lot that can be taught about ELA through this particular multimodal form, but there's certainly room for learning around it in other arenas. Promoting civic engagement is easy through memes, actually. Though what I created doesn't exactly have a call to action, a lot of memes have subtle calls and function like political artwork used to in the thing we used to call "newspapers." There's also a lot to learn about tolerances in other nations, like which memes are illegal in Russia, and what sort of liberties are being taken away from The People when those sorts of things are regulated and outlawed. Perhaps there's more to memes than I initially considered, which of course makes them less approachable.

Writing Coach "experience" - An Exercise in Patience

If this were a required blog (which it isn't) and it had required posts (which it certainly would never) it's possible that this post would have been required some number of days ago. It's also possible that I would have been required to write a blog entry on my hypothetical experience as a writing coach attached to this blog on that potentially earlier day than just now. Fortunately for me (if you haven't noticed yet), this isn't a required blog, and as not such, there are no required deadlines. Unfortunately for me, however, is that my experience as a writing coach is all but entirely fictional and surrounded by my thoughts of what I think it might be like to be a writing coach. I'm getting to the point, stay with me. Over the past few months, I have sent emails to quite a few students that, at least to me, exist entirely on the internet to express my excitement to be working with them as their writing coach (a thing I'm sure for them is Definitely Not Required™). In those same few months, I have received 1 set of poems from one student on time, another set of poems from another student one month late, and an entirely blank page from a third student who I assume had problems with formatting. After all that experience, I can say without a doubt, I have learned a lot about writing and being a writing coach (this is one of those rare times I'm being serious again). Patience. At first I was eager to give feedback, then concerned that wires had gotten crossed, then worried that my intro letters came off sounding too different from how a writing coach should sound, and finally I realized that students involved with their writing (whether I or their teacher like it) will do so, to some extent, at their own pace. And they'll certainly share it with an internet stranger at their own pace, even if that pace is measured in negative speeds (this is a math joke).

Separate from my direct experience with students I was meant to coach in writing, I experienced some fun things. Plagiarism happens, and should be dealt with on a case by case basis. This entire blog post was copy and pasted from Reddit. Does my saying that make it not plagiarism? Case by case, friends. And there was a lot of reading about how to be a better writer (like this) and an effective writing coach. Work from most important stuff to least important stuff, be honest with feedback, work at the writer's pace, and so on. Also, I've never read Lord of the Flies, so thanks for indirectly avoiding asking me for feedback about that (although, I don't need to have read a book to tell if you used evidence from it effectively to support an argument). Anyway, dear audience, thank you for being patient even though this has no potential for being late. As your reward, here's a picture of a puppy.

Getting Drunk on Writing

This is a picture of Lindores Abbey, somewhere in Scotland, the home to the first scotch whiskey ever mentioned in writing (according to Wikipedia, anyway) and where people just started reproducing whiskey in 2017 after a short 522 year hiatus. This picture, like all things, is irrelevant and arbitrarily selected. Until it isn't. Let me tell you about my writing process. For me, my writing process is simple and straightforward. Step 1 pour an invisible glass of whiskey made in Scotland. Step 3 I need my glasses to write; I better put those on. Step 2 remember I gave up even imaginary drinking for clarity of mind and pour out my glass. Step E pet the cat and tell him I’m too busy to pet him. Step R determine a labeling system for the steps in my process. Step (Netflix intro sound) put some words somewhere in space. And that’s it, then I save/publish to my blog the product that I have.

The truth is, if you ask me what my writing process is in a situation where I don’t have to write anything in that moment, I’m probably going to lie to you on accident. I’ll say something like, “You wanna make an outline (I’ll omit that I do this part in my head while browsing youtube) then put that together in a draft (again, I’ll omit that my drafts are often just me mocking what a draft is “supposed to be”) and after that you just polish your work until you have your finished product.” I’ll say that because that’s what I was told for a long time, and for nearly as long, I thought my less than conventional writing process was more mistake than method. I just googled scotch whiskey, and suddenly googling scotch whiskey is now part of my process while writing this blog post. I’m not procrastinating, I’m thinking while I do something less productive with the rest of me. Anyway, in their article “A cognitive Process Theory of Writing” Flowers and Hayes refer to stage models of writing (like my very truthful explanation of my method and then my not so truthful explanation in this paragraph) are flawed mostly because they are in stages. Stages discourage us from going back or working ahead, something anyone who has ever written a single sentence has probably done. They also explain what the real meat of a writing process is, and they do so nicely. Know your audience, answer some questions, know what you know and tell people about it. More or less.

Enough of that. What is actually the writing process for me? Well, that up there is a little bit of it. I don’t have the time to explain everything about my process to you, my fictional reader, but I can try to set out the real meat of it. I do work first to establish who my audience is, and then I work quickly to decide I’d rather talk to myself with my writing because I like my opinions better. That is one of the rare times I’m being genuine, I do this because who wants to read anything that’s written cautiously trying to cater to what the ideal reader is looking for? Some time around the same time as that, maybe after, maybe before, maybe during if I’m really trying, I figure out what it is I really want to write. Not do I want to write a blog post, or a narrative essay, or the next Great American Musical, but literally what I want to write. That first paragraph is the sarcastic nonsense I wanted to write, it didn’t go where I was hoping it would. Unless it did, and that’s how I got here, but I’ll never tell. And then as soon as I put the first letter to the page, I begin to edit. I don’t believe my process is one to be followed, for several reasons, but mostly because it isn’t anyone else’s process. Probably very few others want to write about their messed up labeling systems while talking about fake whiskey to start their writing (this sentence started out with no one else wants to… but I decided maybe there are a select few in the world that are on the write (this was intentional) path).

A quick final note about my writing process and a message to anyone who’s working on theirs. Try to pay attention the next time you sit down and write and forget about that perfect writing process that has been pounded into your head for the past however long. Eat that snack (or argue yourself out of it). See what’s new on Instagram. Find out if Bill Gates really did drop out of college (he did but the story behind it is worth the read). It doesn’t matter how you write, or really even what you write, (at the risk of sounding corny) it only matters that you write and pay attention when you do.

The (sometimes long) Road to Writing

It can sometimes be hard to recognize the things that we’ve done as noteworthy in relation to something outside of the event itself. I’ve been a student all my life, even for the 5 years between graduating high school in 2010 and beginning to attend UWM in 2015 while I was enlisted in the US Army. No matter what I’ve done in my life, I have tried to look at every moment as a moment where I could learn something (even if that something I was learning was just how to walk really far). In high school, the most profound thing I learned about writing was how to avoid it as best I could, in the military, writing countless counselling statements for soldiers I led, I learned to write as precisely as I could, and at UWM I’ve learned to value writing as more than just something I do as a requirement. Because of my experience in a rural high school where people were more focused on getting ready to enter a technical field or labor career, I know how important it is to offer guidance to students and to do my best to let them in on the secret of the power that the written word has. Because of my experience in writing workshops and English classes at UWM, I have a decent grasp on how to help a writer making that same journey, even if it seems like a long one.

Smartphones and Social Media can position a class in the Real World

My experience with social media and digital composition is likely limited compared to my peers. I have an Instagram that I find myself on for a few minutes most days to look for funny pictures of animals doing funny things, I’ve also used Snapchat to share 1000’s of pictures of my cats with the world, and in the early 2000’s, I was very active on Myspace (I don’t believe this experience is very relevant today). As for promoting social action, my actions in that area are unfortunately mostly limited to comment sections and online game chat areas, where I’m certain I haven’t had the impact I’d like to while trying to connect with angry gamers to work toward pointing their attention to the problems of the world.

Despite my lack of current experience, and occasional resistance to future experience, I’m fortunate enough to not be so ignorant that I can’t see the massive potential for online media in the pursuit of change and in creating a more well-rounded educational experience for students and teachers alike. The only real pitfalls in using digital media that I can see so far are within my (hopefully temporary) lacking expertise. The potential seems almost endless, especially in school districts with children below the poverty line that suffer losses related to availability of information constantly. Looking at a broader definition of online media, it might be likely that cell phones and tablets are an important factor in closing the gap. With smartphones, teens in less privileged areas can connect and interact with the world through apps that connect to social media, news, and a library of information on the internet that would be unheard of 2 decades ago in (for good or bad) a relatively unrestricted manner. Alongside the availability of information on smartphones and tablets, is the willingness of students to engage with those devices. Whether they know it or not, every text that a student sends, every text they read, every group chat they participate, and every meme they share privately mocking their moves them into a level of ever-increasing literacy. Incorporating those devices into the ELA classroom and explaining to your students the potential for change that each of them holds in their hands every day might be the next big step into making real change for their generation and those to follow.

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