Kevin & Minecraft!

After first meeting Kevin at Hawthorne I knew two things: I was working with an extremely gifted and intelligent 4th grader, and I was going to have a great experience helping him with his writing.  Somewhat timid and reserved, I could tell that Kevin knows (and thinks) a lot more than he sometimes puts out.  My goal will be to help him express all of his thoughts on paper through his writing.  Luckily, he has chosen a topic that he is passionate about and that will help him in developing ideas (this topic also happens to be something that I am somewhat passionate about).  The topic is none other than the widely popular video game Minecraft!

An open world game that allows players to create their own world using hundreds of different materials and resources, Minecraft is fantastic game that can be useful in many content subjects.  For Kevin, it will allow him to use his background knowledge and personal experience to help in the creative process of his own writing.  I am excited to be working with him, as it will allow me the opportunity to find out more about this great tool and how I can use it in the future.

Below I have already found some helpful links explaining how Minecraft can be used to help in the writing process, and have included a couple of ideas of my own:

Minecraft Writing Prompts - This useful website has a list of prompts that relate to options that the player can make within the game.  Would you rather play the game on survival mode or creative mode?  Write your answer and explain why.

Writing and Literacy Through Minecraft - This website explains how to structure journal entries around playing the game, having students keep record of their progress through written entries

How to Make Letter and Numbers in Minecraft - Exactly what it's title says, this website is somewhat elementary, but still extremely helpful, for teaching students how to write the letters of the alphabet.

"How to" Project (own idea) - We have all had to do this project at sometime throughout our schooling: write detailed instructions telling a reader how to do a certain task.  Why not make it fun and have students write list about how to do certain actions in Minecraft?  How to survive the first night in survival mode.  How to create an enchanting table.  How to create a nether portal, etc.

The Literary Essay

Love it or hate it, the literary essay is the most conventional mode of writing in English.  Unfortunately, not many students - or even adults - get excited at the idea of writing one.  This could be for a variety of reasons.  Essays typically follow a strict formula when they are first being taught.  Everything from the topics to choose from and the number of sentences in each paragraph is laid out for the student in a straightforward, yet limiting, way.  These restrictions tend to get lifted as the student learns, giving them more option over the topic, the number of paragraphs, and even the style of the essay (persuasion essay vs. compare and contrast essay).  Unfortunately, by the time the student has enough agency in the essay writing process to choose something according to his of her interests, he or she has already learned to dread the essay for the lack of personal opinion it allows.

I do not have a solution to this problem.  Despite the restricted nature that essays have when they are first being taught, there is value in having students learn a specific formula that typically tends to work before they can start experimenting on their own.  Perhaps what needs to change is not the layout of the essay, but the way in which we approach it.

It wasn't until after I had already completed my undergraduate degree in English literature and was just beginning my Master's  degree that I learned what has, up until now, been the most helpful strategy to approach an essay topic.  This approach is easier shown through drawing a picture than it is through explaining through writing, but I will do my best nonetheless.

Imagine we are going to write an essay about the animated show The Simpsons (this can be anything else, but it helps to have something that everyone is familiar with).  My first step in trying to think of ideas for my thesis would be to brainstorm the general themes and issues that the show covers.  These include family, work, religion, and the American dream.  The second step in this process is to then pick one of those themes or issues and create a list of the different aspects covered within it.  If I were to choose religion I could write that: there are a wide variety of characters from different religious backgrounds; each religion represented is mocked AND shown to help a character through a hard time.  I would then get even more specific in this theme by finding specific instances from the show and relating them back to the information I just did in the second step.  Here, I could write that there are sometimes characters with strong religious beliefs that are shown to make conscience decisions to go against those very same beliefs, such as the Pastor's daughter who steals from the donation plate.  There are also other character's, such as Lisa, that don't necessarily associate themselves with a specific denomination, but that whose behaviour is based in making right decisions and helping others.  With those two examples in mind, I can then go back to the previous step and make a general statement about one aspect of how The Simpsons represents religion: The Simpsons shows that religion can be used in a positive way to help people through hard times, but that it is a person's actions, and not necessarily their beliefs, that will lead to happiness.  And voila, I have a thesis statement.

On paper, this process takes the form of drawing a big box that gets smaller and smaller as I narrow in on the topic.  The visual helps students realize that they do not need to make a statement about the big box, but rather only on the space covered in the small box representing their chosen theme or issue.

I have included two different examples of sample layouts that you could give to students to help them learn the basic outline of an essay.  One is more visual, whereas the other involves more reading and writing.  Although most students relate to these exemplars, and to the process I detailed above, it is important to remember that each student is different and that no one approach will work for everyone.  Differentiation is key!

Mentor Text - Prose: Ray Bradbury’s The Golden Apples of the Sun

In their chapter “From Tourist to Storyteller: Reading and Writing Science,” D. Abt-Perkins and G. Pagnucci expand on the unconventional use of narrative storytelling to make the learning process more personal for learners.  Speaking to the advantages of using the narrative form they say, “we acquire and grow in our ability to communicate and understand our experience in language through applying narrative structures.”  This idea struck me as one that is not limited to specific subject matters (such as science) but rather that is universal. 

            Consider the narratives we learn in our childhood.  Often, these are fairy tales (or for the children of the past century, Disney movies) that are full of morality and tropes.  The one example that kept coming to mind was the idea of the “bad guy.”  We learn that almost every story has a “bad guy” (whether this bad guy is actually male or female is unimportant) and that he (or she) is almost unquestionably bad.  What is interesting is, years later, hearing adults use the same language and refer to someone as a “bad guy.”  Most of these adults know that the concept itself is somewhat problematic; very rarely is there a true villain in real life.  Yet our understanding of this trope in fictional narratives helps us to understand our real life experience better by being able to categorize our experiences according to what we know and learned from those fictional narratives. 

            With English as my content area, I have a large amount of freedom in terms of what I chose as narrative mentor texts.  Although it is important that students learn the content of the narrative, it is just as important that they become literate in the devices of the narrative itself and how they help deliver and form our understanding of that content.

            This week, I have chosen Ray Bradbury’s 1957 collection of short stories called The Golden Apples of the Sun.  I have chosen this specific collection because of how it made me feel the first time that I read it.  Specifically, Bradbury’s writing allowed me to both think of things in new ways (i.e. highlighting the power of literature to form and change our understanding) and believe that I could share my ideas in a similar manner (i.e. through short narratives).  Although typically considered to fall into the science fiction genre, Bradbury’s writing covers a broad spectrum of topics and styles.  A five page story of a garbage man quitting his job because he is now tasked with collecting corpses after the explosion of an atom bombs leads readers to want to know more about the science (and possibility) behind the destructive technology, as well as international politics that could lead to its use.  Nonetheless, more than simply highlight these issues, narrative writing allows us to analyze the way these issues are presented as well.

Mentor Text - Non-Narrative: Serial

           

             For my non-narrative mentor text (for English) I have chosen the podcast Serial.  As described on its official website, “Serial is a podcast . . . hosted by Sarah Koenig.  Serial tells one story – a true story – over the course of an entire season.  Each season, we’ll follow a plot and characters wherever they take us.  And we won’t know what happens at the end until we get there, not long before you get there with us.”  Consisting of twelve episodes, each which last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, the first season investigates the 1999 murder of a high school girl that is much more complex than any records have thus far shown.

            I have chosen Serial as a non-narrative mentor text for a variety of reasons.  Having English as my subject area, I have a large amount of freedom when choosing my texts. Since Serial is a podcast, it can be used to cover several expectations of the media studies strand from the curriculum.  Although non-fiction and non-narrative, the story is presented in a strategic and intentioned structure and form.  Moreover, the website contains numerous documents (letters, articles, maps, transcripts, etc.) that can be used in conjunction with the actual podcast and as support material.  I believe that this podcast would fall under a form of non-narrative that is meant to inform or explain.  Although the narrator sometimes offers her opinion on the unfolding events, she consistently reminds the readers that she is presenting facts in order to arrive at a truth (and a truth that might differ from her desired outcome). 

In terms of writing conventions, the podcast is a form that allows for many possibilities.  Since the final product is read out loud, spelling is not necessarily as important as sentence structure and grammar.  Nonetheless, each episode is read from a script and contains a plethora of additional written material online, all of which must be grammatically correct and free of spelling mistakes.  In terms of language, there is a balance of technical terms – especially legal terms (ex: affidavit) that students will need to know – and conversational language, such as the occasional swear word or use of humor.  Perhaps the biggest advantage of this form of non-narrative – especially in terms of when students begin producing their own podcasts – is that reading the text out loud is necessary, and this (reading out loud) is often one of the most beneficial practices for proofreading and editing. 

What do we learn about the murder in question when it is presented in this format (as a podcast) differently than if it were presented in a different format?  I think the fact that we actually hear the voices of the people involved has a profound impact.  They are not just characters in our head, but rather real people that have emotions.  The podcast format also allows the author to do just what the title suggests and serialize the story as a weekly episode. 

If you have not started downloading Serial already before finishing this post, I recommend you stop reading right now and do it here.

Learning How to Teach Writing

Nancie Atwell’s chapter “Learning How to Teach Writing” tells of her personal journey doing just that: learning how to teach writing.  I admit that, as I read some of the suggestions she makes throughout the chapter, I experienced some of those same feelings that she wrote about, from apprehension to straight out rejection.  And I believe that I felt this way for the same reasons that she did: both writing and teaching are personal and intimate practices that one feels he or she is the owner (or author) of and that are close to one’s values.  More so, I believe that every teacher and author must go through his or her own journey and learn from his or her own mistakes in order to improve.  Nonetheless, any help along the way – including reading about someone else’s mistakes – certainly can help in the process of this journey. 

Both Atwell and Peterson emphasize the importance of writing alongside the student and being just as active of a learner as you are a teacher.  As Atwell metaphorically says: “Everyone sits at a big desk, and everyone plans what will happen there”.  Although it is important to have more structure in our mini-lessons (in terms of writing conventions and curriculum expectations), we should plan the writing tasks themselves (to avoid Atwell’s dreaded “writing exercises”) so that there is as much freedom as possible. 

The biggest takeaway that I got from Atwell and Peterson was to always question my practices and to challenge any objective rules that could limit both the students’ and my own experience.  The problem (as far as I can tell) is using one’s own personal journey and discoveries to teach others that there is no one model for either and that each one of themt will have their own.

Why Write (in English)?

            Writing in English is important for a variety of reasons.  Firstly, it gives students a voice that they may not have – or believe they do not have – otherwise.  Personally, I find writing to be more intimate than I sometimes do speaking; I write things that I would typically not say out loud.  As a result, writing allows for an even safer environment than a typical classroom, as each person’s writing is his or her own and is protected.  Secondly, writing develops other areas and skills, such as oral communication and reading.  By becoming a better writer, I believe that a student n can also become a better speaker and a better reader.  He or she will use skills developed in writing in other areas, just as skills developed in those areas will be used in writing.  Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, writing is a form of identity creation in which students can not only express their voices, but also mold their opinions and character.  The ideal process of writing is not simply copying pre-formed ideas onto a piece of paper, but rather exploring those ideas in a safe space that allows for creativity, challenge, and change.  By putting a part of yourself on a piece of paper, you can then analyze it, evaluate it, and decide if or how you are then going to improve it.  Writing is more than a representation of a person’s skills, but rather a representation of the person him or herself.