Spotlight On Common Sense Media - National Writing Project

Spotlight On Common Sense Media - National Writing Project

Parents and educators alike find themselves hard-pressed to keep up with the fast-paced influx of new information and can't always keep an eye on what their children or students do online.

Week Two

  Which of the Eleven Elements of Effective Adolescent Writing Instruction from Writing Next do authors of Edutopia discuss? How does your own role as a writer fit into your classroom practices?  How or where do you find the time to do it all?  What gets left out?  Remember each of you needs to post here three times this week.  Your post may be a part of a conversation with other classmates or a general response to this article.

Week One : Let's Blog about the readings...

View the video and read the week's assignments.  Take time to begin or contribute to a conversation about one of the readings.  Do you have any rules for students communicating online? How will our communication here differ from those in a regular classroom? What do you think of Richardson (Digital Footprint) on technology in education?  I am interested in finding effective uses of technology that augment our teaching of writing rather than just adding more for the sake of technology.  What do you think?  Ponder a bit!
    The report Writing Next published by the Carnegie Corporation is a heavy read, but one that we might consider referring to throughout the course.  The "meat' of the material is between page 11 and 34. You can skim the rest.  It contains eleven key recommendations that are worth "unpacking" as we move through our discussions. The report is considered one of the most comprehensive reports on writing since the 1990's. It makes a good companion to our text which we will start reviewing in a few weeks. Does this report contain ideas particularly true to your experience, ideas that you find puzzling, or ones that run contrary to your beliefs?
And last but not least, comment on  the many hats we must all wear as teachers of writing as described in Raising Writers.