Where To From Here?

A common theme that arose during this year's ETA NSW Conference was the challenge and excitement of navigating the space between creativity and 21st century learning.

I'm only three sessions in (at the time of writing) but already we've had Megan Heyward delve into the world of emerging digital media narratives, a poetry session that repositions well-known poems as part of a lively dramatic performance, and Karen Yager exploring the myriad ways of unlocking student creativity through multimodality and other lateral means.

It's an ongoing dialogue.

Will technology blanch out the creativity of our children? Or will it elevate the creativity of the next generation into an entirely new realm that will eventually be beyond the rest of us? 

What can we, the English teacher, do to maintain relevance in the face of so many reflective surfaces? The black screens of smart phones and associated devices offer a literal reflection as well as a figurative one; a feedback loop of social media-enabled naval-gazing and validation-seeking that cuts our fingertips off. In a way, social media is an externalised extension of an internalised space - a world in which we swim against irresistable currents of conformity that stifle the bravery and experimentalism of a pen and paper in a finite room. 

It's a world that is changing in rapid and unfathomable ways. The word 'navigate' couldn't be more apt - because that's what teachers need to do. We need to observe the 'stars' and plot a course through these emergent technologies that will allow a meeting ground between the content we teach and the app-heavy sedation of our screen-scrolling students.

Image from Wikipedia (also a great example of a prodused text). Thanks Wikipedia.

Students have moved into a space where they are neither (and paradoxically both) producer and/or user - leading to the academic portmanteau 'produser'. This is a great term for describing that state of being both passive/active in relation to digital text-making. Students can create in contexts such as mindcraft, wiki sites, and social media apps; but their production of 'text' in this mode is also a result of their participation as a consumer. Check out this produsage site for a more in-depth explanation, courtesy of the work of Dr Axel Bruns.

If you're a kid of the 1980s or earlier, like me, you won't necessarily be a natural produser. But, rather than tell students how to use technology they've already deemed passe or irrelevant, we can make a venn diagram of sorts with them. They know the tech, we know the English/communication stuff, and in combining these two domains we can form a crossover space (that little oval in the middle of the venn diagram) where students can begin using digital arenas in increasingly sophisticated ways.  

You may not know how to use an iPad to make a movie, but what you do know is how that movie should look when it's shown to an audience. Students, on the other hand, will have less of a problem operating MovieMaker on the iPad, but the products they inevitably create are not likely to reflect the filmmaking acumen of the cinematically-literate.Teacher and student can collaborate together here to forge a way ahead, and this is why technology will never make the knowledge held by the previous generation irrelevant.

Film Craft: Teaching Film as a Skill

Extract: 21st century learning practice in Australia has led to an increasing shift away from summative assessment of learning to the more authentic, project-based approach of assessment as learning. In regards to the study of film, this workshop demonstrates the ways in which frontloading of information and project-based learning can facilitate greater student efficacy in building skills for critical thinking, collaborative learning, and innovative problem-solving. Students move away from the identification and analysis of film techniques towards authentic application of cinematic skills in order to become active meaning-makers in regards to the grammar of film. The benefit of this multimodal approach to literacy demonstrates the continuing development of Project-Based Learning as the greatest tool at the disposal of teachers in striking an effective balance between the demands of the syllabus, enculturated practices dictated by policy, and the need to provide opportunities for students to cultivate competencies required in increasingly complex work spaces.

In other words, students learn to write film rather than write about it. This becomes evident through their application of learned skills in a collaborative project with their peers.

Here's my presentation on this from the ETA NSW 2017 Conference:

Resource: Film Craft PPT

Resource: Close-Up Instructions Activity Sheet  

Cross-Cutting resources:

Print on coloured paper. Students then edit the images together to create a storyboard sequence that incorporates too concurrent narratives. Thus, cross-cutting. See the PPT for more information.

More on specific film skills:

• Close-Ups blog post. 
• The 180 Degree Rule blog post.

For more detail, see the article 'Uncovering the Paradigm' in the academic journal English in Australia, Volume 52, No. 3.

English Studies: Authentic Assessment as Learning

The majority of this post originally appeared here. I have adapted it to include the PowerPoint presentation given on the 3rd of December, 2016 at the English Studies Day at Hunter River High School.

PPT - 'Authentic Assessment as Learning'; presented 3/12/16.

Complete Unit/Assessment Task - 'On the Road'

Associated Resources - here, here and here.
Special credit to my colleague Kira Bryant for the meta-language activities found in the above unit.

The idea of travelling for recreation has its own meaning, and sometimes it can be best expressed in imagery. This picture above was taken in a Ballarat alleyway.

So, picture this, it's Term 3 for Year 12 and I'm at the tail end of teaching English Studies. It's a point where I can now reflect on the subject with some hindsight. I would be lying if I said that I had gone into teaching this subject without some degree of trepidation, however, it turned out to be one of the most liberating, vocationally-affirming and positive experiences of my teaching career so far.

The way I see it; English Studies gives space to engage students with the role of language and texts in representing our authentic interaction with the world around us. For my class, this meant learning how to write letters and postcards, plan holidays, construct a resume that promotes their abilities, work collaboratively and effectively, make appropriate use of technology, and communicate in a meaningful manner. 

Something else to consider with English Studies in keeping students engaged is being strategic about the way assessment is used. I have found that the most effective way of using assessment with English Studies is through project-based (or authentic) assessment. In the terminology of the syllabus, this means Assessment as Learning. The last term of a 7 term slog with these students was always going to be a stretch in regards to mustering student-enthusiasm, so I knew I had to come up with a program for the travel-writing unit On the Road that:

• Integrated assessment into every lesson (therefore making the content meaningful and answerable to the audit process).
• Incorporated real life skills (IE. Planning their own holiday - something I'm sure that all of them will have to do at some point in the near future).
• Was fun (meaning that I could incorporate an excursion as a nice way to finish the topic with a class that had been such a pleasure to teach).

I had four weeks allocated for the assessable part of the topic at the beginning of this term, so I created a booklet of three sections. In order to complete the assessment 'task', students also had to work through a couple of lessons in the booklet designed to build their use of travel-related meta-language.

Section 1: Plan Your Overseas Trip

This is the nuts and bolts section and, at first glance, is mainly organisational in outlook. Students must select an international destination and then use the internet to research all the necessary components of a real holiday. This means:

1. Flights - time and price.
2. An itinerary that details where they will be going on each day of a 7 day trip.
3. Accommodation.
4. Distance and means of transport from airport to accommodation.
5. Safety precautions (vaccinations, travel insurance)

Students are also required to compose three 'Facebook' posts (in the assessment booklet) describing three of their hypothetical days on their holiday.

Section 2:The Excursion

What's more authentic than getting your students to co-plan their own excursion? We decided to go on a day trip to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (about an hour's train ride from where we are). Students had to research the logistics of catching the train there, times of arrival and departure, and figure out an itinerary that would include lunch and a visit of some local sights. You might have to adapt it if you want to use the project and don't want to go to Katoomba.

While on the excursion, students were required to take at least five photographs that would represent their travels, categorise them with a class-specific hashtag (and four other hashtags of their own invention), and then analyse their photographs in terms of what they represent.

I can confidently say that this excursion (on which I took 14 students) was the most technically successful excursion I have ever taken students on. By that I mean every student was engaged with the task at hand - taking photographs of Katoomba - and the 14 students who attended accounted for about 70% of the entire class (the highest percentage of attendees I have ever gotten anywhere on excursion). On the train trip home, nearly every student spent the entire hour uploading their photographs to Instagram and hashtagging them. 

Section 3: Travel Writing

Students read an excerpt of travel writing (taken from this here blog) and answer some comprehension questions. I included this section to round off the booklet with a travel writing-focused activity, to illustrate to the students the way their excursion and planning links to reading and writing. 

Assessment

The rubric at the end of the unit makes use of analytical criteria, with students assessed in four ways. I'll just write a little on each one...

• Audience and Purpose: This refers to the student's ability to make use of language in a way that is audience-appropriate. In other words, writing with some degree of formality when required and understanding the purpose of language in certain contexts. (Links to Outcome H2.2) 
• Representation: The student's ability to annotate/analyse their own photographs in a way that insightfully represents their travel experience. (Links to Outcome H1.4) 
• Planning: How well (authentically) and in-depth did the student plan their overseas journey, and the excursion to Katoomba? (Links to Outcome H4.1) 
• Commitment: How thoroughly the student completes the assessment booklet and/or gets involved in the class throughout the four weeks. (Links to all three of the above outcomes, really).

Added Authenticity

As an additional piece of fun I organised with Blue Mountains City Council to have the five best photographs  re-posted on the Blue Mountains Visitor Information Centres Instagram feed. I think this was a great way to demonstrate to the students the authentic nature of the task, and the ways in which representation of experience (IE. Thoughtful photographs with a range of hashtags that show authorial intention) is both an English skill and a real world skill.

Fostering Engagement with English Studies

Discovering new worlds through the wonders of travel...

It's Term 3 for Year 12 so I'm at the tail end of teaching English Studies and now at a point where I can reflect on the subject with some hindsight. I would be lying if I said that I had gone into teaching this subject without some degree of trepidation, however, it turned out to be one of the most liberating, vocationally-affirming and positive experiences of my teaching career so far.

The way I see it: English Studies gives space to engage students with the role of language and texts in representing our authentic interaction with the world around us. For my class, this meant learning how to write letters and postcards, plan holidays, construct a resume that promotes their abilities, work collaboratively and effectively, make appropriate use of technology, and communicate in a meaningful manner. 

Something else to consider with English Studies in keeping students engaged is being strategic about the way assessment is used. I have found that the most effective way of using assessment with English Studies is through project-based (or authentic) assessment. In the terminology of the syllabus, this means Assessment as Learning. The last term of a 7 term slog with these students was always going to be a stretch in regards to mustering student-enthusiasm, so I knew I had to come up with a program for the travel-writing unit On the Road that:

• Integrated assessment into every lesson (therefore making the content meaningful and answerable to the audit process).
• Incorporated real life skills (IE. Planning their own holiday - something I'm sure that all of them will have to do at some point in the near future).
• Was fun (meaning that I could incorporate an excursion as a nice way to finish the topic with a class that had been such a pleasure to teach).

I had four weeks allocated for the assessable part of the topic at the beginning of this term, so I created a booklet of three sections. In order to complete the assessment 'task', students also had to work through a couple of lessons in the booklet designed to build their use of travel-related meta-language.

Section 1: Plan Your Overseas Trip

This is the nuts and bolts section and, at first glance, is mainly organisational in outlook. Students must select an international destination and then use the internet to research all the necessary components of a real holiday. This means:

1. Flights - time and price.
2. An itinerary that details where they will be going on each day of a 7 day trip.
3. Accommodation.
4. Distance and means of transport from airport to accommodation.
5. Safety precautions (vaccinations, travel insurance)

Students are also required to compose three 'Facebook' posts (in the assessment booklet) describing three of their hypothetical days on their holiday.

Section 2:The Excursion

What's more authentic than getting your students to co-plan their own excursion? We decided to go on a day trip to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (about an hour's train ride from where we are). Students had to research the logistics of catching the train there, times of arrival and departure, and figure out an itinerary that would include lunch and a visit of some local sights.

While on the excursion, students were required to take at least five photographs that would represent their travels, categorise them with a class-specific hashtag (and four other hashtags of their own invention), and then analyse their photographs in terms of what they represent.

I can confidently say that this excursion (on which I took 14 students) was the most technically successful excursion I have ever taken students on. By that I mean every student was engaged with the task at hand - taking photographs of Katoomba - and the 14 students who attended accounted for about 70% of the entire class (the highest percentage of attendees I have ever gotten anywhere on excursion). On the train trip home, nearly every student spent the entire hour uploading their photographs to Instagram and hashtagging them. 

Section 3: Travel Writing

Students read an excerpt of travel writing (taken from this here blog) and answer some comprehension questions. I included this section to round off the booklet with a travel writing-focused activity, to illustrate to the students the way their excursion and planning links to reading and writing. 

Anyway, that's enough of that, here's the whole unit if you'd like to have a look - HSC English Studies: On the Road plus two associated resources (here and here). You might have to adapt it if you want to use it and don't want to go to Katoomba. Credit goes to my colleague Kira Bryant for the meta-language activities in the above booklet that act as a prelude to Section 1.

Assessment

The rubric at the end of the unit makes use of analytical criteria, with students assessed in four ways. I'll just write a little on each one...

• Audience and Purpose: This refers to the student's ability to make use of language in a way that is audience-appropriate. In other words, writing with some degree of formality when required and understanding the purpose of language in certain contexts. (Links to Outcome H2.2) 
• Representation: The student's ability to annotate/analyse their own photographs in a way that insightfully represents their travel experience. (Links to Outcome H1.4) 
• Planning: How well (authentically) and in-depth did the student plan their overseas journey, and the excursion to Katoomba? (Links to Outcome H4.1) 
• Commitment: How thoroughly the student completes the assessment booklet and/or gets involved in the class throughout the four weeks. (Links to all three of the above outcomes, really).

Added Authenticity

As an additional piece of fun I organised with Blue Mountains City Council to have the five best photographs  re-posted on the Blue Mountains Visitor Information Centres Instagram feed. I think this was a great way to demonstrate to the students the authentic nature of the task, and the ways in which representation of experience (IE. Thoughtful photographs with a range of hashtags that show authorial intention) is both an English skill and a real world skill.