Writing for an Audience Not in Stone

[Demetri Orlando]

For many years I've been touting how technology can make students' writing process more authentic because putting writing onto a website provides an audience beyond the teacher. Before computers (i.e. my high school experience) students would write a paper, the teacher would read and grade it, then return it to the student, who would shortly deposit it in the trash can (this was also before recycling.) With the web, writing can be published and revised online. It can be published in "walled gardens" that only allow access to the class or school, or it can be published on publicly accessible sites (like this one) for anyone to see.

Thinking you have an audience makes a difference when you are composing your writing. I'm feeling this acutely this week as a blogger for the NAIS annual conference. As I write, I am thinking about who might read my words. This drives me to want to put up something meaningful or that adds value to our conference conversations. Having people comment on your blog posts is tremendously validating. I want our students to have this experience. Having comments posted on one's blog emphasizes the reality of the writing having an authentic audience... You mean someone is actually reading what I'm writing? wow! thank you!!

I attended the Urban School session at the conference today and several students showed how they use various digital tools to outline, publish, peer-edit, and revise their work online. You could easily see how the digital tools were not just adding value to the humanities curriculum, but were transforming what was possible.

• A senior named Alison showed how she used the color and shape tools of the concept-mapping program Inspiration to organize elements of her outline for a major research paper.
• A student named Andres showed how he uses noodle tools instead of note cards for research and this let his teacher access and guide his research process.
• Robin mentioned how helpful it was to have all of the class poems on a blog instead of as individual pieces of paper. She showed their WordPress blog on which the students could comment paragraph by paragraph on each poem.
• Zoey talked about blogging on a ning and how her peers would comment with suggestions for improving her writing, and then she'd revise it there on the blog.

This last example really struck home for me, as I've more or less thought of blogging as being finished once a blog post has been published. It made me realize that you can use the "Edit Post" button at any time if you want to continue to improve upon your writing into the future. Using this in the context of the writing process sounds like a game changer. The comment feature is a way for peer-editing, and then the "Edit Post" is used by the author to incorporate those comments. The piece of writing can take on a life of its own over time. One's writing is no longer written in stone.

[author's note: I've been back to revise this blog post about six times now. The first five were within the first hour of posting it, but this last time was 24 hours later. The way I am conceptualizing blog posting has shifted to be much more fluid... kind of like the way I think of people revising a wiki over time, but without all the baggage of version histories.]

[Page Lennig]

Thanks for sharing this Demetri - a great post. I agree with your point on writing with an audience - it's truly motivating. Thanks for mentioning these different projects from the Urban School - I am always looking for concrete examples of blogging in the classroom to share with my faculty.

Thanks for your sharing your coverage and thoughts last week. Hope you had a good trip home,
page