I've Got Mail
I’ve got mail. This week was a stellar week. Why, because I got mail! I have an audience! It’s great to know that someone actually reads and thinks about what I write. I'm excited about the getting feedback on my writing. Imagine how students must feel when they get feedback on their writing. They have to be excited and motivated to write more. Just ask the teachers who are publishing their students’ work on the web. (I list just a few in a previous post.) My simple reaction to getting mail is why I think authentic audience is so important to our students.
I’m not a good writer. I struggle to have my sentences fit together and make sense. I am a terrible speller and really think I have a mild for of dyslexia. I can spell a word correctly and then type in incorrectly. My mind doesn’t react to the misspelling. My mind also races ahead of what I’m writing. This results in poor or malformed sentences and paragraphs. I’m sharing this not because I want you to feel sorry for me, but to reinforce what can happen with on-line publishing. This blog is making me a better writer. I am thinking about what I want to write and spending time trying to craft what I want to say. If I’m lucky, I may write as well as some of the junior high students by the end of the school year.
An authentic audience has made a difference in my writing. You can make a difference with your students by helping them publish their writing. They too can share the joy of getting feedback. Help spread the joy by joining other educators who have volunteered to give feedback to K-12 students on their writing. I have about 50 educators who are willing to spend fifteen minutes a month giving feedback to students. All you have to do is when a teacher request feedback for her/his students is to go to their blog and write two or three sentences about one students writing. If your busy that week you don’t have to give feedback, wait until the next request. To volunteer to give feedback to students, send an e-mail to info@visitmyclass.com and put feedback in the subject line. As part of the group you can also request feedback by sending an e-mail to the same address.
Bud over at Bud The Teacher did a podcast about the safety of students blogging and about teachers being honest about who they are and modeling good citizenship on their blogs. (I’m not doing his podcast justice. Go to his site and listen to it.) I agree with what Bud says, but I have other concerns as well. One of my fears about students publishing on-line is that the public will judge struggling writers and outstanding writers the same. I afraid that community members will be critical of writing errors or writing skills when a struggling writer publishes a piece of writing that is their best at that time. I hope we can all put away our red pencils long enough to value the struggle to become a writer. It takes brave teachers to open their classroom doors and share what their students are doing. The teacher knows that what their students write will reflect on them. My sincere thanks to all the brave teachers who are taking the risk and truly motivating their students to become better writers. Thank you.
jim