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AI in College Writing

As the new semester begins, many faculty are again engaged in an ethical debate about the ways in which their students might use AI in their writing assignments, whether with explicit guidance and permission, or otherwise.

This past week, I was invited to join educational futurist Bryan Alexander and my colleague and collaborator Daniel Ernst as we discussed a number of ideas related to AI and the teaching of writing at the college level. It was a robust discussion, and I encourage you to view the Future Trends Forum recording here.

Over the past few months — as I have been trying to refine my own thinking on AI and writing through blogging, facilitating workshops and webinars, beginning a new book project with my colleague and co-author Kristen Hawley Turner, and reviewing the transcripts of our focus group interviews from the project Daniel and I have been working on — I have begun to summarize the ways in which my colleagues are describing their use of AI in writing instruction in the following manner.

In short, I am hearing educators talk about and seeing ways that AI can serve 1) as a thinking partner, 2) as a research assistant, and 3) as a co-writer. This is an imperfect list, of course, as the tools continue to change. Yet, as 2024 begins and the range of functions available in generative AI writing tools seems to be settling into a few categories, I share some initial thinking on them here.

AI as Thinking Partner

With the many AI tools that students can use as conversational partners (e.g., ChatGPT, Bing, Bard), I wonder how we can encourage them to engage with the AI as a thinking partner, much the same way we would during a writing conference (or encourage them to interact with peers to share ideas and give feedback). How might we encourage students not to simply ask the chatbot to write an essay or story for them, and instead to prompt it for the kinds of feedback that could further their own writing?

For instance, when prompting ChatGPT in this manner — “Given recent weather patterns, I am getting more worried about changes to our environment, and I am working on an argumentative essay on climate change. What are some questions that could help get me started as I think about specific topics to cover in my essay related to sea level change, heat waves, and forest fires?” — it provided me with a decent list of questions that could lead my writing in additional directions.

Similarly, Bard’s Copilot (which I have access to through my institution’s Microsoft license) generated some questions, though perhaps not as nuanced as ChatGPT’s. As just one example, Chat GPT generated “How has the global sea level changed over the past few decades, and what are the primary contributors to this change?” whereas Copilot asked two separate questions “What are the primary causes of sea level change?” and “What are some of the most significant sea level changes observed in the last decade?”

Even having students compare the outputs of these AI tools could be useful, looking at the depth and nuance evident in the questions, and thinking about which set of questions would lead to more substantive, engaging writing. Even if just being used to prompt thinking, encouraging students to use the AI chat tools as a way to develop new inquiry questions is one way to engage with AI as a thinking partner.

Of note, both ChatGPT and Bing provided a similar set of caveats at the end of their output, which are somewhat helpful reminders (if followed by additional instruction and coaching). Here is ChatGPT’s:

“Considering these questions can help you delve into specific aspects of each topic and provide a well-rounded perspective in your argumentative essay on climate change. Remember to back your arguments with credible sources and evidence to strengthen your case.”

ChatGPT Output

On a related note, Paul Allison has been doing a good deal of work to integrate specific GPTs for feedback and scaffolding thinking in NowComment. This is certainly a tool that is worth exploring as we help students engage in substantive dialogue around texts, images, and videos, all supported by scaffolded thinking via GPTs that are customized to specific academic tasks.

AI as Research Assistant

As tools Perplexity, Bing, and Bard continue to integrate sources into the AI output and fight many of the fears about hallucinations and misinformation that have been part of the AI conversation since the fall of 2022, I have begun to wonder what this means for students in their efforts to critically evaluate online sources. In this sense, the AI output itself is one source, as well as the additional sources that are referenced in these outputs.

For instance, in a search for “What is climate change?” via Perplexity, it yielded links to six additional sources in the first sentence, with a total of eight different sources for the article. It produced a clear, concise summary and prompted additional questions that the user could click on and explore. By comparison, a Google search of the same question (and, yes, I know that we aren’t supposed to ask Google questions, yet it is clear that many people do), provided a list of sources and a summary panel from the United Nations.

Of note, it is interesting to see that Perplexity’s sources (UN, two from NASA, World Bank, NRDC, NatGeo, Wikipedia, and BBC, in that order ) are similar to, though not exactly the same as Google’s output in the top ten hits, for me at least: UN, NASA, World Bank, NASA Climate Kids, BBC, NatGeo, US EPA, NASA, Wikipedia, and NRDC, in that order. This, of course, could lead to some great conversations about lateral reading, tracking of user data across the web and privacy, and the ways in which different tools (traditional search as compared to AI-powered search) function.

Moreover, as we begin to see AI embedded directly in word processing tools, this research process will become even more seamless. And, as described in the section below, we will also want to begin thinking about when, why, and how we ask students to engage with AI as a co-writer, relying on the research it has provided to craft our own arguments.

AI as Co-Writer

Finally, the aspect of AI in English language arts instruction that I think is still causing most of us to question both what we do, as teachers, and why we do it, is this idea that AI will take over anything from a small portion to a large degree of our students’ writing process. In addition to the initial fear of rampant, outright cheating and how to catch plagiarists, in conversations with my colleague Pearl Ratunil of Harper College, we are trying to understand more about how AI cuts to the core of who we are as teachers of writing. Teaching writing, in this sense, is deeply emotional work, as we invest time and energy into the success of individual writers, providing them with coaching and feedback. To think, feel, or actually know that they have undermined our efforts at relationship-building, let along teaching specific skills that are then outsourced to AI is, well, deeply saddening.

Yet, back to the main idea here of AI as co-writer. The tools are here, becoming more and more integrated and our student will continue to have access to and use them in their day-to-day writing tasks. I learned about another new-to-me tool the other day, Lex, and that is on my agenda to explore in the weeks ahead. Add that to the list of many tools I keep exploring like Rytr, Wordtune, Quillbot, and more. Lex claims that “With Lex’s built-in AI, the first draft process becomes a joy. No more switching back and forth between ChatGPT and Google Docs,” so that will be interesting to see.

More than simply an auto-complete, these tools do have the capability to help students explore genre and tone, adjusting messages to different audiences based on needs for style and clarity. Just as we would want students to be capable writers using other tools that they have available to them — both technical tools like spelling and grammar checks, as well as intellectual tools like mentor texts and sentence templates — we need to help them make wise, informed decisions about when, why, and how AI can help them as writers (and when to rely on their own instincts, word choice, and voice).

As Kristen Turner and I work on the book this year, I will be curious to see how some of these tools perform to help support different, specific writing skills (e.g., developing a claim or adding evidence). My sense so far is that AI can still help produce generic words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, and that it will take a skilled writer (and teacher) to help students understand what they need to revise and refine in the process of writing.

Closing Notes

In my “welcome back” email to faculty this week, I shared the following as it relates to academic integrity issues.


Having had conversations about this with a few of you last fall – and knowing that a few of you dealt with cases of potential AI dishonesty – as we begin this semester, it is worth revisiting any policies that you have in your syllabus related to academic honesty and AI. It is no surprise that I am still, generally, an advocate for AI (with some guardrails), as our own students will need to know how to use it in their professional communication, lesson planning, and in teaching their own students to use AI tools. 

In addition to the many resources on the CIS AI website, one that they have listed is from Dr. Christopher Heard of Pepperdine/Seaver College, who used Twine to create an interactive where you can create a draft of syllabus language that is then free to use and remix because it is in the public domain. This tool could be a useful start, and I would also encourage you to read recent research on the ways that AI plagiarism detection tools are, or are not, doing so well at the task, and that many are biased toward our multilingual learners, the use of AI detection is perhaps dwindling, as some universities are simply abandoning the tools altogether. If we do plan to use plagiarism detection tools at all in our classes, then we need to follow best practices in scaffolding the use of such tools and making students aware of our intentions.  

Finally, consider this student’s perspective in an op-ed for CNN, who encouraged teachers in this manner:  

“We can be taught how to make effective prompts to elicit helpful feedback, ideas and writing. Imagine the educational benefits students can gain by incorporating AI in the classroom, thoughtfully and strategically.”  

Sidhi Dhanda, September 16, 2023

As we focus more intently this semester on core teaching practices, I will be curious to see where the conversations about the use of AI intersect with our goal to prepare the next generation of teachers.  


Throughout it all — as I keep thinking about AI in the role of Thinking Partner, Research Assistant, and Co-Writer — 2024 promises to be another year dominated by the conversations around AI. In the next few weeks, I have at least three professional development/conference sessions on the topic, and I am sure that we will revisit it during our upcoming MediaEd Institute and summer workshops with the Chippewa River Writing Project, as well as the faculty learning community I am participating in at CMU.

In what ways are you rethinking the teaching of writing in 2024 with the use of generative AI writing tools?


Photo by Aman Upadhyay on Unsplash.

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Reflecting on the Many Opportunities to Share in 2023

This past year has allowed me many chances to share updates and ideas related to digital literacy learning, both in my academic writing as well as through regular presentations, workshops, and webinars.

Yet, there were also an unusual number of opportunities to speak with journalists, bloggers, podcasts, and others about topics (mostly, of course, AI), that I have finally updated on my media page and in the list below.

As always, I am grateful for the opportunity to connect and collaborate with colleagues and students around the country and the world, and I look forward to yet another conversation later this week with my co-author Daniel Ernst on Bryan Alexander’s Future Trends Forum.

For now, here is the run down of 2023’s media mentions, with best wishes to all for a great start to 2024.


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Adding to the AI Conversation, Critically and Creatively

Futuristic 3D Render of a brain and computer circuits. Image created by Steve Johnson on Unsplash.

For the past few months, AI has dominated the conversation in education circles, and oftentimes with only minimal attention to a critical nor creative perspective on how these tools will affect our students — and us — as readers, writers, and designers.

As I’ve interacted with hundreds of educators in webinars, workshops, and conference presentations — as well as through media mentions here, here, and here, a presentation to CMU’s Board of Trustees, and by writing an openly-available co-authored book chapter and collaboratively composed article — and I have been reassured that the initial feelings of moral panic are subsiding, at least a little bit, and we are now moving into conversations that are more focused on critical and creative approaches to AI.

Tonight, I will be presenting on the topic to CEL colleagues:

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In the past few months, I’ve continued to follow blog posts from The Civics of Technology group, especially this recent one on “Here are “101 Creative Uses of AI in Education.” Are They Truly Creative?” Also, I was invited to provide feedback on the MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI report. In it, they contend that we must “[c]enter the continued teaching and learning of writing on writers and the inherent value that writing has as a mode of learning, exploration, and literacy development for all writers” (p. 10), and I agree.

My colleague, Daniel Ernst, and I also got a strong response to our survey from last winter, and conducted focus groups from writing instructors and program administrators later in the spring. We continue to work on that, and plan to present some of our findings at CCCC in April 2024.

At a recent conference, I was able to meet three teachers who are integrating AI in intentional ways including Irina McGrath and Michelle Shory, who have written about AI for ELLs, and host the website ELL2.0, as well as Eva Mireles, host of The Reading Teacher’s Playbook podcast. There were many thoughtful ideas, comments, and questions that emerged from this panel discussion, especially as it related to bringing equitable practices with AI to ELLs.

Recently, I was able to talk to my long-time NWP colleagues, Paul Allison (who is working to integrate AI into both Youth Voices and Now Comment) as well as Kristen Turner (who is hosting a symposium on AI). I am also working with colleagues from the Media Education Lab, Renee Hobbs and Yonty Friesem, to plan for a fully online, mid-winter professional learning opportunity, and I am sure that AI will be a key theme.

Finally, this past week, I joined a CMU Faculty Learning Community focused on equity in AI, and we began asking our own technoskeptical questions, in the spirit of The Civics of Technology’s curriculum, including:

  • Given the existing concerns about the racial, gender, and other biases that exist in large language models and other generative AI related to art, video, music, and more, is there a way to ethically code AI in a way that it will not hurt individuals, communities, and cultures?
  • What is the “ethic” that any AI bot, built by any particular organization or business, will bring to a task? What are the underlying perspectives, intended or embedded, that will guide the development and use of that AI?
  • When, how, and why do we want to bring AI into our classrooms for our students as it reflects the growing use of AI in our disciplines? What does it look like to “grow alongside” AI? How do we help students feel powerful with one another, and with AI?
  • What are the additional skills that we need to teach students so they can use AI in flexible, dynamic ways? What do they need to understand about “prompt engineering,” as well as the affordances and limitations of particular AI tools?
  • Historically, when we have these new technologies like AI, what happens to them, over time? What are the intended and unintended consequences that they bring, and how might we plan for (and even work to mitigate) those consequences?

As I continue my own work on AI, especially in writing instruction, and collaborate with K-12 and higher education colleagues, I look forward to a productive fall semester and many more conversations at NCTE and LRA in November.

In what ways are you integrating AI into your instructional practice as you prepare lessons, model for students during instruction, and provide feedback?


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Survey Invitation: Perceptions of AI Writing Tools in the College Composition Classroom

As AI tools becomes more common and stakeholders in the higher education community are both interested in — and concerned about — their use, we invite instructors to share your insights on the role of AI in writing instruction in this survey.

We are seeking input from college composition instructors, writing program administrators, writing center consultants, and others who are interested in the teaching of writing in higher education.

As artificial intelligence (AI) programs are becoming more common and stakeholders in the higher education community become more interested in — as well as concerned about — their use by students, we are inviting you to participate in this survey to share your insights and opinions on the role of AI in writing instruction.

Also, if you are interested, we would welcome you to share your contact information for a potential focus group interview in May or June of 2023.

To read the consent form and begin the survey, please click here or copy and paste the URL into a separate window.

https://cmich.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2tJMDOyzeiFZXZs

The survey will be open until March 31, 2023, at midnight (11:59 PM) Eastern time.

Please feel free to share this invitation with others in your professional network. 

Questions? Please reach out:

Dr. Daniel Ernst, Texas Women’s University, dernst@twu.edu

Dr. Troy Hicks, Central Michigan University, hicks1tw@cmich.edu

Podcast Episode: Conceptually Speaking

With thanks to Trevor Aleo for the opportunity to think through some new ideas related to new literacies and teaching digital literacies, please enjoy this recent episode of “Conceptually Speaking.”

With thanks to Trevor Aleo for the opportunity to think through some new ideas related to new literacies and teaching digital literacies, please enjoy this recent episode of “Conceptually Speaking.” Here is the podcast description, from Trevor:

As melodramatic as it may seem, I’ll never forget the first time I encountered The New London Group’s A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. After an evening of mindless scrolling in the summer of 2016, I clicked on a fortuitous Facebook post from a fellow English teacher. As I read I became increasingly enraptured. It felt inspiring. It felt fresh. It felt innovative. I assumed it was cutting-edge research. Then I saw the publication date. 1996. Reading that publication date made it abundantly clear educational practice had fallen well behind educational scholarship. It’s a disconnect I notice more and more as I move through my own dissertation. It’s also a lament shared by my esteemed guests. This week I was joined by Dr. Troy Hicks professor of English and Education at Central Michigan University and the Director of the Chippewa River Writing Project and his co-author, Dr. Kristen Hawley Turner: Professor of education at Drew University and director of the Drew Writing Project. Our discussion is coming hot on the heels of their recent publication Digital Literacy (Still) Can’t Wait: Four Questions to Reframe the Conversation around Technology in the English Classrooma follow-up to their 2013 publication No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t WaitThough I’m sure they wish such clarion calls weren’t still necessary, I’m thankful for scholars like them who continue to fight the good fight to bring powerful ideas to practitioners and pose poignant questions about how we use technology in our classrooms. Whether you’re a techno-skeptic or ed-tech enthusiast, Kristen and Troy’s four questions are an invitation for us to use technology in more transformative ways. Enjoy!
Resources:
An Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition
Dr. Troy Hicks’ Twitter
Dr. Kristen Turner’s Twitter

Trevor Aleo, Conceptually Speaking

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Pivoting the Conversation on AI in Writing

As ChatGPT has heralded the “death of the college essay” and “the end of high school English, we could be well served to lean into the idea that we need to both rethink our writing assignments and to invite our students to “cheat” on them.

So, I am clearly coming to the conversation on AI a bit late.

As ChatGPT has heralded the “death of the college essay” and “the end of high school English” — and as we see both combative and generative approaches to the role of AI in writing instruction — I might be adding this blog post a bit behind the curve (though I was honored to be interviewed for a story about AI in writing this past week, published in Bridge Michigan).

Of course, I think that this is really the beginning of a much longer conversation that we are going to have about the role of technology and the ways in which we might approach it. So, it is not so much as I am late to the conversation, as it is that I am hoping we move it in a different direction.

Others in academia and beyond are, to be clear, already calling for this pivot, so I am not the first on this count either.

Still, I want to echo it here. Paul Fyfe, Director of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities at NCSU, describes a compelling approach in a recent quote from Inside Higher Ed:

For the past few semesters, I’ve given students assignments to “cheat” on their final papers with text-generating software. In doing so, most students learn—often to their surprise—as much about the limits of these technologies as their seemingly revolutionary potential. Some come away quite critical of AI, believing more firmly in their own voices. Others grow curious about how to adapt these tools for different goals or about professional or educational domains they could impact. Few believe they can or should push a button

Paul Fyfe, associate professor of English and director of the graduate certificate in digital humanities, North Carolina State University (cited from Inside Higher Ed)

Like Fyfe, I too lean into the idea that we need to both rethink our writing assignments and to invite our students to “cheat” on them. AI can be used for idea generation (and refinement), and it can also be used as a way for us to reconsider genre and style. For instance, I continue to be intrigued by the options offered in Rytr, in particular, as it allows us to choose:

  • Tone, including options such as “compassionate,” “thoughtful,” and “worried.”
  • “Use case” or style, including options such as “blog idea and outline,” “email,” and “call to action.”
  • The option to produce up to three variants, with differing levels of “creativity.”

The screenshot below shows the Rytr interface, and the ways that these options can be easily chosen from dropdown menus before a writer enters their keywords and was Ryter use its AI abilities to, well, “ryt” for them.

Unlike the input interface of ChatGPT and other AI writing tools (which, to their credit, allows for natural language input for “write in the style of” including pirates and the King James Bible), the interface for Rytr is prompting me to consider a variety of contextual factors.

As a writer and teacher of writing, this set of choices available in Rytr fascinates me.

Screenshot from the AI writing tool, Rytr, showing the input interface with options for "tone," "use case," "variants," and "creativity level."
Screenshot from the input interface of Rytr (January 21, 2023).

Just as the “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” invites student to engage in a variety of “habits of mind” such as “curiosity” and “flexibility,” I think that that AI writing tools, too, can give us opportunities to engage our students in productive conversations and activities as they create AI output (and re-create that output through a collaborative co-authoring with the AI).

Also, I think that we need to ask some serious questions about the design of our writing assignments.

When the vast majority of writing assignments have, well, already been written about and replied to (see: any essay writing mill, ever), we need to consider what it is that really constitutes a strong writing assignment — as well as the various audiences, positions, time frames, research sources, and alternative genres (Gardner, 2011) — in order to design meaningful tasks for our students that tools like ChatGPT will be, if not unable to answer, at least unable to answer as well as our students could through their knowledge of the content, their ability to integrate meaningful citations, and their writerly creativity.

From there, I am also reminded of NWP’s “Writing Assignment Framework and Overview,” which also suggests that we must design our assignments as one component of instruction, with reflective questions that we must ask (p. 4 in PDF):

What do I want my students to learn from this assignment? For whom are they writing and for what purpose? What do I think the final product should look like? What processes will help the students? How do I teach and communicate with the students about these matters?

National Writing Project’s “Writing Assignment Framework and Overview

As we consider these questions, we might better be able to plan for the kind of instruction and modeling we may offer our students (likely using AI writing tools in the process) as well as thinking about how they might help define their own audiences, purposes, and genres. With that, we might also consider how traditional writing tasks could be coupled with multimodal components, inviting students to compose across text, image, video, and other media in order to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways.

If we continue to explore these options in our assignment design — and welcome students to work with us to choose elements of their writing tasks — it is likely that they will develop the kinds of intentional, deliberate stance toward their own work as writers.

They can, as the Framework implies, “approach learning from an active stance” (p. 4) and “be well positioned to meet the writing challenges in the full spectrum of academic courses and later in their careers” (p. 2). As the oft-mentioned idea in education goes, we need to prepare our students for jobs that have not been invented yet, and AI writing tools are likely to play a part in their work.

All that said, I don’t know that I have answers.

Yet, I hope we continue to ask questions, and will do so again soon. To that end, I welcome you to join me and my colleague Dan Lawson for a workshop on this topic, described in the paragraphs below.


Since its launch in late November of 2022, ChatGPT has brought an already simmering debate about the use of AI in writing to the public’s attention. Now, as school districts and higher education institutions are deciding what to do with next steps, as writing teachers, we wonder: how can educators, across grades levels and disciplines, explore the use of AI writing in their classrooms as a tool for idea generation, rhetorical analysis, and, perhaps, as a “co-authoring” tool? Moreover, how do we adapt our assignments and instruction to help students bring a critical perspective to their use of AI writing tools? 

As I try to explore this a bit more, please join Dan Lawson and me on Thursday, February 2nd from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. for a hyflex workshop (in person at CMU or online via WebEx) on revising writing assignments to better facilitate authentic learning goals. Please bring an assignment sheet for a current writing assignment. We will use AI writing applications to consider how best to revise those assignments and adapt our instruction for this changing context.

Register here

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Invitation to an Inquiry: Intentional Integration of Digital Literacies into an ELA Lesson

My colleague Kristen Hawley Turner and I have been thinking about the integration of technologies into instruction, specifically toward the development of digital literacies, for a long time, and we are looking for collaborators for our next project.

My colleague Kristen Hawley Turner and I have been thinking about the integration of technologies into instruction, specifically toward the development of digital literacies, for a long time, and we are looking for collaborators for our next project. 

Recently, we were fortunate enough to have an article published in English Journal, “Digital Literacy (Still) Can’t Wait: Renewing and Reframing the Conversation,” which was a follow-up to our 2013 piece, “No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait.” We are also fortunate to know that many of you have used one or both of these pieces in your own work and methods courses, and for that we thank you!

Now, we are looking ahead to what’s next. Here is something we want to try in 2023 with like-minded colleagues. 

Here is the ask of you as potential collaborators:

  • In the next few weeks, read the 2022 article and share some initial ideas in the NWP Studio (if you need an invitation, please let us know) about the four framing questions that we use to think about integrating digital literacies:
    • How do I foster communication between my students?
    • How do I allow for accountable collaboration?
    • How will my students use digital tools to create, consume, critique and think?
    • How will my students revisit, revise, and reflect on their thinking and growth?
  • During the winter/spring of 2023, take one “tried and true” lesson in your repertoire and consider new ways to more intentionally integrate a digital literacy component.
    • This lesson can be a face-to-face or online lesson. 
    • The important part is that you rethink the ways in which technology tools could be used to help students develop skills of consumption, curation, creation, collaboration and/or connection while engaging with ELA content.
  • As you experiment, join in this conversation in the NWP Teacher Studio so we can have an on-going discussion about this amongst colleagues. 
  • If there is interest among the group, we may also host a few Zoom meetings to share and think together, but that will come later on. 

Where is all of this going? Well, we aren’t entirely sure, but that’s OK! We are planning, at minimum, to organize a roundtable session proposal for NCTE 2023 in Columbus, OH and then take the conversation from there. The NCTE proposal is due January 18, and we will do the heavy lifting of getting the proposal written and submitted.

So, interested in joining us as we think about the intentional integration of digital literacies? 

In addition to leaving a comment here, please take a moment to complete this brief Google form by January 11, 2023, so we can learn a bit more about you and what you might like to do in this collaboration. We will then work quickly from January 9th to 18th to get our proposal together. 

The form asks you to share some basic contact info, a bit about your teaching context, and thoughts on the lesson you are thinking about “rethinking” with digital literacies (2-3 sentence description).

Again, we would appreciate it if you could share your interest by Wednesday, January 11, 2023, and we will be back in touch soon after.

Thanks,

Kristen and Troy

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Announcing “Human/Nature: An Exploration of Place, Stories, and Climate Futurism”

As a grant-funded workshop for K-12 teachers sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, apply for our event in summer of 2023: “Human/Nature: An Exploration of Place, Stories, and Climate Futurisms.”

As a grant-funded workshop for K-12 teachers sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, I am pleased to share that I am part of the leadership team that will welcome teachers to northern California in the summer of 2023 for our event, “Human/Nature: An Exploration of Place, Stories, and Climate Futurism.”

From our project website, the summary of the workshop is quoted here:

“Human/Nature: An Exploration of Place, Stories, and Climate Futurism” is a combined format 3-week summer institute sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. With in-person and virtual convenings for 25 English teachers of grades 6-12, the institute will be held virtually from April 10 to June 10, 2023, and in-person from June 12-23, 2023, on Sonoma State University’s campus as well as through field trips to various locations in northern California, and again virtually from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024.

Climatefuturisms.com

Applications opened on December 1st, 2022 and will remain open until March 3, 2023.

We will ask participants for some basic contact info and teaching history, and will also ask them to complete a brief essay with the following prompts.

Written Response Prompts

Part one. In the first part of your response (approximately 300-450 words), offer insights on ONE of the following:

  • If a colleague were to describe your classroom, what would they tell us about in terms of sights, sounds, and activities? In what ways do you engage students in literary analysis, active learning, and creative expression?
  • Share an example of something you have been a part of, inside a school or in your community, in which you demonstrated qualities of leadership. In what ways were you able to listen closely, invite others to collaborate, and lead them to an actionable outcome? 
  • As it relates to the themes and topics of this institute (“human/nature” and climate futurism), can you share a memorable anecdote from your life that will give us a further sense of what makes you want to be part of this work? What has this experience taught you and how would it inform your work in our institute as we critically examine dystopian literature and engage in action planning?

Part two. In the second part of your response (approximately 200-350 words), please briefly share your current work and/or future interests in the following:

  • young adult literature and climate fiction, or “cli fi”
  • digital and media literacies
  • place-based education
  • participating in a sustained professional learning experience, both online and onsite your potential for creativity, innovation, and engagement

Questions? Please contact our project director, Dr. Fawn Canady.


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Follow-Up from “Fitting In, Standing Out, and Building an Identity: Middle Schoolers and Media Literacy”

As we consider the ways in which we might invite our middle school learners to bring their digital literacy practices into the classroom, we then went into a structured breakout room conversation that imagined what four fictionalized students could be creating — fan fiction, gaming, Tik Tok-style videos, and vlogs via YouTube — and how these practices might inform other academic work that they could do.

On November 30, 2022, I was invited to present “Fitting In, Standing Out, and Building an Identity: Middle Schoolers and Media Literacy” for the Media Education Lab’s on-going series, Media Literacy Across the Generations.

As the session unfolded and participants added their ideas, I appreciated the ways in which our initial chat conversation brought about a list of “verbs” in which middle school students might engage, including:

  • Being Curious
  • Being Entertained
  • Connecting
  • Copying
  • Creating
  • Dancing
  • Emulating
  • Entertaining
  • Making Friends
  • Participating
  • Playing
  • Recreating
  • Relaxing
  • Scrolling
  • Sharing
  • Showcasing
  • Watching

As we consider the ways in which we might invite our middle school learners to bring their digital literacy practices into the classroom, we then went into a structured breakout room conversation that imagined what four fictionalized students could be creating — fan fiction, gaming, Tik Tok-style videos, and vlogs via YouTube — and how these practices might inform other academic work that they could do. Here are the session slides with embedded links to resources, the “view only” digital handout, and the recording embedded below.

Feel free to repurpose these materials for your own professional development sessions or contact me if you would like to talk about workshop and webinar opportunities.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Session Resources from NCTE 2022

NCTE 2022 in Anaheim was a wonderful gathering, back face-to-face after two years of virtual learning necessitated by the pandemic. And, as anyone who has been with me at NCTE knows, over the years, I have tried many methods for keeping slides, handouts, and links from presentations, webinars, and workshops organized.

NCTE 2022 in Anaheim was a wonderful gathering, back face-to-face after two years of virtual learning necessitated by the pandemic. And, as anyone who has been with me at NCTE knows, over the years I have tried many methods for keeping slides, handouts, and links from presentations, webinars, and workshops organized.

And — after using wikis, social bookmarking tools, collaborative boards, QR codes, shortened URLs, and more — I will, of course, keep experimenting with new, digitally-mediated ways to share during sessions. However, a few technical glitches reminded me that, yes, sometimes simply having a website with a list of links is important.

To that end, here is a concise list of the sessions I was involved with at NCTE 2022.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.