Kathleen West’s research question is:
“what is the nature of literary response via weblog,” which, as Ally points
out, seems like a hard thing to discern.
However, in grounding her examination of students’ socially situated identities in Gee’s framework, most of us agreed
that she was successful in determining how these newly constructed identities positively
influence students’ interactions with texts. Eric reminds us of the value of the data she pulls
out, noting that knowing students' assumptions about literature can help us in
unit design as well as in making why we approach literature the way we do more
explicit to students.
As
Tygue so eloquently puts it, literary response via weblog is both “normative and creative, thus representing an assignment where
technology enhances what we want our students
to do without eliminating the original academic purpose…(It enables students to
be) both "serious literature students" and "web-literate
communicators.” In this hybrid
genre, West finds her students making original arguments, interacting with
characters, and engaging in meta-cognition while simultaneously taking
advantage of the informality that “web-speak” allows.
As
a class, although we still can’t seem to move past our mixed feelings about
web-speak, we did agree that the change in participant structures—or remix, if
you will—that blogging affords is promising.
Remixed Participant Structures
Turns
out we all love Lucy, the student who
"never
participated in large-group discussions, [but] was a prolific blogger,
frequently writing more posts and more comments than I required"
(594). Ally was unequivocally pleased to read about the potential of
blogging to “provide students who do not participate
in class with an avenue to contribute to the discussion,” and for Sean, it was Lucy’s inclination
to comment on her peers’ posts that made her stand apart. This is an example not only of
re-constructed relationships with a texts, but with each other. Thoai, too, can see how blogging could
“lower the emotional stakes of failing,” and wonders whether it could really
encourage her own shy students to “Step up to the plate.” Arianna can also see the space blogging
could create for shy students, but once again wonders whether it would keep
them “in the shadows” during in-class discussions. To this, I think we would say: imagine a student who always
strives to remain in the shadows during in class discussion, no matter how hard
you work to include them. If
throwing blogging into the mix helps them find a space they’re comfortable in,
is that going to make them more shy in class? Probably, it will either boost their confidence in class
because they’ll be beginning to forge a new identity for themselves online that
they could translate to the classroom, or
it will have a neutral effect and it will be on us to continue trying to help
them find their voice in class.
Indeed, as Ally points out, blogs could
be a great way to “prep students for in-class discussions
as it gives them time to solidify their feelings before speaking.” I really identified with her
observation that:
Writing a personal blog as a reaction to a text gives each student a
chance to
have his/her own interaction (or transaction!) with the reading before
having to discuss it or hear other people's opinions. At least for me,
it
provides me with a deeper understanding of how I am interpreting the
text and what information jumps out at me.
When I
tried to go from reading the article directly to synthesizing your blogs, I
acutely felt the missing step of compiling my own thoughts first. As I was reading everyone’s blogs I
kept thinking, wait what was my opinion?
This synthesis would probably be much more coherent has I taken the time
to write my own reaction to the article first.
Do we think
that blogging actually has the capacity to participant structures?
To Standard English, or not to Standard English
At the heart of West’s research is the idea that the informality offered
by an online space—as well as the ability to forge a new identity in it—might,
as Sean put it, “enable students
to more naturally enter into conversation with the text.” I would agree with this, as I think it
defeats the purpose of a “fun/informal/novel/web-literate” assignment to then
enforce standard writing conventions.
Arianna points out, however, that “permitting” un-academic registers “might compromise the value of Standard English
conventions in the view of the students.”
I’d like to think that students are better able to compartmentalize than
that, but Sean raised an issue that I’ve noticed in my own classrooms as well. He pointed
out:
I find my students partaking in the very same
linguistic conventions in
their non-digital homework assignments and in-class
writings. Aside
from formal essays, the student writing I come across tends to be far
more informal that I remember…I wonder if the linguistic practices of the
internet are actually now informing their handwritten work and classroom
discourse.
Thoai
wonders if “teachers should only allow this ‘relaxed stance’ via internet
writing venues if they are confident that their students already have a strong
command of standard English grammar.”
On one hand, I think sounds logical, but also means that we would then
be depriving our students of lowered stakes, a sense of play, a forum for
constructing a new socially situated identity (and thus the promise of a new
attitude with which to approach a text), and web-speak expertise. As Tygue puts it:
Most students understand the informal social identity of a blogger
(perhaps easier than when we assign "low-stakes writing") and can be
more "playful" in this type of assignment… play [lowers] the
"emotional stakes of failing" which thus offers a place for students to grab onto the discourse who otherwise
might not have one. It represents a place to experiment and try
appropriating a new discourse, like we read about way back in the summer.
Informal
Language (including abbreviations and other web-speak conventions) seems to be
at the heart of West’s research.
Are we okay with that? Do
we want to push back? What about
Thoai’s suggestion? How good are students at compartmentalizing what
registers are appropriate for what situations?
Sense
of Audience
Sean, Tygue, and Ally also all noted the impact of a wide audience on
student engagement (even just the potential of one.) It is of course to her sense of audience that Lucy’s
blogging prowess is attributed. This
dialogic interaction, in my opinion, is what most sets these digital formats
apart from print-based ones. Even beyond this, though, Sean and Tygue are
agreed: “even the potential for …puts the author in a different position with
respect to voice, tone, claim, and intention” and “ can encourage students to engage in authentic
writing.”
So it’s the potential of public writing (and not writing for
classmates) that triggers authenticy and voice? I certainly don’t imagine a
broader audience for my blog. Am I lacking in adolescent idealism?
Critiques
and Further Questions
Thoai brought up several critiques,
writing that West’s data collection and presentation/analysis of said data was not “a good demonstration of how the blog form inspired students to
respond to literature in a way that would have been radically different from
traditional pencil and paper,” noting that it “might have been helpful was
to compare these blog responses to ‘traditional’ in-class, written responses…I
don’t feel that she has answered her own question: does blogging change the
nature of student’s responses to literature?”
In the same vein, Eric’s main criticism is that the article “didn't really show
students' growth throughout a unit or longer period of time from using blogs to
conduct literary analysis. West does a good job of proving that her students
indeed forged academic and online identities that resulted in deeper
engagements with the text and their peers' ideas, but it’s less clear what
kinds of skills and concepts they learned throughout the unit.
Sean, I
imagine, speaks for all of us in wanting to know WHY/HOW “Our trip to the computer lab to write and maintain weblogs (blogs)
became the highlight of the week for many of the students in my 11th-grade
American Literature class.” (588)
Is it the novelty? Something else? As Sean succinctly puts it, “In order to hope for such enthusiasm about a project,
I need to have a better understanding of what exactly fuels it.”
Last
Question: What about blogging would prompt a student who constructs an
apathetic identity in the classroom to create a different one online? (I didn’t really see the
difference between any of the focal students’ avowed socially situated identities
on- and off-line. Would Evan not,
for example, have showed the same “tempered rebel” identity in a written
response?)
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