Creating Learning Communities Among College and Secondary Writing Students

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Creating Learning Communities Among College and
Secondary Writing Students

• CTL Winter Conference -- Realizing Student
  Potential
• Minneapolis Community and Technical College
  February 27, 2003

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Presenter contact information

• Sharon Scholze, Instructor
• Winona State University
• Dept. of English
• Email address --sscholze_at_winona.edu
• B,S. Secondary Education English and Social
  Studies Broad field
• M.A. American Studies
• WI Teaching Certification 7-12 English, Social
  Studies, History, Political Science
  Anthropology

• Jon Aspenson
• Holmen High School
• Language Arts Instructor
• Email address -- aspjon_at_mail.holmen.k12.wi.us
• B.A. Secondary Education, English
• M.A. Professional Education
• WI Teaching Certification 7-12
• English, Language Arts

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What will I learn from this presentation?

• How the Collaboration was designed to assist
  students to meet the course outcomes of the
  courses involved
• What activities were used in the course design
• The Instructors goals for the collaboration
• Student participants perceptions and reactions to
  the collaboration
• Possible ways to create college/high school (or
  college/tech school) collaborations

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WSU ENG 111 College Reading and Writing-- Course
Purpose Outcomes

• Increase writers critical reading, thinking and
  writing skills.
• Help writers develop a mature writing style that
  responds to specific audiences

• Assist writers to develop their ability to
  integrate material from multiple sources within
  their own writing
• Emphasize that writing is essential to academic
  learning and intellectual development.

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HHS Language 9/ Shakespeare Outcomes Purposes

• Develop students ability to write clearly and
  effectively
• Develop students critical reading, thinking
  and writing skills through analyzing short
  stories
• Develop and improve research/writing skills

• Develop a deeper and more understanding of
  William Shakespeares works and how they continue
  to reflect and influence our world.
• Develop keener insight into the human condition
  and its motivations, passions, etc.
• Improve all the skills listed in Language 9.

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Instructors Goals . as Educators

• To collaborate with a teaching peer on an
  innovative project.
• To increase our awareness and expertise in
  technology.
• To have fun.
• To communicate with our students via another
  format responsive threads
• To inspire other colleagues on the benefits of
  College/Secondary collaborative projects.
• To technology as a vehicle for learning
• To have students improve and expand upon their
  writing skills and increase the lines of
  communication skills between students and their
  peers.

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Obstacles and Solutions

• Time differences
• HHS class times -- 740 am - 245
• WSU ENG 111 class times --
• MW 2-3 pm F 1-3 pm
• MW 4-545 pm
• T/TH 330-515 pm
• Technological Differences
• WSU Blackboard requires WSU registered usernames,
  etc.
• HHS students do not have District assigned email
  accounts
• Collaborative Designers unfamiliarity with
  technological design

• Solutions
• Resort to discussion threads that are accessible
  via a website
• Take advantage of the free website offered by
  McGrawHill called -- www. Pageout.net
• Learn as we go -- ask for student participant
  feedback as we go.
• When in doubt -- punt.
• Maintain ones sense of humor
• Prayer

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Website Overviewwww. srsjacollab.pageout.net

• McGrawHill provides a detailed help page and step
  by step instructions, (which are also printable).
• When to activate/deactivate the website is under
  the instructors control
• The instructors must register students and
  provide a username-- for example srsjacollab702
  (shorter usernames will speed up the registration
  process)
• Using the Discussion thread is the simplest
  portion of the website to get the collaborative
  project off the ground.
• McGrawHill does deliver on its promise to reply
  promptly to email questions.
• Limitation -- only 30 users can participate in a
  discussion thread simultaneously.

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How was the WSU/HHS Collaborative project
designed?
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Answer Discussion
brainstorming WSU student imput
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WSU student input for creating a collaborative
learning community

• Discussion board (they can send questions and we
  can reply)
• Read the same stories and discuss via email
• Become pen pals
• Be their writing mentors
• Do an assignment together based on the same topic
• Joint papers
• Assignment exchanges
• Share our writings
• Peer editing conferences

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Collaborative Assignment One

• A website discussion thread where students are
  asked to write a simile (a comparison using like
  or as) to describe their thoughts about writing.
• Goal--
• Have a small assignment that tested the
  discussion thread and while serving as a creative
  introduction to student participants opinions
  about writing.
• Language 9 students also applied a concept used
  in class.

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Collaborative Assignment 2

• Joint Short Story/Video Assignment Selected
  works
• Blish, James. The City on the Edge of Forever.
  Adaptation of City on the Edge of Forever by
  Harlan Ellison. Star Trek The Classic Episodes 1.
  New York Bantam Books, 1991. 609-626.
• Ellison, Harlan. The City on the Edge of
  Forever.
• Star Trek. Paramount Pictures, 1967?.
• Hoyt, Sarah A. and Rebecca Lickiss. If I Lose
  Thee. Star Trek Strange New Worlds III. Ed.
  Dean Wesley Smith. New York Pocket Books, 2000.
  3-23.
• Scott-Wieck, Mary. Disappearance on21st Street.
  Star Trek Strange New Worlds III. Ed. Dean
  Wesley Smith. New York Pocket Books, 2002. 3-10.

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Joint Short Story Website Discussion Threads

• City Literary Term Directions/Description--
• What literary term stands out to you in both the
  short story and television versions of City on
  the Edge of Forever? Explain.
• Your essay should adhere to the following
  criteria T.E.S.T. format, two transitions, use
  of the semi-colon, colon and dash, and the length
  should be seven to ten sentences long.

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Joint Short Story Website Discussion Threads

• City Should Kirk have Saved Edith?
• Should Kirk have saved Edith Keeler? That is the
  question. Criteria was the same as City
  Literary Terms threads
• City Which ending.
• Which ending do you prefer -- the short story or
  the television version? Why? Criteria was the
  same as City Literary Terms threads

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Joint Short Story Website Discussion Threads

• If I Lose Thee 1-- Directions/Description If
  you could use the Guardian of Forever for your
  own time travel journey, where would you go and
  with whom would you visit? Why? Use the
  following criteria for your answer T.E.S.T.
  format ten to fifteen sentences, four
  transitions, and use of the semi-colon, hyphen
  and dash.

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Joint Short Story Website Discussion Threads

• If I Lose Thee 2-- Directions/Description
• Discuss specific examples of how the two writers
  of If I Lose Thee brought the character of
  William Shakespeare to life in other words, What
  are some specific techniques that were used to
  develop his character (characterization) in this
  story? Hint Think of the following what Will
  said, what he did, and how he was described.
  Secondly, what allusions (references to famous
  people, places, things, ideas, etc.) to
  Shakespeares plays did the writers use in
  creating the setting of Elizabethan England?

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Student Participants Impressions-- Teachers
goals for the collaborative

• To teach the proper form of writing.
• For us to have fun.
• To interact with other students.
• To show us how other people write.
• To show us how fun writing could be.
• The goal was to get us to be creative and to
  interact with other students.
• The goal was to watch us and visualize how we
  would do in the real world with getting
  responses, good or bad, to what we write.

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Student Participants Impressions-- Teachers
goals for the collaborative (Cont.)

• The goal was that we could give our opinions and
  would be able to communicate in our world.
• To get us to have fun in writing while learning
  how to become better with technology.
• To give us a chance to use all the punctuation
  correctly.
• I think it was for him Mr. A. to see our
  creativity and see how we write and express
  ourselves.

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HHS Students Likes and Dislikes About the Project

• I like being able to communicate with others
  about our own writing and others.
• I liked everything about this, but we had to
  write a certain amount of essays, but we didnt
  have a lot of time to write, because it takes
  time to think about what to write.
• Too many threads.

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HHS Students Likes and Dislikes About the
Project (cont.)

• I liked the whole idea of it. I liked being
  able to express myself openly and being graded
  for the way I expressed myself. I think the only
  thing I didnt like was having to use the
  semi-colon
• Too many instructions.
• Too many things to write about.
• I didnt like that we had to have a certain
  amount of sentences.

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A collaborative request --

• Another HHS teacher, Kam-Lin Roswall would
  appreciate receiving any college/technical course
  syllabi instructors are willing to share. She
  would like to use them in order to model a
  typical college semester, schedule, assignments,
  expectations, etc. for her Language 11 students
  who are under the silly impression that college
  will be easier than their courses at HHS. Her
  Email address is -- roskam_at_mail.holmen.k12.wi.us.
  Thank you!

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Future plans .

• Assigning WSU English 111 students as writing
  mentors to both HHS Language 9 and Shakespeare
  students
• Joint reading and assignments/essays between
  English 111 and Shakespeare students centering on
  The Comedy of Errors.
• Developing Assessment plans.
• Brainstorming other ideas and mutual projects
  with the Language 9 students.

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In conclusion final thoughts

• As instructors would we try this collaborative
  project again?
• Answer Yes!

• A final student comment --
• It is an awesome project !