This blog showcases students' work they did at the beginning of the semester. I wanted students to immediately create ("make") something textual.
As it was our first lab session, I wanted to find a safe way for them to express themselves. I also wanted students, when they likely felt hyped about school, to find ways to keep themselves motivated when the going got tough.
As it was our first lab session, I wanted to find a safe way for them to express themselves. I also wanted students, when they likely felt hyped about school, to find ways to keep themselves motivated when the going got tough.
So I decided to hack the "make cycles" from The Writing Thief MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), a digital learning community devoted to investigating Ruth's Culham's The Writing Thief. Culham's text supports writing teachers who use mentor texts to model writing craft for their students. What better way to promote effective writing than to have developing writers observe, identify, and emulate the moves they encounter in the texts they read.
The "make cycles" are activities which . . . "encourage participants to interact with the text and with each other as we discuss and implement ideas for 'using mentor texts to teach the craft of writing'" (source). The digital sharing and feedback that comes from "MOOC-ing" also helps us experiment with "connected learning."
