You Can Read Me Like a Blog

When I was in high school, my classes never had more than two computers for student use. We would take turns researching and typing up papers, missing a whole day's instruction. I remember hearing the frustration from each teacher as they complained about their spot on the library sign-up sheet--the only place where there were 30 computers compiled in one area.  They would send four or five of their most responsible students to search for spare computers; one or two would remain while the rest sulked back to the classroom.

In a town where computers were sparse and internet was barely existent, school became one of the only places where students could engage with "technology," yet as you've probably already guessed, my high school looked at education and technological advances as two separate commodities. In all classrooms, there is a need for these two entities to transform into a cohesive element, but as Henry Jenkins recognizes in his blog, Confession of an Aca-Fan, "teachers...talk[] about struggling to keep up with their students, about a lack of formal training to help them make the transitions being demanded, and about their fears of losing control over their classroom" (Jenkins). These are all real fears worth recognizing, and sometimes I feel the same way! That's why it's so hard to condemn my past teachers who shied away from the newly installed Smart-boards or those who blocked every website except the school's homepage. But now, we are living in a new age and "schools need to prepare young people to use these new resources creatively, effectively, and responsibly if they are going to prepare them for the lives they will lead in the 21st century" (Lacasa as quoted by Jenkins).

Teaching literature can seem especially challenging in this new age when you've already been given the books and you only need computers for typing up papers, right?

Preparing students for the 21st century entails much more than what a student can do on a computer. We want our students to relate to a text, but how are they going to make connections when all they can see are the words on the page? Teachers have to go beyond the context and give students the tools to read significantly. No, I don't mean you have to give every student a Kindle because that gesture alone will not help them, but the tasks given to the students should relate to their lives in today's world. The students need to experience and use those experiences to help guide their learning. As Beach, Thein, and Webb state in Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, "the fact that they have some say in framing an event in terms of their goals and plans means that they have some ownership in the success of an event" (Beach, Thein, & Webb 47). By first connecting an idea of the text to more modern issues, then students can involve themselves within the text and ultimately relate to the idea with multiple viewpoints that do not just stem from "what the teacher taught me."

Technology and literature actually have more in common than you might think.  I've always said Literature is synonymous to exploration. You explore the books and through them you explore yourself. Well guess what? Through technology we explore the world and through that exploration we explore ourselves by learning from others, gathering information, and creating an image of who we are for the world to see.  Technology and Literature long to be combined, so why force them to opposite corners of the room? By involving students in a relationship where the two commodities are combined, we are creating a new stance with which we can approach the world of literature.

In Nancy Bailey's The Importance of a New Literacies Stance in Teaching English Language Arts, she terms "a new literacies stance" as "the positioning taken up by a literacy teacher as she attempts to integrate new literacies into her curriculum," and she goes on to establish that "an effective new literacies stance, moreover, also calls for the development of an 'insider mindset'. That is, teachers must do the kind of thinking and doing that their students who are 'insiders' or 'digital natives' engage in regularly" (Bailey 56). Students have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts, and I bet you would think differently of them based on each one. How do I know this? Because I have all three as well and I post different content on each. Why? Because it depends on my audience... Wait. Isn't that something we try to teach our students while reading and writing? Yes it is.

Developing a new stance can be done, and this new stance combines nicely with the idea of Connected Learning in Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design. Schools should support students and give them the best tools available which means creating Connected Learning, "when a young person is able to pursue a personal interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults, and is in turn able to link this learning and interest to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement" (Ito, et al. 4). When students feel like their classroom is accepting them for who they actually are in today's world, then we create an environment much like a social media outlet--one where they can create, share, and explore!

I don't think students want to hate school, but without an environment they can relate to, they see no alternative. Even those who do good, do so because "they have to." Why not create an environment where students can be involved with their own learning? Let them use the tools they use at home. Let them hear about the issues that are affecting them right now. It's up to the teachers to create a relationship between technology and education, and as Pillar Lacasa states beautifully in her interview with Henry Jenkins, "it isn't about the computer replacing the book.  It is about a world where students learn with a book in one hand and a mouse in the other, rather than one where they are taught that book culture is so fragile it needs to be protected from the computer" (Lacasa as stated by Jenkins). 

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References

Bailey, Nancy M. “The Importance of a New Literacies Stance in Teaching English Language Arts.” Multimodal Composing in Classrooms: Learning and Teaching for the Digital World. Florence: Routledge.

Beach, Richard, et al. Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print.

Ito, Mizuko, et al. Connected Learning. January 2013. <http://dmlhub.net/publications/connected-learning-agenda-research-and-design&gt;

Jenkins, Henry. “Learning in a Participatory Culture: A Conversation About New Media and Education (Part One)” Confessions of an Aca-Fan – The Official WebLog of Henry Jenkins. 8 February 2010. Web. 23 August 2013.