A recent tweet by ShellTerrell (Shelly S. Terrell) in Germany alerted me to WordItOut, a similar service to Wordle.net. For fun, I decided to drop Control is an Absolute Good into both of them and see what happened. That particular blog entry came to mind after a Texas educator shared this story:

We have a teacher who just started a literature circles blog where her 5th graders will discuss various novels. She mentioned that she is in the process of figuring out how to edit (correct) what they have written before she posts their comments. What do you all think about this? She has encouraged her students – and stated in the rules for the blog – that they are to use correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. If they do not, should the teacher make corrections before she publishes their comments? I’d appreciate any input that you can offer. Thanks.

My response is contained in an April, 2009 blog entry, Control is an Absolute Good. What would such a response look like?

Then, here are the Wordle versions possible….

It’s obvious which is the winner. With one buttom–Randomize–I’m able to adjust colors and more on Wordle, but I have to hit two buttons on WordItOut and the results are as varied as Wordle.

For fun, though, compare my blog entry word clouds above with the word cloud created by the question by the Texas educator at the top of this blog entry…it forces one to ask, Who OWNS the writing done by the student? Student or teacher?

Based on the Word Clouds, it’s the teacher, which highlights a point that Scott Floyd makes in his response to the Texas educator:

Like Miguel, I’m a literacy teacher (but I’m not old 😉 ). I have extensive training in both New Jersey Writing and National Writing Project. I’ve studied just about every aspect of the writing process you can. While I can care less about state tests, I recall maybe one failure in the 7th grade writing test in my classes over a 10+ year career at that level.

All of that to say this: mistakes are an important part of the writing (learning) process. If we cannot let our kids make mistakes safely and learn from them, then we are not doing it correctly. Yes, spelling, grammar, and punctuation are important. No, they should not be the deciding factor between publishing or not. Mini lessons are meant to help in these such events. How do you fix the errors unless the kids recognize them themselves and buy-in to fixing them.

Agreed, we do not publish the street lingo stuff (unless it directly pertains to the final product for a reason, see this for example: http://sites.google.com/site/bchscivics/unit/2-3-birth-of-a-nation/john-adams—4 ).

Consider that textbook companies publish and sell (with your tax dollars footing the bill) textbooks that are loaded with mistakes. They make it a multi-billion dollar industry. We teach our kids from mistake laden books.

So, remind your teacher that it is okay to let the “kids run with scissors” (credit to Gretchen Bernabei on the quote). Our students publish all of the time. The great thing about a blog is that it allows for editing. We all love to think we are perfect the first time, but we’re not. If it is a genuine effort to reach the publishing stage, then we publish. Anything less is cheating the child out of a learning experience.

Quick anecdote. One of the first collaborative literacy tools we used in class was a wiki. The kids grouped up and studied certain topics to present to the class via the wiki. I subscribed to the wiki so that I would know what was happening on it. One Saturday night, my email box begins loading up with “edit” emails. Someone was messing around on the wiki and changing things left and right. My first thought was a kid was thinking they could mess stuff up without getting caught. So, I went to the wiki to check it all out. It ended up being an Asian ESL student who was correcting spelling and such for my American students…ON A SATURDAY NIGHT. You cannot get them to do it on command, but they’ll do it if they OWN it. He owned it. He realized the errors in the group’s ork. He edited it. We all learned from it (including the students who had their work corrected).

So, let them run with scissors.

Well-said, Scott! I am going to add the following:

If the emphasis is on teacher control of what gets published, then students don’t have ownership of their writing. This is wrong in so many ways according to recognized names in writing instruction, such as Donald Graves, Nanci Atwell, Luci Calkins. It’s why writing is a “dangerous” and “subversive” activity…and probably why some focus on grammar instruction rather than delving into the heart of student writing.

Subscribe to Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org

Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure