What Now? Shifting Our Colleagues' Perceptions of Digital Writing

Though many teachers, including the authors in this collection, are incorporating digital writing tools and making significant changes in their instruction, too many other teachers are not. Based on the results of a Pew Internet and National Writing Project survey, this chapter explores six skills that a majority of writing teachers describe as “essential” or “important.” Building on the premise that all teachers want their students to learn these skills, this chapter describes strategies for how digital writing tools could be used in that capacity. With examples such as alternative search engines, creating a personal learning network, modeling the digital writing process, and understanding the dimensions of fair use, copyright, and citation, the chapter provides entry points for all teachers - even those unsure about why or how to use particular technologies - to begin teaching digital writing.

Pose/Wobble/Flow

This chapter examines how culture, technology, and standards intersect to create a complex environment for preservice teachers that shapes their understanding of how to teach composition. The authors draw on the cases of two undergraduate students engaged in immersive digital writing experiences to present a model called “Pose/Wobble/Flow.” This model attempts to capture the non-linear, recursive nature of teachers' professional growth by acknowledging and interrogating uncertainties, positionality, and cultural privilege. The authors recommend the creation of virtual and face-to-face communities of practice wherein preservice teachers can take up stances, or poses, toward their practice and reflect on areas in which they “wobble” with the intent of attaining provisional moments of progress in their teaching. They conclude that engaging preservice teachers in cycles of Pose/Wobble/Flow increases the likelihood that they will in turn construct learning experiences for their students that include robust opportunities for digital composing and interaction.

Composing Texts and Identities in an Alternative High School English Class

This chapter is drawn from a qualitative case study of one alternative high school English class, tracing students' engagement and resistance with digital media and school-based literacy practices, exploring how each student's use of literacy and digital media led to the formation of particular identities in the social sphere of the classroom. In this chapter the authors focus on two students, Callie--loud and socially dominant-- and Nina, quiet, reserved, outside the social circle. The authors trace the students' respective discursive practices in two composition units-- a multimodal children's book unit and a Theater of the Oppressed unit. The chapter argues that both young women have strong literacy skills and are strategic in using them, thereby creating particular identities as they produced texts.

A Historical Overview of Writing and Technology

This chapter discusses the history of writing and technology and offers an overview of the integration of advances in the use of technology in the writing classroom. The author has framed this overview by highlighting the importance of selecting the most appropriate tool for any instructional task. Grounded in the belief that writing is a key skill for students to master for success in the classroom and, more importantly, beyond the classroom, this chapter is designed to open a theoretical and practical dialogue between readers and this book about how to best theorize and enact meaningful writing instruction in the digital age.

Young Writers Create Digital E-Books Using Nooks

This chapter presents the details of a year-long qualitative study that investigates the literacy development of a diverse group of second graders as they engage in digital writing experiences at school using the Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader. Twenty students, including eleven English learners whose first languages were Spanish, French, and Korean, immersed themselves in reading e-books and then, wrote and narrated their own digital books using the available tools from the DrawWriteRead app and the Tikatoc.com Website. The findings reveal students developed a sense of agency while developing new literacies through interactions with others. The chapter begins with an introduction to the use of technology with diverse students. Next, an overview about the theory associated with digital and new literacies is discussed. The chapter continues with a review of current research studies focusing on digital writing with young students across a variety of contexts. Finally, this particular study is detailed through a description of the methodology, findings, and conclusions.

Multilingual, Multimodal Compositions in Technology-Mediated Hybrid Spaces

This chapter describes a series of integrated curricular invitations that sought to unsettle hierarchies of power by creating hybrid spaces that leverage students' cultural and linguistic resources in the form of multilingual community-based knowledge. The project involved participation from a total of 138 bilingual first graders in two dual language public elementary schools and was implemented, investigated, and revised over a two-year period. The curricular invitations were informed by a conceptual framework that brought together Nieto's (2009) elements of culture with theories of Expansive Learning. This dual framework assists us in articulating the theoretical underpinnings of each step of the proposed sequence. Teaching implications and future research directions are presented.

Writing to Learn

Research has shown that writing to learn can support discipline-specific learning and thought development. Traditional writing strategies such as essays and journaling have been found to have a positive impact on recall of information, concept analysis and application. However, interaction with readers is not immediate with these methods. An environment where writers can immediately adapt to their readers' feedback and become conversation partners for one another is the blogosphere. The purpose of this chapter is to describe how fifth-grade writers engaged in blog conversations with an audience beyond the classroom walls about their learning in language arts (LA) and social studies (SS) classes. The chapter also analyzes the ways in which feedback from the audience facilitated the fledgling writers' “learning to write and writing to learn.”

The Integration of Digital Tools during Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction

The purpose of this chapter is to gain insight from the ways a group of elementary teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing chose to integrate digital tools into evidence-based writing instruction and the ways these technologies were used to support student learning. After professional development that exposed these teachers to twelve new digital tools, they were observed incorporating several new tools into their instruction; however, most of the tools were not the ones targeted during professional development. There are factors related to both teacher perspectives and professional development design that seem to play a role in what digital tools are used, how they are used, and who uses them. Based on these factors, suggestions are made for the design of future professional development that more effectively introduces technologies to teachers and supports their efforts to integrate these tools into classroom instruction.

Employing Digital Tools to Support Writing in Mathematics and the Implementation of the Common Core State Standards

The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and English/Language Arts necessitate that teachers provide opportunities for their students to write about mathematical concepts in ways that extend beyond simply a summary of how students solve mathematical tasks. This chapter describes a series of vignettes about how digital tools can provide elementary school students with the opportunity to write about mathematics concepts that they are working with. Implications for providing these opportunities to elementary school students and supporting teachers are also provided.

Supporting Young Writers through the Writing Process in a Paperless Classroom

In this chapter, the authors describe fifth-grade students' perceptions of how digital tools support writing instruction in a paperless classroom. Extending a constructivist paradigm that embraces student-centered pedagogies, this study explores both the teacher's approach as well as the students' perceptions of the digital process approach to writing. An overview of each stage of the writing process is provided that includes research supporting digital writing tools for that stage. This is followed by the findings from each section which includes: 1) how the teacher implemented the digital writing tools, and 2) the students' perceptions of the digital tools. The chapter concludes by offering areas of future research as well as offering the limitations of the study.