Digital+Writing

toc This page will help orient you to some of the conversations about digital writing.

=Intro to Digital Writing=

Book: [|Because Digital Writing Matters]by Danielle Nicole DeVoss, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks. Jossey-Bass 2003. This book describes how to apply digital writing skills effectively in the classroom. From the prestigious National Writing Project, it reveals what teachers, administrators, and parents can do to meet the writing challenge in our nation’s schools. Students write and communicate every day through technology, but many don’t know how to craft a basic essay. This book defines digital writing and examines how best to integrate new technologies into writing instruction. It i ntroduces the idea of digital writing as a mode of thinking, applicable to all grades and disciplines; examines current trends, best practices, research, and issues in the teaching of digital writing; offers practical solutions and models for planning, implementing, and assessing digital writing initiatives and writing programs; offers a guide for improving students’ online writing skills; and shows how to integrate new technologies into classroom lessons. It also supports revision and editing as recursive processes that run throughout composing; emphasizes digital writing as not just writing online (or on computer) but as taking advantage of composing in digital spaces; and asks "What does it mean to be a writer in a digital age?" (and, as Troy Hicks says in his [|blog], "when and how do we use images, sounds, and music to support our arguments, descriptions, and stories? When, and why, do we post to a blog as compared to a wiki?”).

[|Youtube "Digital Is" presentation by Danielle DeVoss]. Presented at the National Writing Project Digital Is Convening, November 2009. In this presentation, Danielle DeVoss (co-writer of the above book) presents images, videos, and other artifacts to introduce "digital" as representing each of the following categories: now and then, networked, collaborative, multimodal, re-mediated (composing in one media and migrating to another media format - like remediating from writing to audio), remixed (mixing or mashing media), policed (proprietary rights - posting content you own - think about fair use), (require) critical thinking, (can be) democratic.

=Interactive, Online Conversations about Digital Writing =

Troy Hicks’ blog about digital writing, called //[|Digital Writing, Digital Teaching: Integrating New Technologies into the Teaching of Writing]// This is a great resource for author Troy Hicks' (author of [|Because Digital Writing Matters)]reflections on digital writing and digital teaching, as well as his recommendations on books, websites, and people to read. For example, in a post on his reflections about digital writing, he considers digital writing as improv, and he observes it is “difficult for teachers to advocate for digital writing if they are not practitioners themselves.” He also notes “the tools for digital writing--computers, mobile phones, cameras, recorders--are all open to interpretation and revision. There are opportunities to capure, recapture, and rearrange words, images, sounds. Digital writing is like improv, and we only get good at improv when we play.” Hicks encourages teachers to "teach students to be intentional, to frame their thinking and the composition process in light of purpose, audience, and situation. So, if they are going to use an image or video clip and share it through a text or social network then, yes, they are writing, and they need to take responsibility for themselves and their products, for better or for worse.” Finally, he highlights the way digital writing emphasizes work being public, and also being comstantly open to revision. In another blog post, where he brainstorms for a podcast, he provides a useful definition of digital literacy, and of digital writing workshop (basically a “‘mash-up’ of ditigal writing and the writing workshop"). He observes three broad categories of digital writing: “writing and responding to posts on blogs, microblogs, and social networks; creating individual or multi0authored documents using wikis and collaborative word processors; and composing multimodal pieces such as podcasts and digital stories.” He emphasizes the role of genre study and rhetoric (purpose, audience, context) in making decisions as a writer and as a digital writer. For teachers interested in getting started, he advocates picking a digital technology (he suggests a wiki), looking at examples, and jumping in.

The National Writing Project's site [|Digital Is], a collection of resources on digital writing This site describes itself as a "collection of ideas, reflections, and stories about what it means to teach writing in our digital, interconnected world" and invites us to "Read, discuss, and share ideas about teaching writing today." The site is organized according to different collections of stories and resources, from considering the art/craft of digital writing to exploring questions related to teaching digital writing. The site also supports a community and sharing of resources around digital writing and teaching, inviting people to participate in discussions and to share resources.

//[|A Digital Show to Help Digital Writing: Teacher Teaching Teacher] // This is a weekly webcast that supports rich conversations about teaching and learning in the 21st century. This was started by technology teachers who used Skype to give each other updates about their classroom work and recorded these calls before putting them online as podcasts. Here, you can find many different view points from a multitude of teachers teaching at all levels all over the country. There is a link to every school and many organizations that are discussed. Related resources on NWP.ORG also included.

=Document Design = Bush, Jonathon, and Zuidema, Leah A. (2011) Professional writing in the English Classroom. //[|English Journal]100(4)//: 86-89. The //English Journal// runs a regular column called "Professional Writing in the English Classroom," and in this particular issue their column focuses on “Beyond Language: The Grammar of Document Design.” The column builds on a previous column in which they advocate for professional writing to help student writers “make genre choices in context.” In this article, they focus on the design decisions student writers make in professional writing, “including choices about page layout, fonts, color, and the like” (86). From a standpoint of integrating technology in writing instruction, this article offers ideas into ways that teachers can help student writers consider ways that their design choices interact with their audience reaction and do (or do not) reflect their purpose in a given piece of writing. The article advocates teaching “design as a rhetorical skill and a process that includes writerly decisions about audience, context, and genre” (87). It also introduces the useful CRAP acronym, which represents four primary techniques for writers’ choices with design: contrast (size, shape, style, etc.), repetition (size, shape, style, etc.), alignment, and proximity. Finally, the article connects reading and writing with respect to design: reading the world (flyers, billboards, handouts in class, etc.) to assess design decisions as writerly decisions and it helps invite discussions of how to “break rules” for effect.

Williams, Robin. //[|The Non-Designer’s Design Book].// 3rd ed. Berkeley: Peachpit, 2008. DW <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 115%;">Bush and Zuidema, in the above article recommend this book as "one of our favo <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12px; line-height: 115%;">rite books on page design. Not only is it easy to <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12px; line-height: 115%;">read and well organized, but, just as its title suggests, it is written asa guide for non-designers. Teachers will find it extremely useful as aresource, not only for themselves but for their students, too. Williams also has an accompanying Web-design book."