Meaningful Student Voice: What happens when student work goes public (and digital)?
When: Session One: Saturday 10:00am–11:30am, Where: Room 301, Who: Meenoo Rami, Abby Baker, Ted Domers, Chuck Poole & Trey Smith, Affiliation: Franklin Learning Center and Philadelphia Writing Project
Conversational Focus/Audience: All School Levels
Student voice informing practice has become that subconscious and integral piece of my own practice. From sensing the stress brought about by their other classes and moving deadlines to refining assignments on the fly when what I was certain would work has turned to a smoldering pile of crap.
This session piques my curiosity in a couple ways.
The description implies a choice in whether or not students take their work public. Most frequently taking student work public is about compulsory publishing. I’m interested in a pedagogical discussion of how we can help our students decide what is worthy of publishing with the same vim we throw into telling them what isn’t worthy of publishing.
I’m also curious about the feedback processes others are establishing with publishing of student work. I’d like to hear how they’re keeping work from languishing in online ghost towns.
In considering the elements outside the control of the Rami, Baker, Domers, Poole and Smith, I’ve one major hope from my fellow conversationalists – teach in subjects other than English.
One of the professional conversations around published student work that’s proven most valuable to me this year was with a math teacher at SLA. Our views on the purpose behind publishing differed. Those differences led to some interesting reflection on my part. I hope more than English teachers show up to add their approaches to the conversation.
To prep my thinking for the conversation, here are the questions I’ll be considering about my own practice:
- What determines which student work is published in my classes?
- How authentic is the publishing experience?
- What happens to published student work?
- How am I modeling the creation of publishable/ed work?
My questions for the conversation:
- How do I establish feedback processes that move toward the continued refinement of student work?
- When publishing student work, how can I work in concert with teachers in other disciplines who might be operating with different goals?
- How do we determine what student work should be published (because of content or quality)?
- What approaches are others taking for the curation of published spaces?
- Where are others drumming up audiences for published student work?
- How do students and other teachers interpret the value of readership within the school environment compared with outside that environment?
It looks as though the presenters are constructing a conversation that will lead participants to thoughtful consideration of their own pedagogical beliefs around student voice and publishing. It also looks as though we’re moving past making the argument for the importance of student publishing and transitioning to understanding the best ways to approach the practice.
What are you thinking?
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I think you make a good point here: “Most frequently taking student work public is about compulsory publishing.” And I like the questions you are considering around this session, which is a great topic.Keep on sharing, manKevin