A Strange Confluence of Readings

Two Of A Kind – photo by jball359

This weekend I read two disparate pieces that got me thinking of how much they had in common about life in today’s world. It is an unlikely pairing to say the least, but I think one reveals something about the other.

The first piece was Nitsuh Abebe’s thoughtful look at “The Amanda Palmer Problem: How Does a Cult Musician Become a Figure to Be Mocked?” from Vulture.com. Abebe quickly charts and comments on the  small scale rise of cult musician Amanda Palmer into what I generally refer to as the digitarati, Internet celebrity-types from various fields.

Being a Boston-area resident and a high school teacher, I would have not been paying much attention when Amanda Palmer‘s early Brechtian punk cabaret duo with Brian Viglione, The Dresden Dolls, emerged on the scene. While appreciate her work, I am not necessarily part of her cult fanbase. In fact, I really become more familiar with her as a result of her collaborations and then marriage to another cult figure, author Neil Gaiman. I would put myself in the Gaiman camp of cult fans, however.

Still, Palmer has risen to some prominence in the last year or so, which is well chronicled by Abebe. Most notably, she crowdsourced the funding, via Kickstarter, for various projects, including rasing over a million dollars for her next lable-free solo effort. The buzz of this success landed her a TEDTalk and subsequent backlash. However, it is in Abebe’s framing of the problem Amanda Palmer illustrates that is most fascinating. Abebe writes:

I think there’s a lesson to be learned from Palmer, and it’s not the falling-into-the-crowd lesson she offers. Yes, she’s correct: The web offers an opportunity to fall into the open arms of fans, in ways that weren’t available before. Here’s the catch: The web also makes it near-impossible to fall into the arms of just one’s fans. Each time you dive into the crowd, some portion of the audience before you consists of observers with no interest in catching you. And you are still asking them to, because another thing the web has done is erode the ability to put something into the world that is directed only at interested parties. Its content isn’t like a newsletter mailed discreetly to private homes; it’s like a magazine on a newsstand, asking to be purchased.

This is the heart of the piece, and Abebe captures a truth not only about Plamer but also social media and sharing part of one’s life online. Using the web as a way to connect. For  Palmer it is connecting to fans for many tech savvy educators is about connecting to like-minded colleagues. In either case, every time someone shares something online, the risk is that more than just followers and those interested will see it. Thus, responses may not always be welcomed or desired. In some cases, they may even run afoul.

This brings me to the second piece, a recent top post from Diane Ravitch’s blog, “This Teacher Sets the Record Straight.” In it Ravitch reblogs, with some commentary, a post from a New York elementary teacher, chronicling a harrowing story of a tweet triggered nightmare.

This past Wednesday, the teacher, whose Twitter handle is @rratto, fired a math problem and some commentary into the Twittersphere, lamenting the demands of standardized testing and their link to evaluatory judgements about teachers and schools. Within hours, another educator, Allison Sitts, replied suggesting he refrain from posting questions from the New York state assessment. This, in turn, triggered a reply that clarified the math problem was not from the test but practice. Nothing was particular alarming about the exchange.

Now anyone paying close attention might realize that Pearson developed the New York test. An even more attentive person that reads Daine Ravitch’s blog might also have noticed that  Pearson textbooks seem to present a distinct advantage to students taking Pearson tests. So if @rratto pulled the problem from Pearson practice material it is conceivable that it may have looked a whole lot like an actual test question. Still, the problem posted was not a test question. Yet that didn’t stop Sitts from contacting @rratto’s school and suggesting  malfeasance, which started a harrowing chain of events worth reading.

Taking in the whole story, what is clear is how the school and district overreacted. All of which says a lot about why @rratto felt compelled to further share his story. Of course, when Diane Ravitch picks up the story and posts it on her blog, it is going to reach a whole new scale of audience. In truth, I question the timing of the tweet, just a little, only because the test was continuing to be administered. Were it posted this week, it might not have resulted in the firestorm that occurred.

Plus, while the school and distict is the primarily responsible party the responder is not without some culpability. My initial response was to question what consequences there are for making a false allegation about a fellow educator. Needless to say, a backlash reigned down on Sitts, resulting in the termination of her Twitter account @IthacaGorges. Yet, I doubt very much that she recognized @rratto was not in the wrong. For all I know, she may not have believed it mattered and that the problem was close enough to be problematic.

Nevertheless, all of this brought me back to the Amanda Palmer problem. Of course @rratto doesn’t necessarly have fans, but he does have followers. Morever, when he or anyone tweets or blogs, it is visible to those that may not be interested in catching them crowd-surfing-style. So posting a math problem, despite it being a practice one, during the period in which the state test is being administered, is tantamount to putting it on the cover of a magazine screaming to be noticed at the newsstand, as was Sitts initial condemnation. It is now just an unfortunate part of living part of life online.

It is my sincere hope that both educators are allowed to recover. Everyone makes mistakes, but the price of public error has risen dramatically, as the Internet has a long memory.

Reviewing Hillocks’ Recent Works

Note: I wrote this review of George Hillocks’ recent contributions to the teaching of writing a while ago. It was originally written for the National Writing Project, however, it was never published for some reason or another. Nevertheless, I was revisiting these two titles recently while preparing a my culminating research piece for the Calderwood Fellowship work in which I have been engaged for most of the year. More on that to later. Yet I thought this might be of interest to some, as well as feeling I ought to update this site more regularly. Anyway, I hope this is useful.

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Like Temple University professor Michael W. Smith, in his Forward to Teaching Argument Writing, Grades 6-12, I too have a confession to make. Making good on Smith’s desire, the writer’s voice of George Hillocks now whispers to me while I teach, so potent has the influence of his two most recent books been on my thinking and practice. After making the concerted effort to spend the better part of the last academic year employing Hillocks as an absentee guide, I can say with some certainty my students and I have benefitted from his wisdom.

The 2007 title Narrative Writing: Learning a New Model for Teaching and 2011’s aforementioned Teaching Argument Writing in so many ways are a tandem. Capitalizing on nearly fifty years of Hillocks’ experience as both a teacher and teacher of teachers, these two volumes provide a remarkable framework for leading young writers to greater growth and improved results. They build on the decades of research, data collection, and experimentation by waves of University of Chicago Masters of Arts in Teaching students, honing their trade under Hillocks’ direction. Imminently practical and proven are the strategies that are outlined for tackling these two disparate modes of composition.

While Teaching Argument Writing begins by building upon an interesting and pragmatic take on the work of former fellow University of Chicago professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s, noted for his landmark research presented in Flow, which clearly informs both Hillocks’ books. In the more recent title, he maps a means for planning active and engaging lessons that distills Csikszentmihalyi’s optimal experience into a manageable course of action that is better than any effort I have seen to date. With clarity and conviction Hillocks pursues a path that helps teachers empower students to learn how to do something, thereby preparing them to gather expertise at how to tackle future related challenges and tasks. The connection to Flow provides a central, philosophical underpinning for all the planning and examples presented in both books despite it being more explicit in the argument text.

In fact there is a degree of overlap of resources and experiences, re-contextualized for the specific purpose of teaching narrative or argument writing. When reading both books for example there is the conspicuous return of A Voluptuary Under the Horrors of Digestion, the John Gillray characturized engraving of he who would become George IV. The unforgettable image of the repugnant Prince of Wales provides all the gripping gross-out appeal of Judd Apatow but in a context that becomes the bedrock of both narrative and argument writing activities. Yet it is ultimately in the pedagogical approach where the most significant overlap is found. Narrative Writing does the better job of the two outlining an approach to teaching writing that benefits from the methodical, while allowing for a significant student control. Few of the ideas may be all that new in Hillocks’ approach, yet it is in the synthesis of these older elements where the value emerges.

Thus, the idea of beginning with where the students are seems simple enough. However, the planning and effort that goes into conducting a student inventory, as presented by Hillocks, cannot be considered so simple. For Hillocks the writing, pretest for either mode, is part “Quickfire Challenge,” ala Top Chef, and even more Vygotskyan audit of each student’s zone of actual development. The pretest results are of course used for measurement, but they also become the basis for how the work and tasks will be framed, securing the criteria for assessment, determining activities to scaffold necessary knowledge and skills, setting up collaborative groups, and sequencing instruction that ultimately leads to the construction of complex independent work by students. Hillocks’ pretest results are the data harvest, informing a careful instructional plan that also allows for flexibility and necessary adjustment, as well as ongoing reflection. From there, a reliable framework, building from simple to complex tasks with a gradual release of instructional presence, is repeated in every example included in both books.

This focus on data is no accident. It is at the heart of an inquiry stance that resonates in Hillocks’ pedagogical approach. In fact, it is a critical aspect of the instruction in Teaching Argument Writing. As Hillocks highlights, only through examining the existing available data can a claim be developed. Moreover, by demonstrating how to craft contexts that give students opportunities to interpret data for themselves and apply a variety of strategies to solve real writing problems, both texts foster a means to generative student writing and instructional practice.

Hillocks was wise to produce Narrative Writing first, and it is probably the better book to read first. It is a solid introduction to the teaching techniques that definitely can help get students writing. Hillocks even sagely mentions how his MAT students’ work in schools always starts with the writing of narratives. Following this advice has already begun to not only change the way my students approach their writing, it has changed the way that they read. Beginning with narrative writing has opened the door for them to begin reading like writers and writing like readers. Having spent most of a semester concentrating on principles included in Narrative Writing in my own practice has garnered a bounty of benefits, some anticipated but many more unanticipated. For example, the facility with which students are able to move between the concrete and abstract has already greatly improved. This alone has paved the way for increased sophistication in their transition to writing arguments.

If Narrative Writing introduces the principles and techniques, Teaching Argument Writing advances and explains them in even greater detail. The approach to argument is based on the Toulmin model, which seems to have a gravitational pull currently in academia, but as the previous discussion of the pretest might suggest, the model also informs the overall presentation of Hillocks’ material on critical and reflective practice. Callouts articulate various teaching practices and strategies with more detail. Also included are instructional sequences spelled out in discrete step-by-step fashion. In fact, the July 2010 issue of English Journal includes Hillocks’ “EJ in Focus” article, which is essentially an introduction to Teaching Argument Writing. It provides a sample of the voice that continues to challenge any teacher-reader about whether we have thought hard enough about what we want our students to do, collected enough data to help them and reflect on our own teaching, crafted contexts that challenge and engage them in the particular kind of thinking that the writing task demands, and provided enough rehearsals for them to be successful. These challenges always implicitly ask the question are we teachers listening hard enough.

Having incorporated many of the models from these two texts into my own practice, I am now listening harder now than perhaps ever before. As I earlier confessed, Hillocks’ methodology and resonant questions now routinely still whisper to me. So Professor Smith’s hope in the Teaching Argument Writing Forward is fulfilled, and I am grateful for it. I can think of no better teaching texts than George Hillocks’ Narrative Writing and Teaching Argument Writing that do more to leverage the new demands of Common Core Standards, while embracing data driven decision making, and provide a pragmatic and powerful scaffold for writing instruction across two critical modes of composition, narrative and argument writing.

Reviewing Liverpool – 2012/2013 The Early Edition

Liverpool FC’s Luis Suarez stands in disbelief – Phot by Warren Little/Getty Images via Bleacer Report

So this is one of the occasional soccer related posts I feel compelled to write, involving my long-suffering support of Liverpool Football Club. I return to some familiar themes that I have written about previously.

As the current Premier League campaign comes to a close, the summary evaluations are now beginning appear. Michael Cox of Zonal Marking and contributor to ESPN FC wrote what I think was a pretty insightful assessment, Focus on philosophy hardly a factor in Liverpool’s progress, which prompted me to write this response. I planned on writing something at season’s end too. Yet, with some minor changes, I offer this extended comment on Cox’s work up as a post too.

As the season closes, how much better the Liverpool Football Club is in the hands of Brendan Rodgers, rather than previous manager and legend-in-residence Kenny Dalglish, is highly debatable. The truth is, as I have mentioned previously, the players let Dalglish down. Whether it was because they didn’t believe in him as a manager familiar with the modern game or not belies the fact they are professional footballers. Remember, even Luis Suarez was more an uncut jewel last season than the crown-ready gem he has been this one.

Then there is all the English talent Dalglish and Damien Comolli “splashed” for with an open checkbook. What seems too easily dismissed is the fact that they were all national team players. Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, and Charlie Adam all play on their national sides. Granted neither England nor Scotland are exactly the strongest sides at present, but I doubt Dalglish decided how much to pay for any of them despite probably identifying them as targets. Moreover, someone had to go down for the price paid for Carroll, but I’ll put that on Comolli. Yet, Newcastle knew the deal, holding LFC up at the deadline.

Truth, there was no way Liverpool could lure proven top talent. if there was any truth the the rumors, even Downing was a second option after Ashley Young rebuffed them for United. In fact, Liverpool will continue to struggle for known quality talent in the transfer market, unless they overpay, until they are back in the Champions League. Unfortunately, the longer they are away the harder it is to get back in the glamour game.

Liverpool pride and prestige might stand for something, especially for long-time supporters, myself included. They remain the greatest club in England by most measures, but the the real glory days were before most of modern players laced up boots – distant history to most 20-somethings who have grown up watching and playing during Sir Alec Ferguson‘s Red Devil reign.

Now, with Rodgers at the helm, he has essentially bought his kind of players, the ones he believes fit into his philosophy, for better or worse. What is slightly dubious, however, is that he had some kind of history with nearly all of them, Phillipe Coutinho being the obvious exception, as well as quite possibly the best of the buys. Also, all the talk of a philosophy is as much marketing as it is truth. Even King Kenny quipped early in Rodgers’ tenure that no one reinvents the game. Sour grapes perhaps but truth nonetheless.

After the struggling during the prior campaign, it seems almost natural that Rodgers would and should get some new life out of some maligned players. As Cox highlights, Downing and Henderson have only really started to show the kind of reasons they were sought in the new year, although both are still a ways off meriting their price tags.

Still, there is some truth in the Cox’s criticism of Rodgers’ decision making, at least since the new year when there have been a few more options available in the side. Yet, the options are still limited in terms of mounting a serious challenge for the top four. Too often, the Reds had to resort to playing kids in order to round out the starting eleven in the early going. In some ways, it is a wonder they have done as well as they have.

My suspicion is that Rodgers has next season to truly show progress and build sorely needed depth in the side, Champions League or not. I am guessing it will be year three before the pressure will really mount for him. If during the next season some exciting talent emerges or is purchased and a stylish surge gets them within a sniff of the top four, everyone can claim improvement and hard luck with more veracity. Fenway Sports Group will also have a chance to suss out whether UEFA is likely to get truly serious about Financial Fair Play rules, which FSG seems to be placing a significant bet.

If in year three Rodgers is still making excuses for missed opportunities and poor results, he will be gone, the club will be in worse shape, and FSG could very well be looking to finish renovating Anfield in preparation for a sale.