User:Paula

From High School Online Collaborative Writing

"http://static.flickr.com/27/38567117_90ba5cd80d_m.jpg"

My Bloglines | My Blog | My del.icio.us Bookmarks

Articles I'm currently working on.

• Triangular Trade Gallery

• Student Walkouts 2006

• Interactive Multimedia Poetry is something that I think is exciting, but I haven't written anything here yet.
• Collecting student work online is a challenge, but worth the effort. I've written this on papere, but I need to get it typed up.
• Collaborative writing before Wikis is more or less finished, although I want to add more about collaborative writing in a wiki.
• Weblog Genres is a major project that is a mess right now.
• Lisette's school blog, May 2005 is something I pieced together for workshops in the Spring of 2005.
• 1. Listen to this episode of YouthCast from PRX, "Southwest Side Stories: Three neighboorhood portraits from Curie Youth Radio"

2. Now let's write a walking-tour portrait of a block in New York Ciy that you know well (but NOT your home, because we will be putting the actual locations online on a Google map.)

Contents 1 Neighborhood Portrait 2 Brief History 3 Professional Communities 4 Contact Information

[edit] Neighborhood Portrait

In the following exercise, I'm going to ask you a series of questions and make several suggestions of ideas for writing. Often, in response to these guidelines, people write in lines rather than sentences and paragraphs, a poem rather than a narrative. As we go through this process, in response to each set of directions or questions, you might want to write only a phrase or a single word on a line.

If your writing is moving along and you don't need the questions I'm asking, try to ignore my voice and stay on your own path. The prompts are meant to help you when you need a new idea, but you don't have to answer them.

I will read the following guidelines for composing (Perl):

• For your title, write the name for a block — somewhere you have lived in the past, where you have worked, gone to school, visited, or vacationed. Please DO NOT choose where you live or work now.

You may know this address very well, or only slightly — perhaps you've been there only once. Remember that an address might be a room number (like this one we're in now) or the name of a city (Athens, Greece). Write the address as specifically and completely as you can. (For example: 729 Memorial Avenue, Grove City , PA)

An address is probably coming to mind right now, whether you can explain the reason or not. Don't worry. You won't have to defend your choice. Just take a chance — write the address at the top of your sheet. If you feel uncertain about the choice, remember that you can repeat the exercise at a later time with another address. For now just choose an address as a heading for the work; choose it for the sake of the exercise.

• "Look" at the place in your mind. What do you see there? Go closer towards it. Do you have to turn to go inside? Which way do you turn, right or left? Keep moving towards it. What do you see now?
• Is there a color to this scene? Are there many colors?
• What do you hear? Do you hear music?
• Who's there? Is anyone there? Does someone speak? What is said?
• Is there food? Can you smell it? Is someone cooking?
• Does anyone else come in? Is there talk? Record the talk as well as you can.
• Write for a few more minutes on anything you've already thought of, or a new image.

[edit] Brief History

I've been teaching ever since I graduated from Hunter College, CUNY in 1983. After a few years in the desert (Utah), and a couple of years at the High School of Art and Design, NYC, I had a wonderful dozen years at University Heights Secondary School, Bronx, NY, where I learned that doing school better didn't have to be the same-old, with more effort. After that, I worked with English Language Learners at the International High School in Queens for three years.

After 9/11, there was a lot of talk about making your work meaningful, and at the same time I was finding that I was more interested in new forms of literacy that were happening on the Internet. An opportunity to become a "studio teacher" of technology at East Side Community High School, NYC presented itself in the Summer of 2002, and I have been at ESCSH ever since.

[edit] Professional Communities

Another community that I am a part of is the New York City Writing Project. I was a participant in the NYCWP's Summer Invitational in 1985, and I have worked for the NYCWP in various ways ever since. Currently, with Felicia George, I am the NYC Technology Liaison for the National Writing Project.

[edit] Contact Information

e-mail:

• [1]
• [2]

telephone: 917-612-3006