Gaining a New, Wider Audience: Publishing Student Work on the Internet
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Most of us remember completing writing assignments throughout our school lives. Our teacher would provide a topic and remind us to follow the writing process -- brainstorm, draft, revise, edit (Graves, 1983). After following this structure, we would turn in a completed piece and hope for a good grade. We were aware that our primary audience was the teacher, mostly because she or he determined the worthiness of the paper. However, for those of us who enjoyed writing, we hoped our work would be read aloud to the class as a positive model or perhaps posted outside the classroom door in the hallway, for others to see. Fortunately, school writing assignments have changed dramatically in recent years. More student-centered approaches to literacy instruction, such as reading-writing workshops (Atwell, 1987; Calkins, 1994) and inquiry projects (Short, Harste, & Burke, 1996), have resulted in more authentic writing tasks that are initiated by students’ own interests. In addition, there has been a shift away from the rigid sequential writing process to a more recursive approach that supports students’ continuous work on a piece at all stages. As Hynds (1995) reminds us, “Writers are often revising their ideas before those ideas reach the printed page, they are planning at the same time as they are drafting, and all writing is a sort of prewriting for other texts to come” (p. 2). |
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Computer use among learners aged 5 to 18 in classrooms from kindergarten through high school has also affected writing over the past several years. For instance, teachers have found that composing electronic text on the computer makes the writing process easier for some students, since the malleability of electronic text allows authors to make revisions smoothly and to incorporate images and video or audio clips (see, e.g., Baker, 2000, online document). For instance, Labbo (1996) studied kindergartners’ use of electronic symbols to represent meaning in text. Among other things, Labbo learned that the children figured out that by pressing different keys, they could manipulate the pictures on the screen. This, in turn, changed the meaning of their text.
Possibly one of the most profound changes in classroom writing has come with the ease and excitement of publishing electronic text on the Internet. In the United States, as school Internet access increases (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000, online document), more teachers are taking advantage of the Internet to post their students’ written work on classroom Web pages (Leu, Karchmer, & Leu, 1999, online document). The result is a larger audience for students’ work, one that extends beyond classroom and school boundaries.
Many teachers are interested in creating a virtual space to showcase student work, but they are not sure where to begin. One approach is to view exceptional Web sites to learn how other teachers are using online publishing in their classrooms. Finding such Web sites is easy, as there are many central sites dedicated to highlighting models from which others can learn (Karchmer, 2000, online document). For example, The Miss Rumphius Award, affiliated with the International Reading Association (the IRA, which also publishes this e-journal) and its RTEACHER listserv, is presented to classroom Web pages that provide outstanding curricular resources. A list of past winners and a full description of the award appears at the IRA Web site.
Another example of a central site is ED’s Oasis’ Spotlight on Success. This site, run by Classroom Connect, highlights teacher-created exemplary Internet lesson plans, many of which incorporate students’ written work. Links to classroom Web pages are provided, as are short conversations with teachers, detailing the purposes of the spotlighted activities.
A closer look at the types of pieces published on these outstanding sites affords us a glimpse into the ways teachers are integrating technology into their literacy curricula. The remainder of this article examines different kinds of student Internet publications and provides examples from which we can learn.
Publishing Student Work
Publication can take many forms, whether it be inserting a completed story inside a folded sheet of colored paper to make a book or posting a report on a Web site accessible around the world. Calkins (1994) reminds us, however, that whatever the method, it must “match the author’s intentions” (p. 268). In other words, students should be made aware of the audience they are writing for, as their writing may change based on who will be reading it.
As a publishing vehicle, the Internet has the potential to reach the largest worldwide audience possible. This can be extremely motivating for students. I have found that teachers tend to publish three types of student writing on their class Web pages on the Internet: traditional writing assignments, collaborative writing projects, and multimedia presentations.
Internet Publication of Traditional Writing Assignments
This type of student Internet publication highlights the kinds of writing assignments that have always taken place in classrooms. For instance, when I taught fifth grade, I felt it was important for my students to respond to the literature we read in class (Rosenblatt, 1983). While reading Carol Ryrie Brink’s Caddie Woodlawn, for example, students kept a log in which they responded to the characters and events in this story set in the Wisconsin frontier of the late 1800s. When they’d finished reading, the students would share selected entries with the class, generating rich discussions about experiencing a different time and place.
Janice Smith, an eighth grade English teacher and Miss Rumphius Award recipient, also uses reader response in her classroom, but her students’ work is posted on her Web site where others beyond her classroom can benefit from it. For example, while reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, students wrote letters to Miss Caroline, Scout Finch’s teacher, offering advice about how to be successful in her work. Several letters are posted on the Student Authors pages of Ms. Smith’s site. While this assignment was completed during the 1999-2000 school year, the effect of these letters can still be felt as students and teachers from around the world access and learn from them.
Ms. Smith’s site is easy to access and includes a wealth of information. Besides the Miss Caroline letters in the Student Authors area, for example, you will find a wide range of writing, including original poems, interviews, and reactions to award-winning literature. In addition, like many teachers, Ms. Smith invites people to contact her and includes her e-mail address. This gives people who access the site an opportunity to share their thoughts about what they viewed and to give positive feedback to the students for work well done.
I asked Ms. Smith how her students felt about having their work published for a large audience on the Web. She stated,
Well, if you know eighth graders, then you know that they are often “too cool” to say much or to react when I tell them that a particular piece is going to be posted. But, I know inside they are proud. I have received wonderful e-mail from relatives of my students in other parts of the country so I know my students have spread the word when one of their pieces is posted.
Ms. Smith has also received positive feedback from other educators who use her Web site as a learning resource. For example, after learning about prepositions, students created preposition poems that were posted on the Web site (Figure 1). The next school year, Ms. Smith received an e-mail from a teacher in Texas, who said that her class had read the poems and had enjoyed following up by writing their own.
Although her initial intent had not been to affect learning outside of her classroom, Ms. Smith quickly found out that sharing her students’ publications via the Internet could benefit a larger audience.
There are many other teacher-created sites that publish traditional writing assignments. For example, The Sunnyside School Primary Class Web site, another Miss Rumphius Award winner, includes journal entries in which students reflect on observations made during a water habitat study project. Barr’s English Class Web site, also a Miss Rumphius winner, incorporates high school students’ work offered as exemplary models of narrative, analytical, argumentative, and creative essays. And Nottingham Elementary School’s Web site, included on Classroom Connect’s “Best of the Web” list, highlights not only students’ written work, but their art projects as well.
If you have a functioning Web site, or access to one, and a method of creating Web-compatible files (some knowledge of HTML or access to an HTML editor software package, for example), then beginning with traditional writing assignments is perhaps the easiest way to publish student work on the Internet.
Internet Publication of Collaborative Writing Projects
The Internet allows collaboration in ways that were not previously possible. Today, it is not unusual for people to work daily with colleagues located thousands of miles away. Electronic communication is both rapid and, in the United States, affordable, allowing new connections to diverse environments. Teachers are taking advantage of this capability as they involve their students in collaborative projects with peers around the world (Leu, Karchmer, & Leu, 1999). Only 7 years ago, I had to rely on the postal service for the pen-pal partnership I established between my class of second graders and a class approximately 200 miles away. While these 7- and 8-year-olds were thrilled about communicating with new friends, they were also very frustrated with the irregular correspondence that occurred -- mainly due to the time it took to receive the pen-pal letters.
Today, many students are involved in the same type of project over the Internet. Sending and receiving e-mail messages can be done in seconds, and this almost-immediate feedback is highly motivating for the young writers. And teachers are using the Internet to create complex collaborative partnerships among their students, posting the results on Web pages. This not only showcases students’ work, but highlights the kinds of exciting projects taking place in classrooms at all levels.
Mary Kreul, a second-grade teacher from Wisconsin and a recipient of an ED’s Oasis Spotlight Award, involves her students in several collaborative projects each year. During the 2000-2001 academic year her class participated in nine projects, such as those listed below. (Visit Ms. Kreul’s Web site and click on “Internet Projects” for a more detailed description of each.)
Susan Silverman, a second-grade teacher from New York and a three-time recipient of The Miss Rumphius Award, may be one of the most well known creators of collaborative Internet projects, including Bunny Readers, Apple Bytes, Stellaluna’s Friends, and Frosty Readers. She invites teachers from all over the world to join these projects and she constructs the Web pages that post all of the student-participants’ work. For example, for her Bunny Readers project, students read books about rabbits and then partook in literacy activities that displayed their knowledge of the animal. Participating teachers sent their students’ completed work to Mrs. Silverman, who posted it on the Bunny Readers Web page.
Taking part in one of Mrs. Silverman’s projects (or one like it) may be a good strategy for novices who want to get started in Internet collaboration. Coordination of a collaborative project, and posting students’ work, is the responsibility of a project coordinator like Mrs. Silverman, so start-up demands are manageable for educators who are still learning about Internet possibilities.
There are hundreds of collaborative projects like Mrs. Silverman’s on the Internet, and project registries such as The Lightspan Network Internet Project Registry and Classroom Connect are available to help you find them. Once you become comfortable with these types of projects, create your own and post them at these sites!
Publication of Multimedia Presentations
The Internet allows authors of electronic text to include elements such as graphics, digitized speech, and hyperlinks in their work, creating and communicating exciting multimedia presentations. Teachers experienced with integrating new technologies into their curricula tend to support their students’ interest in using these interactive components to add meaning to their texts. Many post their students’ presentations on classroom Web sites for others to view.
Student multimedia presentations can range from simple projects that connect text to computer-generated graphics to more sophisticated work that incorporates audio and video clips and hyperlinks. For example, Ms. Kreul’s second-graders used the software package Kid Pix Studio Deluxe to create a slide show depicting the ways their families celebrated special holidays throughout the year. After interviewing family members, students created storyboards sketching exactly how they wanted the Celebrations Slide Show to appear. The result is a colorful presentation in which the pictures created on the computer support the meaning of the text.
Along with their students, Patty Taverna, a second grade teacher, and Terry Hongell, a school technology specialist, created two Miss Rumphius Award–winning sites that include multimedia presentations. Vietnam: A Children’s Guide is a resource to teach other classes about this beautiful country (see Figure 3). Among other activities, students made a picture book describing life in Vietnam, using text in conjunction with the art and drawing tools available in a word-processing program. Likewise, their Charlotte’s Web site incorporates activities related to E.B. White’s famous book. Included are students’ summaries of each chapter, created with colorful computer-generated images to describe the text.
The second graders who with their teachers created these sites learned first-hand the far-reaching effects of their multimedia publication. When I contacted her about these projects, Ms. Hongell explained:
The children love seeing their work on line and the letters we get motivate and encourage them to reach even higher. For example, we got a letter from E.B. White’s great niece.... Last week when we shared it with some of the children who had worked on the Charlotte’s Web site they were thrilled, touched, amazed, and a combination of all those feelings. Those feelings will carry over into their next project, we are sure of that!
Bill Walker, an elementary music teacher from Ohio, involves his students in several complex multimedia presentations and posts them at his Web site. Here you will find animated slide shows, student-created stories that include audio files of the authors reading aloud, and video clips of student dance performances. Another example of a complex multimedia project is one posted on Ms. Smith’s site. Using Macintosh iMovie software, Ms. Smith’s English students captured a production of the rap song they wrote in response to Michelle Migorian’s historical novel, Goodnight, Mr. Tom..
A word of caution: The unique characteristics of electronic text enable students to construct complex responses to traditional writing assignments. However, as Baker (2000) reminds us, it is easy for students to get wrapped up in trying to make the glitziest presentation rather than the most informative. Therefore, teachers must stress the importance of creating integrated pieces where multimedia components support the meaning of the presentation, rather than creating fancy presentations that lack content and cohesiveness.
Final Thought
While traditional writing assignments, collaborative writing projects, and multimedia presentations may not be the only kinds of student work published on the Internet, they provide a place to begin to understand how students’ writing is affected by Internet use in the classroom. I hope that this discussion and the resources and sites described also provide a place for educators just beginning their exploration of the Internet to learn ways of incorporating new technologies into their literacy instruction.
References
Atwell, N. (1987). In the middle: Writing, reading and learning with adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.
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Baker, E.A. (2000, July). Instructional approaches used to integrate literacy and technology. Reading Online, 4(1). Available: www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/baker/index.html
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Calkins, L.M. (1994). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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Graves, D. (1983). Writing: Teachers and children at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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Hynds, S. (1995). Making connections: Language and learning in the classroom. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon.
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Karchmer, R.A. (2000, September). Using the Internet and children's literature to support interdisciplinary instruction. Reading Teacher, 54, 100-104. Available: www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/RT/9-00_Column.html
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Labbo, L.D. (1996). A semiotic analysis of young children’s symbol making in a classroom computer center. Reading Research Quarterly, 31, 356-385.
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Leu, D.J., Jr., Karchmer, R.A., & Leu, D.D. (1999). The Miss Rumphius effect: Envisionments for literacy and learning that transform the Internet. Reading Teacher, 52(6), 636-642. Available: www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/RT/rumphius.html
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National Center for Education Statistics. (2000, March). Internet access in U.S. public schools and classrooms: 1994-99. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education. Available: nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000086
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Rosenblatt, L. (1983). Literature as exploration (4th ed.). New York: Modern Language Association.
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Short, K.G., Harste, J.C., & Burke, C.L. (1996). Creating classrooms for authors and inquirers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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About the Author
Rachel Karchmer is an assistant professor of reading and language arts education at Virginia Commonwealth University (School of Education, Oliver Hall, PO Box 842020, Richmond, VA 23284-2020, USA). Her major research interest concerns classroom teachers’ use of the Internet to support literacy instruction. Reach her by e-mail at rkarchmer@hotmail.com.
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Citation: Karchmer, R.A. (2001, May). Gaining a new, wider audience: Publishing student work on the Internet Reading Online, 4(10). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/karchmer/index.html
Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted May 2001
© 2001 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232