Thursday, April 12, 2012

Low Tech Solution

We have a core group of students who come to our weekly writing club, but sometime before spring break, we threatened to rename it the Hanging Out and Talking Club, because so little actual writing was getting done. The kids spent a lot of time on the laptops collaborating to create websites and blogs, but they spent even more time talking about things completely unrelated to writing.

Still, it was hard to determine if we were being overly critical-- maybe this is just how writing looks in the early 21st century?-- but we decided that, at the risk of being too prescriptive, and perhaps even sacrificing the engagement of these students of the new millennium, we were going to try some more structured activities.

Then, as luck would have it, we couldn't get the laptops, and so we were all forced to write the old fashioned way. Oh, there has been some moaning and groaning for sure, but there has also been a lot more words put to paper, and they are still coming every week.

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