Staying in Character for Sarah Brynes
May
18
Written by:
5/18/2009 10:05 PM
My favorite project is gearing up. How can it be my favorite, it is
only the second time doing this with students? Well, the energy the
project created and sustained, the comments from students, and the
story all rolled into one, it is my favorite project. There is so much
crammed into this project! There is something for everyone, including
students, teachers, administrators, parents and students!
You can follow these guidelines and create your own social network project with any book you are using with your students. A
NING, is a great social network to use with students ages 13 and older.
NING is a very supportive site, and if the project is for an
educational institution the NING folks will remove the ads from your
ning site. All you need to do is email them, tell them your NING URL,
say you are a school and ask for the ads to be removed.
The full
directions are at posted here.
Please try this out. We have been very happy for years with our free Ning service. The whole process took me 1 minute to fill out the form,
and then wait 2 days for the ads to disappear. It couldn't be easier!
The eighth grade teachers, I am working with, chose a book for all 120
students to read. Part of the writing the students are asked to do is
about writing in character. So, for this book, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes,
all the students read, choose a character they want to be, create a
page in the Ning site and then blog, answer questions, create an avatar
all in character. The name we chose for the Ning is, Staying in
Character for Sarah Brynes. We hope by adding this piece of
technology the students will feel free to write with purpose, share
with purpose and think outside of themselves. By adding this work to a Ning, we create a social network where students can work while in class
and continue conversations outside of the school day.
When our students join the ning they must fill in a profile with
required questions. Sometimes this part takes a lot of thinking since
we are asking them to respond in character immediately. This sets the
stage as they answer questions about their zodiac sign, their moods,
who they would like to meet, etc. Here is my profile:
About Me: Ms. Lemry
Moods:empathic, supportive, futurist
Who Would I like to meet?Eleanor Roosevelt
Interests: gardens
Zodiac Sign: Gemini
Describe your life-changing moment and how it changed you. My
life changing moment each year, is when I meet students who have grown
another year older. I love hearing student ideas about school,
technology, the future. I think it best when I attend 8th grade
and 12th grade graduations and see what wonderful young people you have
all become. Once
the students get past the profile page, they head off and create an
avatar of their character. We use this free avatar service.
This is always fun for our students to compare their avatar with all the other
Ms. Lemry's and avatars their peers have of the same characters in the
book. After their avatar is posted they begin answering 3 prompts left
by their teachers. The students/characters are also encouraged to
comment to the other characters at they populate the Ning and as they
answer the prompts.
When we started this project last school year in May, we had 4 weeks of
school left, we will be in a similar position this year. I was sure
that the students would start out in character, but soon would revert
to themselves and comment about their dances, weekends, and their own
8th grade graduation. However, that did not come to pass. The students
stayed in character for the entire project. The students had very
thoughtful comments and blog responses.
This year I hope that
the author, Chris Crutcher will check out the Ning and see how he has
positively affected the students in our school. After all, by posting
in our Ning we will have a wider audience. Check out Chris Crutcher's myspace. Our Ning will have
opening day June 6, 2009. You can check out the main page from last
year for an idea about what this looks like
http://gr8litourspace.ning.com/ What is your latest book project?
2 comment(s) so far...
Staying in Character for Sarah Brynes
Did you worry about the students accessing other networks on this site? How did you handle this?
By Tammy Frietsch on
5/22/2009 5:09 AM
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Staying in Character for Sarah Brynes
Hi Tammy, We expect our students are following our school code of conduct when using their books, their laptops and the internet. We want to demonstrate good cyber-citizenship and then encourage them to practice it in school and out of school. Some students started their own nings for their own networks and invited me. So, I did not worry about this, as they could have done this whether we showed them or not. This way I have many teachable moments by using the Ning.
By Cheryl Oakes on
5/31/2009 7:49 AM
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