Table Of ContentUNDERSTANDING AND CREATING
DIGITAL TEXTS
UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING
DIGITAL TEXTS
An Activity-Based Approach
Richard Beach, Chris M. Anson,
Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and
Thomas Reynolds
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
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CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xv
1 Introduction 1
2 PlanningforanActivity-BasedApproachtoUnderstandingandCreating
DigitalTexts 21
3 AccessingInformationforConstructingKnowledge 41
4 Curating,Organizing,andSummarizingInformation 65
5 NetworkingandConnectingThroughNote-Taking,SocialBookmarking,
andSocialMedia 89
6 EngaginginOnlineDiscussions 107
7 Co-ConstructingKnowledgeThroughCollaborativeWriting 135
8 ComposingMultimodalTextsThroughUseofImages,Audio,andVideo 163
9 DesigningandEditingDigitalTextsforAudiences 191
10 UsingNewTechnologiesforFormativeResponsetoWriting 215
11 SummativeAssessmentofDigitalReadingandWriting 243
12 ProfessionalDevelopmentforTeachers 265
References 275
AdditionalReading 293
Index 297
AbouttheAuthors 303
v
PREFACE
A
tMichiganStateUniversity,first-yearwritingstudentsparticipateintheonlinegame
Ink http://writing.msu.edu:16080/ink. In this game, students assume the roles of mem-
bers of a fictional neighborhood and city council. The game involves extensive reading
and writing of texts to address problems facing the neighborhood. As they enter the
game,studentsreceivethefollowingwritingprompt:
“Welcome to Ink,” the stranger says. “This is a great place. But we have a problem
rightnow,andI’mhopingyoucanhelp.Ourneighborhoodisn’tdoingwell.Weneed
togetagroupofpeopletogethertoaddressthisproblem.Canyouhelpus?Weneed
to design a flier that will motivate people to come to a meeting where we can talk
aboutthisproblem.Weneedtodraftaresolutionthat wecancirculatetothosewho
showup.Wealsoneedabrochurethatexplainswhyothercitizensshouldvoteforour
proposal.Andwe’regoingtoneedawhitepapertoexplaintoCityCounciltheprinci-
plesthatinformourproposal.We’vegotalotofworktodo.Canyouhelpus?”
To advance in the game, students share journal entries to veteran players who judge
whether the entries serve to convince audiences, particularly voters, of the validity of
theirpositions.Studentsalsohavetocreateanappealingbrochurethatrequirestheuse
ofmultimodaldesigntechniques.Aspartofthegame,studentsreflectonwhatandhow
they are learning through their writing in the game. Their teachers then receive copies
ofthewritingproducedinthegameandreportonstudents’participationinit.
Students in Elizabeth Erdmann’s 12th-grade writing class at Jefferson High School,
Bloomington, Minnesota, were upset about their school’s Internet policies, which al-
lowed the school to block or filter websites that they perceived as providing them with
relevant information they needed to complete their assignments. For example, in writ-
ing about the issue of gun control, they found that the National Rifle Association’s site
wasblocked.
vii
viii PREFACE
To address this issue of whether or not access to these sites should be blocked,
Elizabeth engaged her students in a role-play via an online discussion forum (Beach &
Doerr-Stevens, 2011; Doerr-Stevens, Beach, & Boeser, 2011). Students adopted the
roles of administrators (principals, superintendent, technology people), teachers, stu-
dents,librarians,lawyers,counselors,coaches,parents,businesspeople,computerhack-
ers, and so on, with half the students assigned roles positing the need to unblock sites
andtheotherhalf,tonotunblocksites.
Todoso,studentscreatedfictionalbiographicalprofileswithavatarimagesdescrib-
ing their roles in terms of their expertise, experience, traits, and attitudes, in a manner
similartocreatingFacebookprofiles—profilesthattheydrewontocreateaconvincing
ethos for their arguments. They then had to respond to one another’s arguments with
counterarguments, both during and after class. During class, students caucused with
similarproandconrolestoengageincollaborativewriting.Theyalsoconsultedadigital
map projected onto a screen in their classroom portraying the allegiances between the
proandconroles.
After the completion of the role-play, students stepped out of their roles and wrote
argumentative essays for or against unblocking the websites by drawing on material
from the online role-play. In a meeting with the school administration, they used their
writing to argue for the need to unblock the sites, which the administration agreed to
do, leading the students to perceive themselves as successful given the quality of their
argumentsderivedfromtheonlinerole-playexperience.
These twosnapshotexamplesoftheuse ofdigitalwriting toteachwriting represent
a marked shift away from traditional print-based writing instruction. Rather than writ-
ingessayssolelyfortheteacher,studentswerewriting
• fortheirpeers,whowereactivelyengagedinreadingtextstoevaluatetheminthe
Inkgameortoformulatecounterargumentsintheonlinerole-play;
• within a defined rhetorical context based on particular tangible purposes—to
address neighborhood problems in Ink or to consider changing their school’s
Internetpoliciesintheonlinerole-play;
• through use of multimodal communication and design in creating a brochure in
Inkorthroughuseofavatarsandadigitalmapintheonlinerole-play;
• collaborativelybyreviewingandrespondingtooneanother’swriting;
• overanextendedperiodwithinandoutsidetheclassroom.
Theywerealsolearningthroughparticipatinginactivity.Ameta-analysisof225studies
oflearninginthesciences,engineering,andmathematicsfoundthatengaginginactive
learning results in higher levels of performance when compared to learning through
lectures(Freemanetal.,2014).
