The End Is in Sight

I can't believe another semester is over. What is harder to fathom is that I only have two more classes in order to be completely done with an MA in English, with one on of those classes just being my final project. As this semester was dying down and I had to decide how I wanted to present my final project, also known as the final phase of the Cookbook, I realized I wanted to explore something outside the world of this blog. As much as I have enjoyed blogged, I wanted to try something new, something I could take with me and maybe use in my teaching in the future.

On this journey of exploring platforms outside my blog, I fell in love with Wix.  I have played with website builders before, such as Weebly, but nothing I have used or seen before can compare to what Wix has to offer. Yes, I'm doing a plug for the program, but it, seriously, is one of the coolest website builders I have ever used. I cannot wait to come up with an activity that allows me to use it in my classroom.

Okay, off the bunny trail and back on track. My blog played a major role in the formation of this final piece, as I dialogued four of the posts with articles by Winston Weathers and Jeff Rice. I'm not going to say too much more here, other than you should go check it out by either clicking the picture below or the following link: Literacy, Grammar, and English.

New Media in the Classroom

If you haven't figured out, I'm an advocate of incorporating new media into the classroom. I came across the Wordle below and realized that each word describes something I'm striving for in my classroom. Even though I don't necessarily teach it and assess it (such as Amazon or Craig's List), I believe an essential (and unwritten but expected) part of my job as a special education English teacher is to teach civil literacy. This means that I've given students access to the skills that allow them to be a successful citizen.

Cynthia Selfe in "Toward New Media Texts: Taking Up the Challenges of Visual Literacy" from Writing New Media emphasizes the importance of new media texts, especially visually stimulating texts. I just love when I read works by people that are advocating for the same things that I'm trying to push for in my own classroom. I don't have too much else to say on the matter of new media literacies and visual literacy because I am a proponent for them, and I have been quite open about that in other posts. However, I came across this diagram (image below), and thought it was a great summarization of why new media literacies need to be and should be incorporated into the curriculum. If you can't read it, I believe you can click on the picture to enlarge it. 

Technology as Writing Instruction

Here I am again, discussing all the benefits of incorporating technology in writing instruction. Oh, what digital literacy has to offer! Geoffrey Sirc in "Box Logic" says the following: "I want to use technology in my writing courses; as allowing students an easy entre' into compelling medium and genre with which to re-arrange textual materials--both original and appropriated--in order to have those materials speak the student's own voice and concerns, allowing them to come up with something obscure, perhaps, yet promising illumination" (113). This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my previous post, No Longer Writing as We Once Knew It. There is something about teaching people through technology, through creativity that opens the world to new and exciting things.

Is it possible to teach "writing" through technology? I would argue and agree with Sirc that it most certainly is. For example, my students are constantly contributing to the world of YouTube. Why not take what they do outside of school and incorporate that into the writing instruction? Sirc poses the question as to whether teachers should "teach to life or college" (113). He goes on to state that he would prefer "to err on the side of life" (113). You know what, I completely and totally agree with him. High school and college are only a very small chunk of person's life. However, life is...well life is a lifetime.

Going back to this idea of having writing become relevant through technology, I am once again drawn to YouTube. I think of the thousands of people that are posting videos. Some of them are not so great quality, but it's the effort that counts, right? However, on the other hand, I think of other YouTube posters that create great short stories/films. The example below is one such example of how technology as writing can be and should be incorporated into writing instruction because with the right people, creativity can appear like this:

So I get the story is a little weird, but the idea is to show students that the basis of this clip (or any well thought out clip) has to do with writing and communication. I want my students to dabble in areas of "writing" that have never been explored. I want my students to not fear the world of creativity but embrace it. Writing really is something more than pencil and paper, and I want my students to be able to figure that out first hand.

No Longer Writing as We Once Knew It

"And in the here-now of the World Wide Web, of the blipvert soundbite, of the writing that is no longer writing as we once knew it, we are all finding ourselves responsible for making connections, for finding ways to learn and to teach new forms of making cultural meanings." (Johnson-Eilola, 226)

I'm reading "The Database and the Essay" by Johndan Johnson-Eilola in Writing New Media, and I come to the very end of the piece and read the above quote. I just smile. This line is a great definition on how I feel about teaching writing, or in other words, how I feel about incorporating the new types of writing in the English curriculum.

For examples, I am a huge advocate of alternative forms of writing, especially writing that incorporates technology. For a while, I was really into having students create videos. I also like using videos as a way to introduce material. As I was reading Johnson-Eilola discuss other forms of writing, such as working with sound tools, I think back to a video on YouTube that I used as a way to preface a similar assignment I was having my students do. For my assignment, they students were required to reenact something they had read in class, but with a modern spin. Below is a "music video" on the Oedipus story. Warning: it is very cheesy, but it does a great job of taking an ancient story and retelling it in a modern (maybe more relatable) way.

As a teacher, I completely agree with Johnson-Eilola. I find myself responsible for giving students the opportunity to make connections and find and understand cultural meanings. Isn't that the point of literacy? To just push "literacy" without it being meaningful to the students, are they truly grasping literacy? Between the Common Core State Standards and the many types of literacy, today's society seems to be very much literacy minded. As teachers of English (well any discipline, really), we need to constantly be reminded that writing is no longer what it used to be: pen and paper. It is now something so much more, especially due to the explosion of technology. 

Copyright Infringement

I'm working in the media center at the high school. I have a little down time, and I try to finish reading "The Database and the Essay" by Johndan Johnson-Eilola in Writing New Media. However, I have decided to take a moment to vent my frustration. Maybe I'm totally taking it the wrong way, but I think people have gone sue crazy. Remember that lady who bought a hot McDonald's coffee and then sued them for not warning her it was hot. Come on! You just bought a hot coffee. Do you expect it to be cold?

I'm reading the court cases the Johnson-Eilola references, and it just makes me slightly irritated. Today's society is so stuck on owning things that I feel many people are losing the drive to become creative because they might step on someone's toes.

I've taught high school English, and I love when an assignment is able to finally make their light bulb click on. I love creativity. I feel every student has something to say. It's just a matter of finding a way for them to say it that works for them. Every student can write; it's just a matter of finding out HOW they write.

I know, it seems as if I'm jumping all over the place. Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this. Anyway, imagine if someone were to come in my high school English classroom and peruse my students' writings. Many of them would probably be brought to court for stealing someone else's work. Now, I don't mean as in plagiarism, which I'll give a brief comment on that in a second. I mean as in originality of the work.

Every person (not just my high school students) is influenced and impacted by the world around them, whether it is music, movies, books, etc.  Now many times, how they respond and relate to that influence could come out in their writing. Is this really wrong? I don't think is. I think the important thing is that they are writing and expressing themselves. This would mean that half of the words written on a blog (I made up this statistic; it might very well be more than half) are not original. What do you expect when you live in a world with billions of people, and billions more who have existed over the past few thousand years that have left their mark on society?

As for plagiarism, I believe that is a different thing entirely. If you KNOWINGLY cite someone's work, you should give them the credit. If you do it unknowingly, well...that's a different matter. I think a lot of creativity could be lost due to the emphasis on copyrighting and copyright infringement. Yes, there is an importance in it, but if too much emphasis is put in it, it might deter people from writing (or being creative, in general). As a teacher, I want to teach my kids to desire literacy, not pull away from it. Okay, I think I'm done ranting. I'll go finish reading what Johnson-Eilola has to say.

New Media = Visual Literacy

As I was finishing reading Anne Wysocki's "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty" in Writing New Media, I was drawn to the time that I was observing a twelfth grade English classroom for students with disabilities. In preparation for reading Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, the students observed, analyzed, discussed, etc. William Hogarth's engraving, Gin Lane. For your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of the engraving:

Gin Lane by William Hogarth

Now, as you're sitting observing the picture, take a few seconds to really look at what Hogarth is trying to portray. Okay, I know that it is slightly disconnected from what Wysocki discusses, but I have realized how much visual literacy shapes a literary work (Wysocki, 149), such as Hogarth to Swift. I think that many times as an English teacher, I find teachers using visuals as just another discussion tool, but why not use it to preface the text and to shape the text? 

I think by incorporating visual literacy this way, it gives students another way to think about literacy as a whole. As seen in previous blogs, I am extremely passionate about literacy, especially since there is a major emphasis in the primary and secondary schools due to the Common Core State Standards. For those of you who know Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, how might you use visual literacy, such as the above picture, to connect and shape the text?

Mapping Readings

Mapping readings -- something I enjoy incorporating into my English curriculum. As I was reading through the various activities that Anne Wysocki suggests in "Opening New Media in Writing" from Writing New Media, I was oddly surprised that I was at least familiar with the majority and had incorporated many of them at some point in the past.

Okay, back to mapping readings. Why do I find them useful? Well, I think it's pretty simple for two reasons: (1) I'm an English teacher and (2) I'm a special education teacher. As for English, I think it is important for students to visualize what they are reading and why. Many times I hear students complain that they don't understand why they are reading a particular novel, short story, poem, etc. However, if I can give them something for them to see how it is connected, it makes my life much easier because they now have something concrete. I also don't have to hear them ask the same question 16 million times and can tell them to just refer to their reading maps. So am I slightly selfish...maybe...

As for special education, well it gives great visual representation. I know, I already said this in regards to teaching a general education English class. But, really, students who are struggling in the classroom need multiple representations in order for them to understand the material. The more visuals they have, the better off they are. I'm a graphic organizer, visual junky, and I having students map their readings just feeds into my love for incorporating visuals into the curriculum.

What I loved that Wysocki suggested was having the students come up with three questions on their own after putting together the map and have them bring those questions to class to help lead the discussion (35). I have done many activities in my classroom that "forced" the students to lead the discussion, but I, honestly, never would have thought of using the mapped reading to be the basis for a class discussion. When I did reading maps it was more for informational purposes.

In my future classes, I would like to have the students use their mapped readings to form higher level thinking questions. This is a great opportunity for them dig into the text and really analyze and synthesize the information they are reading. I will be curious as to how my students with reading and writing disabilities are able to use this extension of the activity to help them better understand what they are reading and how they think about the reading. My assumption is that it will take some modeling and a few practices for them to grasp the concept, but once they are used to working with the model, I know that it will be beneficial.

English, LANGUAGE!, and Literacy

So this post may be my way of venting, but I will try to relate it back to digital literacy. At the high school I work at the special education department uses the LANGUAGE! program as a substitute for English. From a literacy and English background, I find it a completely inappropriate substitute. By using this program, I feel the high school is doing a disservice to the students in multiple ways. One, I don't believe it fully covers the High School Content Expectations, with one area being technology. Two, it doesn't properly prepare the students for the ACT/MME. Three, the students know that what they are doing relates nothing to the English classes their peers take. Four, the goal of the program is to be a supplement for the general education classroom. Five...well I think you get my point. I'll move on.

LANGUAGE! is more of a grammar based program. When I say grammar, I refer to more of the grammar that one learns in elementary school. I don't think grammar is bad. Actually I find it completely and totally necessary in education. However, teaching grammar day-in and day-out can become monotonousness to both the teacher and students. So, where's this going?

Well, currently I'm advocating for phasing out LANGUAGE! and phasing in an English resource classroom at the high school I work at. I'm a huge advocate of literacy, which includes technology and digital literacy. However, the students don't get the opportunity in the current program, as they would in a normal classroom. It is so important to teach students to be digitally literate by the time they graduate high school, and I believe teaching of this digital literacy should be incorporated in the English curriculum.

Now, grant it, the below video is more general on the type of classroom where technology can be used, but if the students are on such a structured curriculum, how can a teacher expect to incorporate technology and other aspects of literacy?

Digerate, Digeracy/Digiracy, & Digital Literacy

Okay, so I've spent the past week looking at the word "literacy" and has it has transformed over time into the phrase digital literacy. However, through this new phase of digital literacy, or the "new" literacies, the words "digerate," "digeracy," and "digiracy" have been coined. How much did I find on it? Well, little to nothing. I found a lot on digital literacy, but it seems a majority of the world has not adapted to this new way of saying digital literacy.

I did find this really different site that talks about being "digerate." The entire site is based on stretch-text, which is a new form of writing I have discovered. I haven't decided whether or not I really like the idea of stretch-text. At this point in time, I'm leaning towards the side of it being annoying and slightly aggravating as I'm not 100% sure where the text is taking me. Anyway, off my rant. Click the screen shot to explore the website. I'm curious to see what other people think of this set up.

As I've been exploring the new terms for digital literacy, I have discovered that I am not that adventurous and will not jump on the bandwagon...well, what seems to be a very small bandwagon. I, honestly, don't like the terms "digerate," "digeracy," and "digiracy." I feel that if it's not broken, don't fix it, and "digital literacy" has been doing a darn good job at describing...well...digital literacy. I feel that these "other" terms are doing the phrase an injustice. Is it really that hard to say digital literacy that it needs to be shortened? Okay, I'm ending my little tirade.

What I think is happening is that people think blending two words into one is a great idea. However, not everything needs to be one word. For some things it works, but for others it doesn't. Our language may become quite morphed if we continue to lean toward phrases modulating into one word. I say just leave it as digital literacy and bury "digerate," "digeracy," and "digiracy." I know this is just an opinion after doing research on the history of the word, but I'm entitled to my opinion, right?

Search Engines: Process of Finding & Learning

"The difficulty is that the searcher does not always know precisely what she means; if she did, she would have little need of searching. The word 'search' suggests that a person is interested in finding something that has been lost. People do use search engines for this, particularly to 're-find' information often they are hoping not to 'find' but to 'learn,' or to 'discover.' Perhaps, then, the ideal search engine does not just understand what you desire, but knows what the user wants even when she does not know herself." (Halavais 35)

I never really took the time to ponder what search engines do to our world, to the education system, to my every day life. I can't even tell you how many times I've used a search engine. I can guarantee that, today alone, I have "Googled" a word or phrase AT LEAST a few dozen or so different times. Honestly, I do not know what life was like before search engines, specifically Google...because I am a Google-junkie.

As I was reflecting on this particular passage from the chapter, I immediately thought of one of the teachers I work with who teaches world history. This particular teacher has decided to implement a research project, as a way to introduce the beginnings of research writing. The students' task: search a topic and write about the findings.

The students think the project is monotonousness. However, what they have found is that by merely searching what they think is a common topic, they end up learning something they didn't know. As I have had the opportunity to watch them search and see the light bulb go on (since I work a few hours a week as a media specialist), I have been able to connect what Halavais means about the finding-learning/discovering connection.

Students do not realize that "the ideal search engine does not just understand what [they] desire, but knows what [they want] even when [they do] not know [themselves]" (Halavais 35). Since students do not always realize this truth, I believe that a part of the role as a teacher is to show students all the advantages of search engines. Many times, teachers assume students know everything about technology, but I have found that students only know what they use everyday (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.) or really just what they WANT to know. Teachers need to take the time to educate students on all the possibilities technology has. You never know, something might peak their interest. Although, isn't that the goal of teaching--to help the students find connections to their lives and interests?

Writing as Connection

"The connection paradigm...values the negotiation of contexts, the ability to 'write with fragments' ([Johnson-Eilola in "Negative Spaces: From Production to Connection in Composition"] 24). In this approach, writers focus on reorganizing and rerepresenting existing (and equally intertextualized) texts--their own included--in ways that are meaningful to specific audiences" (Selber 135).

Reading the entire first portion of "Rhetorical Literacy" in Multiliteracies for a Digital Age made me shout in agreement, "YES! YES! YES!" Okay, well I didn't do any of it out loud, but the inside of my head was going crazy in excitement agreeing with what Selber had to say. Being not only an English teacher but also a special education teacher, I am HUGE on connection to texts. Honestly, I feel without connection the student will fail. Maybe not necessarily receive a failing grade, but the students will fail in taking away something essential from the class. Also, I believe that if we, as teachers, don't give multiple opportunities for allowing students to connect to the text, we have failed in our role as an educator. 

If there is no connection, my question is: what becomes the point of teaching the topic? The connection paradigm allows the teacher and the students to reflect on why this is essential both now and in the future. So, let's go out there and teach students to connect to the text by reorganizing and rerepresenting existing text, along with adding original input. This will give students a motive for actually having to learn the material and work with the text.

Applying Wikis to Teaching

A great opportunity to collaborate. An ideal way to keep everything accessible in one area. A past fascination. These are all words I use to describe wikis. I used to LOVE wikis. When I first started the Written Communication program, I thought for sure I would be doing my final project on wikis. If you would have asked me a year and a half ago, I would have guaranteed that was the path I wanted to travel, and that wikis were my passion.

Obviously, things have changed, as I've been introduced to different (and dare I say, more exciting) things. Don't get me wrong, I still believe there is merit to wikis, but they have grown old to me...at this time, at least. However, I still like talking about all the different ways I've used wikis in the past.

How have I used them? Well, I'm glad you asked. It all began during my undergraduate years (fall semester of 2007, to be exact), while taking an assistive technology course for my special education degree. Just to give a little background, this was the class that made me realize how much I have a PASSION for technology in education. Anyway, this teacher had a class wiki, a PBwiki, that we dialogued on regarding  assistive technology devices, software, websites, etc. Finally, the sun was peaking through the downpour of rain. I never understood what collaboration, team building, class effort was like until the wiki. Okay, well I may be slightly exaggerating that fact, but the truth is, that day, I fell in love with wikis (really, this part I'm NOT exaggerating).

I ended up doing an honors project for this class, and take a guess what I did! Come on, I bet you'd never guess! Well, it was a wiki. Shocked?!?! Of course you're not because I just got through saying how much I loved wikis. So, I began to complete an online encyclopedia of assistive technology devices that described and reviewed all things related to assistive technology.

It didn't end there. While I was a student teacher in a high school English classroom 2 1/2 years ago, I helped my cooperating teacher incorporate a wiki in the Steinbeck unit. She had never used one, which gave me the opportunity to help her through the process of setting it up. Even though I left part way through the use of the wiki, I would check in periodically (as I was doing my special education student teaching in the same building) to see how everything was going. She enjoyed using the wiki. It was a great place for dialoguing. It was a great place for observing collaboration.

As you can probably tell, I still really enjoy the possibilities of wikis. I think they have a lot to offer, if used properly. However, my world has recently been opened to other pieces of technology that can be incorporated in the classroom, such as blogs and Google docs. So, currently, I'm focused on learning more about incorporating those, along with other up-and-coming technologies that will attract students to learn.

Literacy as a Metaphor

After reading "Why Are We Using Literacy as a Metaphor for Everything Else?" by Anne Wysocki and Johndan Johnson-Eilola, it continues to excite me to begin delving into my Master's project. I have a secret obsession with studying literacy and really looking at what it means. Here are some essential quotes I pulled from the text and will explain below why I see them as important:

• "[It] is possible to describe information not as something we send from place to place, in books or on paper, over time, but as something we move (and hence think) within" (363).
• "[Literacy] changes profoundly if we choose to prioritize space over time" (362).
• "The bundle of meanings and implications that comes with [the word, literacy] is...much denser and messier" (353).
• "No single term--such as 'literacy'--can support the weight of the shifting, contingent activities we have been describing" (366).

Honestly, I might as well reference the entire article, but I contained myself to these four quotes. For my project I will be studying literacy and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) - this is in a broad sense. Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola just reassured me that the way I define literacy is not out of the ordinary. I see literacy as MORE than just reading and writing. Yes, I believe that it is the base of literacy. However, society has advanced in technology, and literacy has and needs to advance with it.

This is why I decided to pull out the first two quotes. These quotes emphasize that literacy is something we are constantly using, and its changes do affect space over time. The third and fourth quotes reflect how I currently feel when dabbling with the term, literacy. To me, Jay L. Robinson in “Literacy in the Department of English” describes it best: “[literacy] is a wonderfully ambivalent term, its meaning dependent upon the contexts in which it is used” (483). Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola would support what Robinson says as they end the chapter by discussing that even though many new terms are given in relation to "literacy," the list may never be exhausted (368). That is the thing with literacy - it is creative.

I've realized what I enjoy most about studying literacy is that it is a challenge. I am never bored reading information on literacy because people view it differently and the ways of applying it to teaching changes every minute. It will be very interesting to see what "literacy" looks like 10, 20, or 50 years from now. My guess is that we would see remnants of the definitions from 2012, but it will probably be drastically different and much more complicated.

EtherPad + Teaching = Successful Classroom???

Being recently exposed to EtherPad, I have done a lot of thinking about how I might be able to use it for teaching. I'm familiar with Google Docs. I'm familiar with how it could be used in the classroom and allow for multiple editing. What I really like about EtherPad is that it allows all of that, but it seems to have a much easier platform to work with, especially for the purpose of having multiple people work on one document at the same time.

As I was thinking about my English classrooms in the past, the first thing that came to my mind was quickwrites. I love using them in my classroom. However, it's always a pain to get students to talk. It's like pulling teeth. Every-so-often I will have a student who will volunteer to speak, but my goal is to get a conversation going, not have them feel as if they are being put on the spot. If I were able to use the EtherPad for quickwrites, it would give such a different atmosphere in the classroom. So now, the students that didn't like talking or interacting have an opportunity to become a part of the class.

I can't wait to have the opportunity to actually use it with my students. I believe it can be used for multiple types of lessons, not just an English/writing classroom. When I do get the chance to implement it, I expect only to see positive results as I think students enjoy learning through technology.

Online Learning & Digital Literacy

Working in a high school that advocates digital learning and having (teaching) one class of credit recovery students through the E2020 program, I have a high regard for offering students alternative learning environments, particularly online/digital learning. Holly states in her post, "Intrator and Kunzman 'Who Are Adolescents Today? YouthVoices and What They Tells Us' from Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research," that "students are bored with school and they think [the teachers] don't care." Why do students find the curriculum boring? 

Being in special education, I believe not all students learn the same way. The bonus of technology and digital learning/digital literacy is that it offers students with a different way to learn because not all students obtain information the same way. Think about it. Are you more of an auditory learner? Maybe you're a visual learner or even a kinesthetic learner. Or, maybe you're a combination of these learning styles. 

For example, the E2020 program allows students to access their education online. The students listen to lectures, complete projects, write papers, take tests...essentially, they do school completely online. Pretty cool, right? I've seen students who don't do well, socially, in classes be able to excel with flying colors. Sometimes students are bored with the curriculum because they are literally geniuses and the information they are learning is really boring. These type of students need something that is self-paced. Their life can change from hating school to actually enjoying it. Below is a screenshot of the website. If you want to find out more information, you can click the picture and it will link you to the site.

However, being in education, I've recently learned that the online credit recovery classes, such as E2020, are not the only ways to offer students a digital learning environment. In Because Digital Writing Matters by Danielle De-Voss, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks, it addresses how educators have higher standards that they have to reach with technology and these "emerging technology standards present educators with an ever-expanding list of what students should know and be able to do with computers and the read/write Web" (94). Wouldn't it be nice to have a program that incorporates and addresses all things technology, yet gives students a unique access to education? 

Well, being based from a European model, there is now this program that is popping up all around Michigan called the WAY program. WAY stands for Widening Advancement for Youth. This is exactly what the program's goal is. As part of the program they supply each student with an iMAC and Internet connection. Upon successful completion of the program, students get to keep the iMAC. How cool is that?! So, technology and digital literacy is a major focus of the program. Below you will find a screen shot of the website that links to the website when clicking on the picture and screen shots of the brochure, which give more detailed information about this unique, digital literacy-focused program. If you click on the pictures of the brochure, they enlarge and become readable.

I love digital literacy because it is such a broad field. What I love most about it is the fact that I'm learning it along with my students. I also appreciate that it is such a creative field. This gives students the opportunity to strengthen and explore their unique abilities. Literacy is no longer just reading and writing by pen and paper. It becomes something so much more. It becomes complicated and ever-expanding.

CCSS & Technology

Being a high school teacher and as we, high school teachers, are preparing to implement the Common Core State Standards, I have realized how disappointed I am in the lack of emphasis on technology. In each grade level there is only one small strand in regards to technology. For example, in the 11-12 grade area on both the writing standards and literacy standards for the other core-academic areas, the technology strand states the following: "Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information" (www.corestandards.org). This standard is extremely vague. Look at what the current grade level content expectations have to say regarding technology (www.michigan.gov/mde):

• CE 1.5.2  Prepare spoken and multimedia presentations that effectively address audiences by careful use of voice, pacing, gestures, eye contact, visual aids, audio and video technology.
• CE 1.5.4 Use technology tools (e.g, word processing, presentation and multimedia software) to produce polished written and multimedia work (e.g., literary and expository works, proposals, business presentations, advertisements).

Not only are there two standards instead of one, but the standards from the grade level content expectations are a little more extensive and in-depth. So, are schools going to lose their focus on technology as a form of introducing literacy when they switch from content expectations to state standards? Also, what really is "technology"?

I did not realize how much this lack of detail as to what students need to master before graduating high school bothered me until reading Because Digital Writing Matters by Danielle DeVoss, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks. I have a secret passion for technology. I love incorporating technology because I truly believe that students, more specifically high school students, rely on technology, whether they really know it or not. From cell phones to laptops to iPod touches, students are constantly enveloped in the world of technology. If students do not have the opportunity to be exposed to how technology can be used for the purposes of learning and improve their writing, I fear that students will go through their high school lifetime being illiterate in writing and technology.

In Because Digital Writing Matters, DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl, and Hicks state that writing instruction for today's students "requires [the teachers] to consider what new skills and dispositions students might need for the digital age" (11). However, if there are no specific guidelines for teachers, how are teachers expected to know what type of technologies should be introduced into the classroom?

This is what frustrates me with the Common Core State Standards. The standard on technology seems unclear to me as to what the expectations are for the both the teachers and students. Being that I love technology, I would constantly be using it. However, would a teacher who is not as acquainted and comfortable with technology use it less often or maybe not even at all? How would this impact the students' education in regards to digital literacy and the fact that digital writing is currently the new way of learning? I really enjoy the input from DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl, and Hicks, but how can it be stressed to all teachers that they should have this same mindset on technology and digital writing?