Computers in the Secondary English Classroom - Six Practical Student Activities
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Although the use of computers in the classroom is encouraged by school administrators and educators throughout the US, we have yet to see a strong move to guarantee the presence of computers in every classroom. Why is this the case? One cause is the continued failure of voters to support "technology rich" bonds and levies. Another is decreased allotment of government funds to public schools. (Recently, however, there has been a shift to earmark a greater percentage of these diminishing funds for technology).
In districts where the community supports the school system, one may find computers in abundance, as well as a broad range of integrated activities specifically designed to engage the mind of the student through the use of the computer. But many areas still suffer from a "technology shortage," mostly inner-city and rural districts. In these areas, not only is there an absence of technology in the classroom, it is also likely that a computer would not be found in the homes of the students. For the secondary English educator who wishes to incorporate computer technology in the classroom this can pose many problems. Beyond the obvious problem of the range of student typing skills, the major issue facing the teacher is that of exposure. How many of the students have had exposure to word processors either at home or at school? How many have used a word processor to create a paper? a report? Have any of them accessed the Internet? Downloaded text or graphics? Taken part in a conversation in a "chat room?" Corresponded with another person via electronic mail? These questions range from the microenvironment of the local computer terminal to the macroenvironment of international data exchange. Do students even know what a "chat room" is? Does the teacher?
In many classrooms, the problem is not with the availability of computer hardware and software, it is with the knowledge level of the instructor. Everyone has heard the stories of wispy gray-haired academics and executives who demand a computer for their office then never put the thing to any use. I have not met but have heard of teachers who have been given more than one computer for their classroom but let the students "do whatever" because they "just don’t seem to get along with computers." Tragically, in this type of environment technology is being wasted. Here I am determined to present a series of activities ranging from simple to complex for the secondary English classroom where technology is not wasted but used to expand the minds of everyone who walks through the door.
By introducing technology early in the term, the teacher can expose students to its benefits, creating an environment that can build in excitement and anticipation as students see how to apply their new skills. This excitement is infectious—many of us remember the feeling, after being given a simple lesson in the use of an on-line thesaurus, of suddenly being eager to know what function every menu option performed. But where to start with a classroom of students that may have severely disparate skills? Depending on district requirements, some students may not be able to type, forcing them to use the "hunt and peck" method of data entry, whereas others may be able to consistently type sixty words per minute. Some students may be intimately familiar with more than one word processing program, whereas others have never turned in a paper that was not hand-written. In order to overcome the endless issues raised by these questions, the activities presented here make the following assumptions:
To some, these guidelines may appear generous or downright unrealistic, but for others, this is a common technology configuration in their school’s classrooms. In some schools there may only be one classroom with a computer, and the teacher brought it from home. In other schools, there is a computer for each classroom, but it is intended for the teacher’s own use. In others, there is a "computer lab" where teachers take their students when each student or pairs of students need a computer to themselves. In others, the teacher and every student have a computer within the classroom, the entire school is linked via LAN, and all workstations have "Net" accessibility. Hopefully, this illustrates the diversity of the implementation of technology in our schools.
The following series of activities, working on the basis of the given assumptions, present some ideas for secondary English teachers to encourage their students to utilize technology to create something that interests them. The activities range in difficulty, thereby considering varying levels of student ability. Although the activities are designed to follow one after the other, building on preexisting skills, each may stand alone as an activity to accomplish a certain academic goal. They culminate in a final project that incorporates the skills of all previous activities as well as a classroom feast, a proposition this author never discourages.
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What to do at the beginning of the term when students are eager to get back to school and socialize with old friends, yet grimace at the prospect of serious schoolwork? This activity, originally performed in hand-written form in the high school classrooms of Dr. Jeffrey Golub, is one of those activities that gets students to "just write." In addition to getting them to write, it gets them to write using the computer, thereby encouraging them to express thoughts and ideas on a keyboard instead of with a pen and paper.
Purpose: Practice expressing thoughts with a computer, interpersonal communication, student feedback (for the instructor), acclimatization to technology
Preparation: Most LANs come with a built-in electronic mail (email) program that allows one workstation to communicate with another by sending typed messages to another user’s "mailbox." Before this activity can take place, each student will need to set up their own email account so that they can send and receive mail from other students.
Activity: Students are told that today is a "non-verbal" day, and that all communication will occur electronically via the email system. This means that they can send and receive messages from one another on any topic, and they may only express themselves with words by typing and sending them to another person. Since email allows you to send to multiple mailboxes, make it clear to students that messages are sent to ONE person. (You may argue that sending messages to multiple people unnecessarily increases network "traffic," slowing responses and decreasing the number of messages and responses they can send and receive).
Allow students to send and receive messages for the entire class period (you’ll find it difficult to cut off the entertainment value of their facial expressions) and participate in the activity yourself. Golub writes, "Sometimes I will write to students and ask, ‘Enjoying the class so far? What have you learned?’ and get a good idea of their perception and understanding of the course content. Other times I will try to get students talking to others with whom they do not usually interact. For instance, write to one student and ask, ‘What does a wish look like?" and the reply usually comes back, ‘I don’t know. What?’ So send a second message: ‘I don’t know either. Why don’t you write to Greg and Sarah and ask them?’"
This activity goes beyond "just writing" to encompass greater issues of student interaction and writing for an audience. Certainly some of the messages would embarrass the most worldly of educators, but the students are writing for themselves and to one another. Since the students are getting almost immediate feedback to their writing, they are encouraged to express themselves on the computer, and eagerly!
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This activity is simple, and one of my favorites. It involves explaining the pitfalls one can have in relying on an automated spell checker and emphasizes human review of work about to be turned in to the teacher.
Purpose: Encourage human review of student texts, the fun of homonyms
Preparation: Email a copy of the following poem to each student, students should work in pairs.
Activity: Discuss the importance of reviewing a piece of writing before submission to a teacher. This conversation should be expanded to include cover letters for job applications, resumés, and formal letters to family members or scholarship committees so that students see the importance of review in "real life." Present the poem to the students and briefly comment on homonyms. Note that every word is spelled correctly, but then again, most are not. Ask them to rewrite the poem using all the "right" words.
If your classroom is using a Mac or Windows-style operating system, then you can show students how to reduce the size of their active document window and open up another document window along side the original. This allows them to simultaneously view the original poem on the left of the screen while working on their revised version on the right.
"Candidate for a Pullet Surprise"
I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Aye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore a veiling checker’s
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid to wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.
Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
But righting want to pleas.
by Jerrold H. Zar, 1995
Mr. Zar is a professor at Northern Illinois University. By his count, 127 of the 225 words of the poem are incorrect, although all words are correctly spelled and would survive a spell checker.
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After some practice has been done with basic writing and submission of writing both in hard copy form (students print out their work and hand it in) and electronic form (students simply email work to the teacher), one topic many English teachers enjoy is revision. At this point there may be a paper that students have submitted to the teacher for a grade, and after reviewing the papers, the teacher determines it’s time to get students to revise revise revise. Traditionally, encouragement for revision simply produces papers similar to the previous draft, perhaps with some grammatical changes here and a few different word choices there, with spelling and punctuation errors taken care of. This exercise encourages students to use the "Cut and Paste" utilities in their word processor to rearrange not only words in their paper but perhaps sentences and paragraphs as well.
Purpose: Revision techniques, argument organization
Preparation: The teacher prepares a short (less than one page) story or essay, the idea and central issue of which is easy to grasp. After typing the essay, move a few sentences from their original places and confuse the structure of some sentences so that the sentences "just don’t sound right." Distribute a copy to every other student’s email in-box; students should work in pairs.
Activity: Introduce the essay for the entire class with an overhead representation of the essay in modified form. At this point a brief lecture might take place about the benefits of revision and how writing is a constantly evolving process. "For example, this short paper was handed in by student John Doe the other day. The teacher has handed John’s paper to you to revise. You need to determine if the order of ideas John presents make sense to you, and if he could have expressed his ideas better. You don’t need to make significant edits in vocabulary, the puzzle is to try to find a way to express John’s ideas in a logical sequence that flows from beginning to end." Students should be shown how to use the cut and paste tools in their word processor so that they can apply the technique in their own work.
You might decide to do a preparatory exercise on a more basic level, giving the students a "Clue"-type mystery that requires teams of three or four students to examine in what order a certain chain of events may have occurred. They are given a series of short paragraphs in random order, and they must place them in proper order.
These activities encourage students to consider the flow of their words and arguments, and whether one idea logically follows another or there may be "something missing" entirely. When their papers are returned, they should be given the opportunity to revise them, and reminded of John Doe.
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Let’s say your students have been writing using their computer for awhile now, and they have mastered the basics. Now it’s time to return to a language basic: vocabulary. Sometimes, students turn to a thesaurus when they can’t think of the word they want, but they become mesmerized by the number of words to choose from. Instead of selecting the word they want, they insert a word that they think "sounds good." Usually, this is because they envision the teacher as their audience, and more complicated vocabulary can’t possibly hurt a paper, can it? Of course, the problem often is that the chosen word may sound good independent of the sentence in which it appears, but in the context of the student’s paper, it sticks out like Joseph’s technicolor dreamcoat. This activity encourages students to use their word processor’s built-in thesaurus and dictionary while considering the style and tone of the writing.
Purpose: Build vocabulary, use words to create tone and dictate style
Preparation: The teacher creates two or three short (less than one page) stories or essays. One might be a revised version of a fable, intended for children. The teacher should substitute absurdly difficult vocabulary to make the story virtually impossible for a child to read. Another could be an advertisement for a recreational getaway on a balmy tropical island. The teacher should use lots of adjectives, yet replace them with words that certainly do not create a "balmy" feeling. Distribute the texts to the students via email, students should work with a partner.
Activity: Discuss the benefits of word choice in order to create a mood, atmosphere, emotion, and the importance of word choice with regard to your audience. Illustrate for the entire group how to use the electronic thesaurus and dictionary to substitute specific words and select which word fits "best." Introduce the twisted fable and instruct each team of students to use the word processor’s built-in thesaurus and dictionary to change specific words, creating a fable for an audience of children instead of an audience of college English majors. The other texts should be altered in the same fashion. Have students select a certain word or phrase from their finished product and encourage them to explain why the particular word they chose was "just the right one."
This activity introduces the idea of writing for a specific audience, which will become an important aspect of each student’s life in high school and beyond. This skill will also be valid with respect to the "final project" coming up later. The first time around, the activity can get a little crazy as they search for options in the thesaurus, so I don’t encourage a time limit, but leave time to have students read their final product out loud. This should produce some laughs or at least some affirmatively nodding heads.
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Up to this point I have discussed activities that incorporate various aspects of writing and how the features of the word processor can contribute to improve the quality of student writing with regard to those aspects. It is now time to shift focus from the single student and student pairs to student groups. This activity is an ongoing project that requires every student to participate at least once during the course of the term.
Purpose: Working collaboratively, desktop publishing, revising, publishing for an audience
Preparation: This activity involves students and desktop publishing, so at least one computer in the classroom will require desktop publishing software (most word processors have templates to construct a newsletter-like document, but desktop publishing software comes with great clip art that can be used to enhance the presentation). Students should be notified at the beginning of the term that there will be a classroom publication later in the term, and that everyone will be required to submit at least one piece of writing for publication. The instructor should select a certain style or format for presentation of student texts (i.e. newspaper style columns or other format), and have a template prepared for students.
Activity: The activity is the creation of a classroom publication that features three (or more) student texts per month (use your best judgment to set a timeline for publication dates). Since students were told at the beginning of the term that their work would eventually be published, they will not be surprised when you introduce the project in full a few weeks into the term. Have students divide into groups of three (four causes too much crowding around the computer where production will take place), perhaps with help from the teacher.
Every three weeks, a different group will be responsible for publishing the classroom writing publication. To make it "fair" each group might draw a number out of a hat to determine who goes first, second, etc. During the three weeks prior to the actual publication, the teacher works with the students in the group to select one of their own pieces of writing that will be published. The students must collectively create a logo or emblem for the title page of their particular edition (the class can vote for a publication title), determine in what order the pieces of writing will be presented, and what, if any, artwork should be included to enhance the writing.
Because work will be read by other students, the members of each group become very particular about their writing and the "look" of their particular edition. In order to prepare them for future collaborative work, require that each student review the work of the other group members. Outside of class (or in class when the rest of the class is working on another project perhaps), the students must discuss each other’s work and what revisions might be made. To some this might seem to ask for student conflict, but it also encourages students to work together and consider someone other than themselves, a skill students require outside the classroom.
A copy of the publication should be distributed to each student so that at the end of the term, each student has a comprehensive example of the writing of their colleagues. Depending on the nature of the class, the teacher may require students to submit two or even three pieces of writing during the term. This introduces the issue of how to handle someone else’s writing when you are responsible for its presentation, and the author is not at hand.
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"Gonna Leave This Class Behind"
This idea for a final project came to me as I was reading a recent copy of "Outside" magazine in which they listed, by continent, various trips one could purchase to go anywhere from tracking game with Namibian bushmen to sailing the Nusa Tenggara island chain in Indonesia. Since I have an avid interest in remote travel locales, I found the article’s "angle" fascinating. Listed for each trip, with no more than a small paragraph of explanation, was a trip description, dates of availability, physical difficulty, travel advisory, trip high and low points, available outfitters, number of yearly departures and price (per outfitter), and the "Luxe Factor" (level of the "cushiness" available in the accommodations).
Because many resorts worldwide now advertise with their own home page on the Net, it is relatively trivial to access a wealth of travel information to put together your own vacation. You can secure airline or train tickets, make accommodation reservations, even have a dialog with the maître d’ at a hotel’s five-star restaurant.
This activity involves students creating their own travel brochure for an out-of-the-way travel destination. The day the "brochures" are due, the class has a multi-cultural party of sorts, and the students and teacher bring food native to their destination.
Purpose: Collaborative learning, researching for data using both the Net and library resources, writing for an audience, persuasive writing, style, tone, and the works
Preparation: The teacher may want to do some preliminary research regarding the availability of data on the Net for twenty or so destinations because part of the group’s grade will be based on incorporating information downloaded from the Net. However, I encourage the students to select their own destination as a group.
Activity: Because this is a fairly robust group activity, it should be anticipated that it will cover at least a few weeks. There are a specific series of steps that must be followed in order to acquire the data required for a good grade. In other words, the requirements of the project will be clearly defined by the teacher (perhaps with the help of the class).
The teacher should introduce the project assignment and present the class with a brief list of project requirements, including the following:
Encourage students to contribute ideas over and above these standard guidelines. They may or may not be graded on the basis of their ideas, but their ideas should be written down so that they know what makes a "good" brochure.
At present, most schools only have limited access to the Net, by which I mean that there are usually only a few specific computers that have a modem. Therefore, it may be necessary to schedule specific times for the groups to search for data online. One way to do this is to schedule a specific group for on-line time while the rest of the class does "traditional" library research.
By this point in the term, most of the students will have had an opportunity to work in a group with their peers for the publication project, so the group aspects of this project should not be so bumpy as their first exposure to collaborative learning. Their brochure must cross many boundaries in order to appeal to a wide audience, and this incorporates their practice in writing for an audience, paying particular attention to tone, style, and the emotion wrought from their words. The teacher might also require from each group a self-evaluation that could include not only feedback about their impression of group work, but their arguments as to why they did or said certain things in their brochure as well. Many students feel that teachers do not appreciate the amount of sweat and toil that goes into a piece of work, and this gives them the opportunity to "air out" any concerns.
Other benefits from this project include the students’ appreciation of other cultures and destinations outside their own city, state, and country. Email exchange with people from other parts of the world can be a rewarding experience, providing a personal look at foreign cultures and introducing what may become a lifelong email relationship.
The project "feast" can be spiced up with music from the various destinations, and, if students are really motivated, they might dress in the clothing of their particular travel destination.
When the project is done, when all the students are gone and you’ve been harassed by the janitorial crew for the mess in your classroom, it’s time for a break. Now you have a few moments between class to sit back, relax, and think of all those vacations you can’t afford. But if your students have done a good job, not only you but everyone else has visited a number of other lands in the span of about an hour.
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Bibliography
Monroe, Rick. Writing and Thinking with Computers, A Practical and Progressive Approach. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993.
Wresch, William. A Practical Guide to Computer Uses in the English/Language Arts Classroom. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1987.
- - - - - - - - - -, ed. The English Classroom in the Computer Age, Thirty Lesson Plans. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1991.