First graders, flip cameras, and family stories: Using technology for nonfiction writing

1. First graders, flip cameras, and family stories: Using technology for nonfiction writing Melissa Wilson, OSU Doctoral Candidate

2. First graders writing nonfiction

3. Research Questions • As first grade students write nonfiction texts as part of classroom writing time, how do they socially and discursively construct an understanding of the genre of nonfiction and the composing processes associated with it? • What are the sources available to young nonfiction writers? How do the sources available get taken up in their nonfiction writing?

4. Objectives • To explore ways in which digital media can be used to expand young learners access to the literacies of research. • To examine ways in which digital media expanded both young learners’ and families’ understandings of the literacy and social aspects of media use and production.

5. Social Constructionism • Learning and understanding are not in someone’s head, but rather in the relationships built between people, tools and symbols and evolve in a public display of understanding. •  Meaning is made and knowledge is constructed by acting in relationship with others: “This is to suggest that we remove meaning from the heads of individuals, and locate it within the ways in which we go on together” (Gergen, 1999, p. 145, italics in text). • Actions and interactions, or the “way we go on together”, are most often accomplished through semiotic sign systems which are themselves social constructions and therefore arbitrary (Gergen, p. 47).

6. Literacy as Ideology • “[T]here are some very common meanings we have learned to make, and take for granted as common sense, but which support the power of one social group to dominate another” (Lemke, 1995, p. 2). • “[I]n talking about literacy we are referring to the ideology and concrete social forms and institutions that give meaning to any particular practice of reading and writing” (Street, 1984, p. 121).

7. Media LIteracy Questions to Consider • What counts as literacy? • What is valued as literacy and who determines this? • What literacy tools and objects are present and used?

8. Timeline of the Study • Read alouds led to generation of a list of interview questions. • Using a flip camera the teacher modeled the interview process including questioning and recording a guest speaker’s family story. • Students worked in small groups with an adult to learn how to use the flip camera. • Five students a day took home a camera and interviewed an elder member of their family or a family friend. • Students viewed the interview once it was downloaded several times dictating their notes to an adult. Using these notes, they wrote and illustrated the chosen family story. • The family celebration included viewing an iMovie, the presentation of a DVD of the movie for each family, and students’ individual nonfiction writings and illustrations.

9. Julie’s Blog raisingreadersandwriters.com

11. Reading family stories aloud BLOG PIX—BU

12. Interviewing and interview questions BLOG PIX—BU

13. Hearing Juan’s story

14. Learning to use the cameras

15. Picking the questions to ask

16. DVD to Take Home

17. MAX

18. MAX

19. ALAN

20. Media LIteracy Questions to Consider • What counts as literacy? • What is valued as literacy and who determines this? • What literacy tools and objects are present and used?

21. Findings • Created high levels of motivation and interest for the students and families. • Expanded both students’ and families’ understandings of literacy and the social aspects of media use. • All the students were able to build both media skills and research skills as they engaged in the research gathering process. • Freed by the technology, many young writers were able to gather a great deal of information.

22. Questions, Comments, Discussion Thank you! wilson.370@osu.edu