Interview with Jennifer Stone

In 2001 Jennifer Stone took a group of Seventh Graders, and walked them through the writing process by having them build their own websites. Today, Dr. Stone is an Assistant Professor of English in the Department of English at the University of Alaska in Anchorage.

 

I caught up with Dr. Stone to ask her what she and the students learned about writing, how she went about teaching them, and what she would do today. This is a 28 minute interview and well worth listening to. Some of the highlights are listed below.

 

Why have students build websites to learn writing?

All writing uses some technology; teaching writing is really about using that technology to get a point across to an audience.

 

Creating a website has a lot of elements to enthuse students about writing: a topic they care about, in a media they like to use, with the ability to have their work published and viewed by others. The lessons they learn will carry over into their other writing and thinking activities.

 

In our world, the traditional word processed writing is not the only writing we have to do to be active members of our culture. Creating a website set the additional point across that your writing style has to change depending on the media: you need to write differently if you are writing a narrative, a website, a children's book, a blog, or texting your friends.

 

What did the students learn?

The students learned the general process of writing:

• how to model by looking at other websites and analyze how the website delivers its message,

• how to plan out what they want to say,

• how to think about how others will perceive what they have written,

• how to take criticism and edit, and

• how to think about the presentation.

Can you outline a lesson plan for teachers to teach writing by having students build websites?

1. Look at existing websites: analyze what their message is, what they do to get their message across, what works, and what could be better.

2. Construct a model for what a good website looks like, and how the students accomplish that as writers.

3. Teach how to use the tools, whatever tools the students will be using in building their websites: how do you set up the tool, format text, use a picture, link to other pages, and create a table.

4. Talk about using the tool and design considerations, getting into issues of writing as design, and discussing the whole process.

5. Allocate enough time for the actual production of the website: time for planning, time for research, time for drafting, time for feedback (perhaps having students, families, and friends review the sites), and time for drafting, and time for going public.

What tools would you recommend?

At the time, 2001, the students used FrontPage, but today, DreamWeaver has the advantage that it allows for full expression on a website and on the individual pages. The chief disadvantage is its learning curve. If a teacher is facile with Word and PowerPoint, she can learn enough of Dreamweaver to be able to create a good looking site in a one-day class.

 

There are also easier tools that still allow the students to change things like the background, fonts, color-scheme, and add pictures and media. Some free examples are

Tool	Description	Address
PBWiki	This is a site that hosts classroom wikis, students can collaborate on a website	http://pbwiki.com/academic.wiki
Blogspot	Free site owned by Google that allows individuals to create blogs and blog-style websites.	http://www.blogger.com/home
Edublogs	Free site that is dedicated to hosting educational blogs	http://edublogs.org/

 

The above summarizes some of the points in the interview. Listen to the entire interview by clicking the Audio Interview Podcast button below.

 

Audio Interview Podcast