The Digital Writing Workshop (T. Hicks)

As you may have guessed from my last entry, I have just finished reading The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks (available here through Amazon). Chapter seven was a summary of the book, which highlighted some of the key messages throughout the book, such as "Teach the writer, not the writing," and emphasizing the importance of choice in student motivation. The rest of the book, however, goes into great detail about the technical considerations when starting a digital writing workshop.

For some, this book can function as the technical guide on how to choose or start a blog, track changes, and collaborate digitally. As a regular internet user who feels pretty tech savvy, I wish more of the book had been like chapter seven, which focused more on classroom life. Maybe this is because I'm pre-service, but I'm really more interested in how to orchestrate 30 kids trying to write compose 100 different things on 8 computers. Hicks has the answer to that, of course, which is to create table clusters (they encourage collaboration) and surround students with traditional writing tools (because the mind needs a break from writing sometimes). The physical space is, I feel, as important as the virtual space for digital writing workshops. I find it difficult to function on a laptop if I'm in a noisy area or in a car, but if I can sit down on my bed with a halo of notes and papers, I'm ready to write. Similarly, students need a space that fosters the digital writing spirit but also consists of more than a laptop with a web browser open.

The pre-service status caused quite a bit of anxiety when I read this book. The answers are all in there, but I have no experience to apply the answers to. Thanks to Hicks, I know that there are some great tools to help students manage their citations (a tedious task that used to involve index cards and a battered, tear-stained MLA handbook) and that, if I know where to look, I can track student revisions as a method of formative assessment. In the literal sense, this book offers complete instructions on how to use digital tools with writing instruction. What I wish there had been more of, however, is instructions on how to incorporate digital tools into a variety of topics or units.

A great resource in this book, however, is the inclusion of real life lesson plans, rubrics, and student work.  Appendix 1 is particularly rich with practical uses for wikis, step-by-step guidance on how much class time to spend on digital writing, and the technical issues of ownership. In an ideal world, the Appendix would be three times as long as Hicks wrote, but I am nonetheless grateful for the shared knowledge.

The most important instruction that Hicks imparts is to stumble forward into the unknown and learn along the way. By the time a truly thorough guide on digital writing could be published, the technology it discusses would be stale. Learn as you go, this book teaches, and make the tasks authentic, interesting, and valuable.