Social Media and Purposeful Digital Writing

As compared to other forms of writing, our digital writing often seems to happen at a much more rapid and less focused rate. When we think of status updates, tweeting, texting and even emailing it often seems much more casual than writing a research paper. We should, in fact, be much more diligent about our digital writing since it is writing that will remain around forever due to the internet and "the cloud". If even as adults this can sometimes be challenging we can only imagine how difficult it is for adolescents to really comprehend the importance of taking digital writing seriously. As Troy Hicks points out in chapter seven of Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres, "It is quickly becoming our duty as educators in the 21st-century to guide our students toward responsible use of social media" (Hicks, 2013, p.138). I think this concept is hard for a lot of educators who are struggling themselves to catch up to the social media craze. Hicks points out that the main goal should be to "help students become intentional" he goes on to say that "if we simply have students sign up with the social media service and then use it in the same way we use other web-based tools - distribute assignments, have students randomly reply to each other on discussion posts - we are not inviting them to think deeply and creatively about how to craft social media texts. If we only use social media to re-create teacher centered instruction we're not using its power to our students' advantage" (Hicks, 2013, p.140). For me personally that is the most difficult concept of using social media and digital writing in the classroom. Luckily in the last chapter of Crafting Digital Writing, Hicks' focus is on modeling and mentoring the digital writing process. He responds to what he calls FAQs or "frequently argued questions" that teachers often ask him about the use of social media and digital writing in the classroom. Next, he walks us through the analysis of several student examples of digital writing. In his analysis of these examples he uses protocols for looking at student work available in the second addition of Looking Together at Student Work as well as his own "Creating a Digital Writing Assignment" which is found in Appendix A of the text. I know that both of these resources will be beneficial to me as I try to move toward crafting purposeful digital writing assignments and moving away from just replacing teacher centered instruction with technology. The largest part of this analysis and of creating digital assignments is the MAPS Heuristic. I've mentioned this before and it involves mode, media, audience, purpose, and situation. Hicks claims that asking students to enter the writing process matters a great deal (Hicks, 2013, p.160). I think that in order to get the conversation about purposeful digital writing started maybe we should first have students analyze their current digital writing, using these protocols and MAPS in an effort to have them contemplate their digital craft and where they are lacking. Whether we are encouraging purposeful and responsible use of digital writing and social media, our students are using it. I'm only friends with students I've taught once they graduate, but I've heard about school related posts by current students. It's interesting to me how students often use their social media to talk about school issues and often in a very negative manner. They have an open forum at all times where they can voice their opinions (good and bad). Two years ago there were several posts about the administration at that time. I was actually shocked at the things that were said about the principal. Below is a current Facebook post that isn't necessarily negative or positive. The original post is from a student that graduated last May. The replies clearly show that positive changes are happening at MHS, and some past students hate they aren't here to witness it! As mentioned previously, I feel that having students analyze their current digital writing (this social media post for example) with Hicks' process is a step toward them becoming more purposeful and responsible in their digital writing.

For more on Hicks on teaching digital writing see Digital Writing, Digital Teaching. References: Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.