the collaborative novel project

the impetus

-previous book projects: one with an OSSLT class; others with photography classes- as a first step in shared or collaborative art /writing projects across borders-looking to the possibility of other meaningful connections (First Nations Art project, ‘Me to We’ project)

Iphone documentation

The Key To Powerful Use of Technology in Classrooms is

ESTABLISHING A PROTOCOL

Half the challenge

IS ORGANIZATIONIS ORGANIZATIONIt is important, when using wikis and other online learning environments to set up a protocol for the students to

follow.

This is what we did:

Organization

We set up 34 chapter pages as ‘beats’ in i in a Table of Contents.

Each beat represented a plot progression. Each Enhanced student

would write a chapter.Applied students worked in partners.They hit the Table of Contents link to

access their chapter page.

Writing is Real

Mr. D started the ball rolling by coming to visit the Applieds and giving a presentation about the

books he’s written through Rubicon and telling them about planning a book and the writing

process.

Establishing the BeatsFirst the Enhanced wrote the outline and wrangled about the details.The Applied class read and responded as a class fromthe screen, coaching them on the story.Engagement was intense on allsides, resulting in 329 commentsand revisions, all tracked on the wiki.

Working Together

The enhanced class’ writing and their active process raised the bar

for the Applied class.

The Enhanced class, as a result of the collaborative nature of the writing and because they were aware of working

with the Applied class, gained a meta-awareness of the writing process.

Writing the Story

The activity was intense. Wiki records show:

-329 discussion comments on 90 revisions of the outline alone;

-an average of 7 revisions per chapter on 10 Chapters by the Applied

-an average of 5 revisions per chapter on 24 Chapters by the Enhanced

Revision & Publishing

The Applied partners edited their chapters by copying them into WORD

and editing them on the screen, guided by the teacher.

Monitors in the Applied class cut and pasted the book chapters into http://www.blurb.com, the book

publishing site.

Time Investment

-3 weeks of Applied Class time from start to finish;

-about 5 days of Enhanced Class time and some homework time

Grade 9 Expectations hit

Oral:1.51.52.1

Literature1.41.62.1

(3.2)

Writing:1.11.22.22.32.32.6

3.1 - 3.7

the rubric

the

unanticipated . . .outcomes

-the level of student engagement was tremendous-effects of modeling were huge for the Applied-Collaboration enhanced creativity, especially among the Enhanced students-PROCESS as well as the content was perpetually negotiated among students within and across classes; constant assessment-they invested in the project and saw it through to ‘publication’-writing for an audience made writing ‘real’-student demographics that do not intersect in real space, collaborated online without stigma-several students from each class pursued similar sustained writing projects independently afterwards

blurb book & epub