(Mostly Edtech) Resources for English Education Professors & English Teachers by Todd Finley
The best assignments allow students to do something that impact the world. See samples.
Students consistently told us that “really good” or “the best” writing is writing that is performative, that makes something happen in the world; for more information about this aspect of our findings, please see our article “Performing Writing, Performing Literacy”
Of course, good teaching is always going to be crucial, as is the mastering of formal academic prose. But it’s also becoming clear that online media are pushing literacy into cool directions. The brevity of texting and status updating teaches young people to deploy haiku-like concision. At the same time, the proliferation of new forms of online pop-cultural exegesis—from sprawling TV-show recaps to 15,000-word videogame walkthroughs—has given them a chance to write enormously long and complex pieces of prose, often while working collaboratively with others.
