online communities:
Online Community Flash Fiction Unit
Differentiated with Vygotsky’s
Zone of Proximal Development and Bloom’s Taxonomy
Objective
Students will learn and demonstrate an ability to access an online community on the Internet (http://www.makeliterature.com/). They will read story lines written by other writers, construct their own story lines, work collaboratively in groups to expand a story line into a piece of flash fiction or a brief 1 – 2 page fictional narrative (approximately 500 - 750 words), illustrate the flash fiction piece collaboratively, and present their work to the instructor and their peers.
When flash fiction is explained to students, teachers might consider explaining the genre as a "snapshot," a "character sketch," or a "painting of a landscape." A pre-writing activity to help break the ice for writing flash fiction might include imagining a snapshot or photograph from childhood and writing everything that can be associated with the picture, including what is remembered of the photograph and the feelings attached to the snapshot. Flash fiction might also aim to capture a mood, a moment, or a momentum.
Standards & Expectations
Standard 2: Reading for All Purposes and Standard 3: Writing and Composition of the Colorado Academic Standards will be addressed in the Online Community Flash Fiction Unit. The unit can be adapted for grades 7 – 12. However, it might be most effectively applied to high school students.
The Reading for All Purposes Standard expects secondary students to master conceptual skills of analysis, interpretation and evaluation of complex literary texts and to understand rhetorical and critical reading (CAS 56 – 57). For the Writing and Composition Standard, students are to master using ideas, evidence, structure and style to create persuasive, academic, and technical texts for particular audiences and for specific purposes (94 – 95).
Students will be expected to analyze, interpret, and evaluate the story lines of other writers and then apply their analysis, interpretation, and evaluation by creating their own story lines. In groups, students will be expected to collaborate with their peers, delegating roles of writers, illustrators, collaborators, and group communicators. The students, both individually and as a group, will be held to the tenets of the reading and writing Standards.
Anticipatory Set
How do writers, illustrators, and storytellers hone their craft? Hint: They don’t do it alone. They hone their craft by reading and collaborating with other writers. “Let’s Make Literature Together” is an online writing community that gives writers of all shapes and sizes an opportunity to practice their craft. If you don’t like writing, then you have the opportunity to be an illustrator, a storyteller, or an effective collaborator and/or team player. So sharpen your pencils, pick out some colors, and “let’s make literature together” in a flash.
Teaching/Instructional Process
Students will first be assigned to individually familiarize themselves with the online community “Let’s Make Literature Together!" However, the teacher will need to provide instruction on what to look for within the online community and how to critically analyze, interpret, and evaluate the material. The teacher should navigate the site with students in class, if technological resources are available, thereby modeling the interaction with the online writing community. The site provides writing samples of various lengths, such as story lines, chapters, and whole books. The goal of having students visit the online community is to see the work of other writers, who are living and breathing, and get a sense of how other writers compose a story line.
Teachers will want to familiarize students with conflict, climax, and resolution of narrative writing to help students understand the “flow” of a story line.
Students will be asked to keep a writer’s notebook, diary, or journal of the different story lines that strike or intrigue them (this will be an assessment method for the teacher to check for understanding).
Every student will individually generate a participation only sample of a story line and an illustration of their story line. They will bring their samples to class and be fitted into teacher-chosen small groups. The groups will then collaboratively decide on one story line or a combination of story lines to develop into a 500 – 750 word piece of flash fiction.
Groups will collaborate to form an illustration of the flash fiction piece, either by delegating a single illustrator or by illustrating collectively.
When flash fiction pieces are completed, edited, and illustrated, groups will present their work to the instructor and the peers. Individuals, peers, and the instructor will have the opportunity to evaluate every piece of work based on a rubric.
Guided practice and monitoring
The instructor will monitor the individual experience of the online community through student journals. Once groups are formed, the teacher will then conference regularly with all the groups to track their progress and provide any additional guidance individuals or groups may need.
Closure
The presentations of the flash fiction pieces, with accompanying illustrations, will provide closure for the unit. Encouraging students to submit work to the online writing community’s website might be another way to give closure and open the door to future audiences of the work.
Independent Practice:
Students can be reminded that no matter the writing situation, there is always a potential audience. Ask students, “Who is the audience of a given writing situation?” The writing situation may be a piece of flash fiction that they just successfully wrote in collaboration with their peers, a text message they send to their friend after class, or an email they write that evening.
Differentiation Discussion:
The Online Community Flash Fiction Unit can be differentiated or tiered for three types of learners, who can be identified using Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Zone of Proximal Development.” Writers coming into this unit will be somewhere between three stages of development: comfortable with reading and writing story lines, in a growing period with their reading and writing of story lines, or absolutely uncomfortable and/or unable to read and write story lines. Presenting Vygotsky’s model may be an effective way for the teacher to gauge where students think they are with their reading and writing and may inform how groups are determined. Some students may not know if they are effective writers and/or illustrators or may think they are not. The purpose of the participation only sample is simply to get students writing. The collaborative nature of the project aims to give students some choice in how they want to perform in the group dynamic. Some will naturally gravitate into leadership roles, while others will fall back and be more passive. The teacher conferences in the groups will need to assess what social developments are occurring and if any guidance or encouragement of individual students is needed.
Benjamin Bloom’s famous Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: the Classification of Educational Goals (1956) gives not only a rubric, but a way for the teacher and students to differentiate. The below diagram, based on Bloom’s model and Diane Hecox’s interpretation of the model, provides a differentiated structure that teachers and students can use to tier the expression of the instruction (See figure below). Perhaps students are English Language Learners and are still learning acquisition of the English language. These students might feel overwhelmed by going to an online community and reading the story lines. The teacher can guide these students to focus on the “knowledge” or “comprehension” category of the taxonomy and ask focused questions like, “What do you notice about the language in the story line? Make a list." The teacher might then ask, “What conflict can you see occurring in a story line?” The teacher can even provide story lines to these students where conflict, climax, and resolution are clearly explicated. Some native English speakers might be able to effectively decode and comprehend the language, but are having difficulty synthesizing the information to create story lines of their own. These students can be categorized in the growth zone of Vygotsky’s model. “I don’t know what to write about,” they might say. Teachers can attempt to relate to these students and make the assignment relevant by instructing them to put something that happened to them the day before into a story line and work with that example. The students that excel at the assignment might be strategically placed as “directors” of different groups and might serve to provide student instruction and help to their peers.
The above model, based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, was appropriated from Diane Heacox, Ed. Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom: How to Reach and Teach All Learners, Grades 3 - 12 (2002); Free Spirit Publishing Inc.
A New Literacies Dictionary: Primer for the Twenty-first Century Learner
Adam Mackie
2010