Alterna-Lit

The experience with the RAFT assignments today was really intriguing (and fun!). It was interesting to hear about the different assignments: the apostrophe writing a persuasive letter to the comma on how it was just as important and could be just as formal; the color red writing to the public on its importance in art and life; a fetus writing a speech to its mother about mercury poisoning in fish (or the fish writing a letter/speech to the companies producing mercury waste). These were all really creative ways for kids to get engaged in a topic, show what they know, and express an opinion.

It would have stayed on my list of things to try in my classroom next year, and I might not have made any more mention of it until then. But then I heard Brad Paisley's "Alcohol" on the radio on my way home. It's a song written from the pov of alcohol about its influence not only on individual lives but history as well. It really got me thinking - these creative ideas are more than just ways to get our students engaged; they're out there in the larger world saying something to a lot more people than just class of students or someone's teacher. They got out there because this alternative format allows the information to get across in a different way that can have a much larger effect on an audience than a five paragraph essay.

Like the poem we read in class that was far better at achieving the final goal than the same student's five paragraph essay, or Taylor Mali's slam poem "What Teachers Make," these more authentic formats are what we need to have our students do. They are what we need to use to have our students learn. A textbook may be the easiest way to get across as much information as policy makers have decided our students need to know about science - or whatever our content area is - but that's not the best way.

It was a convergence of forces that made me have this realization about reading and writing in science. The coincidence of that song coming on the radio at just the right time allowed Brad Paisley to activate my new knowledge, my new schema, and make that connection. I don't have a typical textbook. I don't need a typical textbook. What I need is to figure out how to integrate these new aspects of 21st century literacy, these more authentic uses of literacy, into my science classroom - that's what I need to do.

ETA: examples (ideas from here)
R: planet
A: advertisement readers (or something more creative?)
F: personal ad
T: description of self

R: Mountain (landform)
A: Canyon (another landform)
F: Journal entry
T: How it was formed