Bit Strips in the Classroom: Engaging with Digital & Graphic Writing

This past week in my Language & Literacy in Elementary Content Areas course we discussed the multiple forms that text can take. We discussed different genres of digital text, from podcasting to digital book covers and graphic representations, and the potential for not only engaging students but providing opportunities for them to see, understand, and respond in new ways–beyond the linear formatting of printed text. Referencing Troy Hick’s new book Crafting Digital Writing, we used the MAPS approach to consider the features of craft present in a variety of digital and multimodal projects. We then put our discussion into practice as students crafted their own comics as a form of reading response.

The Process
Typically, we begin our class with a freewrite journal entry to focus thinking and allow time to reflect upon and synthesize important ideas from our readings. To fully embrace the topic at hand, I decided to use BitStrips for Schools as an alternative form of opening reflection. It was easy and free to create a class and student accounts, and using the tool required no formal explanation of how to get started. Rotating and answering individual questions was enough explanation, as students used their peers to troubleshoot many of the early questions around navigation.
For the activity, I wrote a series of reflection questions based on our readings (just as I usually do for written responses). Then, I asked students to respond in the form a of a BitStrip comic, for which they were only given 20 minutes to create. 

The Prompt
In response to the article Hicks, T., & Turner, K. H. (2013). No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait. English Journal, 6, 58–65.
The authors begin by highlighting some common woes around teaching for digital literacies–or really the lack thereof. Did any of these common practices resonate with you or bring back “fond” memories of your own experiences?

• Counting Slides
• Use a Blog without Blogging
• Criticizing Digitalk
• Asking only questions that can be answered by a search engine
• Using “Cool” Technology to Deliver a Planned Lesson

Have you experienced learning in settings where digital literacies were supported beyond these limited means? Do you have ideas of how you will teach for intentional and meaningful digital literacies in your content area? Or do you question how you are supposed to “know” how to do this when you may never have experienced successful learning in this area yourself?

Reactions
Overall, students were very engaged and had fun during this activity. A few students were unable to use BitStrips on their tablets and instead drew comics on paper. The biggest challenge seemed to be the way students were forced to rethink their thinking. Whereas during a typical freewrite students are encouraged to write about whatever “pops into their heads,” constructing a graphic representation required greater focus and clarity of the idea to be represented. Students mentioned the need to pare down their thoughts to the most essential level–then consider what that would look like both in regards to mixing image and words and the limitations represented by the tool (ie: which background pictures were available, how much space they had, etc). While maybe not the most conducive format for brainstorming, we could see how this would be useful for demonstrating relationships between characters or concepts, creative storytelling, explaining content understandings, or even as vocabulary activities. The one thing students did need more of was time–20 minutes was not nearly enough and not everyone was able to finish. But now that we’ve spent time both reading and constructing graphic stories, it definitely has broadened the range of what constitutes constructing meaning in the classroom.