WA Mash…Preparing for a new trimester
by Antonio
Lately, most of my time has been spent working with my creative writing students on the development of a new online magazine called “WA Mash” (Worcester Academy Mashup) and in short, it has re-energized my teaching practice. In 1996 I began my first year of teaching and was given as part of my teaching load, taught senior level creative writing. As an English major at Union my focus was on creative writing and in many ways, I was taught in a traditional, “old humanities” paradigm that truly served me well. My focus was and continues to be on the creative process. But back then, the reality was that the ability for my students to publish beyond the structure of our class or even school community was limited. We were tethered to the world of old media. Print publications.
Enter the fall of 2008. After being inspired by a presentation on YouTube by Richard E. Miller, Chair of Rutgers English, The Future is Now: Presentation to the RU Board of Governors challenged the comfortable, and somewhat traditional notion of why and how we should teach students writing. The birth of the “New Humanities” where the focus is on creative non-fiction prose fit nicely with the work I had been exploring in the past few years with blogging and journaling. And so, WA Mash was born. I gave each student an account on our Wordpress blog, they were given contributor access and were set off to find interesting ideas that would culminate in original content.
Almost 9 weeks later, the hits on our blog are reaching between 100 to 300 hits daily. Close to 50% of our users are returning visitors, we have over 85 followers on Twitter and several student articles have received thought provoking comments from our readers. What is most important, is that students are serving as content creators, they are writers and critical consumers of information. We read magazines like Slate.com, Salon.com, the New York Times Opinions & Editori
als section and the latest, The Daily Beast. The experiment is still ongoing, and as the end of this first trimester begins to reach its climax, I find myself reflecting on what has worked and what has not, adapting and modifying so that Mash can continue to grow. But what brings me the most joy and satisfaction is that 19 juniors and seniors have left their mark on the digital world. They have shared their thoughts, their ideas and they have engendered conversations. That is truly the power behind the new humanities, social media and teaching and learning.
Photo Credit: b_d_solis
Comments
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