Writing As Design
Mike Frenkel teaches English at Brooklyn Tech HS in
New York, and is a collaborator and colleague with Ed
Goldman, whose teaching is featured in DITC. One of
their most interesting projects aims to have students
develop a more flexible understanding of designing by
coordinating the teaching of it to the same students
between Mike's English and Ed's tech ed classes. (One
of the first groups to describe the idea of writing
as open-ended problem solving (designing) was Linda
Flowers and Dick Hayes from Carnegie Mellon University.)
In MOVIE 1, Mike describes the ways he presents writing
as a design process to his students. He builds his case
by linking Goldman's five criteria of design (function,
structure, aesthetics, economy, integrity) to a 1946
essay by George Orwell on clear and concise writing
entitled "Politics and the English Language."
(You can find "educational use" versions of
this essay on the web.) The study and adaptation to
an audience, use of research, different brainstorming
techniques, and working in teama are shared by writing
and designing. Probably the most obvious shared point
is how rewriting essays is much like doing iterative
design.
In other ways, making a connection between writing
and designing is difficult. The role of nature in showing
how a designed device fails and doesn't is harder with
an essay. Nature doesn't proofread or give feedback
"when writing is broken" like a mechanical
system. Getting people outside the classroom to react
to writing is an instance of Authentic
Assessment that can make writing more design-like
and real to students.
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