4.+12th+Grade

**Studying //Othello// in a Ning**
I wrote [|this blog post] as I was thinking about how using a [|ning] could deepen my students' understanding that they were joining a world-wide, centuries-old conversation about William Shakespeare. I had struggled in prior years with students truly integrating their own opinions about the play with those of others. Their final papers each year showed this lack of true intellectual collaboration, and I was always sad I had not helped them reach this level. By using a ning, I hoped to establish from the first day the primacy of collaboration. I also had the exciting opportunity to open my students' world beyond their classroom by inviting a class of pre-service teachers from Montclair State University (NJ) into our ning. The professor of this course and I found each other through Twitter. My students would not only learn from each other and from Shakespearean literary critics; they would also learn from college students and grow in their own confidence as thinkers by sharing their ideas in this wider world.
 * Step 1: Rethinking My Unit **

This is my curriculum map for the hero unit. //Othello// is the primary text of this unit, the one I use to push the students as fully to college-level thinking and writing as I can. [|Here] is the ning one of my classes worked in throughout their study of this play. First, you will see I also used this ning for our final text of the year, //Things Fall Apart//. This was because I received such positive feedback from my students on their work with the ning and //Othello.// To help you find the //Othello// work my students did, let me direct you to a few specific places on the ning. You will see on the lefthand side under "Forum" the character groups they used to study a character of choice in-depth. You will also see if you scroll down to the middle of the homepage their blogs and comments on each others' blogs. Finally, I revised the culminating writing assignment to maximize on the collaboration we were doing on the ning. I reflect on these changes in this [|blog], and the final writing assignment is [|here]. I will guide you to specific examples of student work on the ning in the next section.
 * Step 2:  The Unit**


 * Step 3: Student Examples**
 * As we read the play together, students reflected on their understanding in individual blogs then took time to read and comment on each others' ideas. You can see one example of a student's blog and classmates' comments [|here]. These blogs were the first step to building each student's independent understanding of the play by working alone and with others.
 * The students also chose a single character to focus on in-depth throughout the play. This work was fully collaborative, as they joined their characters' discussion forum on the ning and worked with each other to create a full vision of the character by the end of the play. This is where the pre-service teachers played the biggest role, pushing these conversations, and therefore my students, in new ways. [|Here] is one character discussion. Students used these discussions as the foundation of understanding for their final writing assignment.
 * The final writing assignment required students to write academic articles exploring what they felt were their chosen characters' objectives throughout the play. We prepped for this by integrating what they had learned on the ning with critical essays about //Othello// such as this [|one]. We discussed how their articles should be dominated by their own views, but how these views must be clearly based in collaborative thinking, by examining closely the style of a published academic article: [[file:An Academic Article.doc]]. I was thrilled with their writing. [|Here] they all are; knowing you will most likely not have time to read them all, here[[file:EmiliaCharacterDissection.doc]] is one article that shows how the students integrated their collaborative work into their final writing (notice the Works Cited entry highlighted in yellow). Through their final writings, it was absolutely clear to me that these students had learned more than any of my prior classes had ever learned studying this play. They knew more about the play itself, but more importantly, they understood and valued the power of collaboration and joining the broader conversation.

Throughout our work with the ning, I had my students reflect so I could adjust as needed. Their first reflection was overwhelmingly positive, and I blogged about it [|here]. I then had them reflect when we were done reading the play on the ning experience as a whole, both on how much they felt they learned about the play and on their comfort level with the collaboration I had asked them to do. Again, [|their response] was overwhelmingly positive, and they also had important suggestions for me that I plan to implement next year. I discuss these in depth in the blog, so let me end here by saying that the ning transformed my teaching of //Othello// and my students' learning. I will be using a ning for many years to come and in more ways, as guided by my students' reflections.
 * Step 4: Reflection**