- Mode: the genre of a text
- Media: the form(s) in which a text is created
- Audience: the reader, listener, or viewer of the text, both intended and incidental
- Purpose: the action the author takes, in both an academic and a personal sense
- Situation: the context for the writer herself or himself, as well as the demands of the writing task
This framework provides a guide in helping students to be intentional in their writing or 'craft'. "Being intentional with the writing, we need to ask: What is the purpose of the message?" (Hicks 2013, pg. 46). As I looked for educational topics, I kept saying over and over to myself, what is it that I want my readers to see from this blog and how the MAPS heuristic is being applied.
I chose to review the website of Alabama Education Association Facebook page and view their posts and responses. This particular post caught my attention:
https://www.facebook.com/AlabamaEducationAssociation/posts/1218022601541198
https://www.facebook.com/AlabamaEducationAssociation/posts/1218022601541198
In reviewing this post and the responses to it, I thought about what was the writers intent when she begin writing? What was her purpose when she began writing? And who is her audience and was she expecting the responses she received? In reading the post, I can see that she was very intentional in getting her point across about her thoughts and feelings on the ACT Aspire testing policies and procedures with regards to teacher evaluations. She provided several examples on how it can become a huge problem and how the test results be unfairly used to evaluate teachers. She encouraged all educators to contact the Senators and State Board of Education by providing a link to a Google doc listing the Senators contact information, as well as the email contacts for the State Board of Education at the end of her post.
I do believe the writer's intent was to inform and cause her audience to act. She provided her thoughts and supported them with examples. She then provided additional information to provoke her audience to take action. To make this post more digitally enhanced, I would suggest she make a video using an online video editor such as WeVideo (www.wevideo.com), with her voice recording and speak her concerns. The content of the video could be different photos of students testing, teachers being shown as proctors, and/or students with thought bubbles over their heads showing the comments the students made to her about the test. As the video moves through these 'scenes', you will hear her voice recording. These scenes could be a series of panning in and out, zooming in/out, rotating scenes, showing emphasis on certain photos, and maybe adding some text to photos as they changed throughout the video. (view example personal narrative video)
At the end of her post, I would keep the doc with the contact information and the BOE contact list but making sure that the hyper links are activated on the doc so that it would be easier to just click and create the email she suggested.
I would also suggest she start a Twitter feed and use a hashtag#, for example #VotENoSB316, to reach more people and get buy in and began a continuous conversation about the bill as well as generate other ideas to get others to act quickly. (see video on how to create a hashtag#)
I'm sure there are other ways that this writer could have done to be more digitally enhanced in her posting. These are just a few suggestions that I thought of as I reflected back on the text written by Troy Hicks. Focusing on the MAPS heuristic while developing your text or video allows the writer to become intentional and allowing them to think deeply and creatively. While this writer is a professional educator she could have created her post as Hicks suggests on page 144, to "Analyze.Discern.Participate". She could have employed these concepts and her voice could have made a huge impact and touched a larger audience.
References:
Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ml331sbWtE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYmmGYNCavQ
Breaking down the MAPS heuristic from Hicks on page 20 is always a good idea when it comes to posting anything on the web, especially social media. I think a lot of times people post things when they are aggravated or upset which can lead to negative comments and undesired arguments in the comments. Using the MAPS heuristic to determine the purpose and audience before posting anything could prevent some of this. The social interaction you shared was a great example of someone who knew her purpose and audience when she began writing. Her genuine concerns were voiced and the readers' comments gave other opinions on the topic in a professional manner.
ReplyDeleteSocial media interactions are so quick paced that it is often difficult to put much time and attention to our message, much less the audience, purpose or other MAPS areas. I once tried to keep up during the Twitter chat #mschat. I found it to be very confusing because so many people are tweeting at once. The conversation took many different directions. However, I do believe we can use this in our classrooms. As you stated, we've got to ask ourselves what we want our audience to get from our social media interaction. If we guide these types of activities in the classroom, we can teach our students how to be intentional in their social media posts.
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