NCTE presentation on the uses of blogs and Ning to engage high school students in online role-play about issues portrayed in literature.

1. High School Students Uses of Online-Role Play to Debate and Address Issues Portrayed in Literature Richard Beach, University of Minnesota, rbeach@umn.edu http://digitalwriting.pbwiki.com

10. Students were asked to do outside reading Instead of doing individual blogs on this novel, you will also participate in an online role-play and discussion about Native Americans and a current issue. Please read from the following articles and websites in order to form your opinion on this controversial issue (additionally, you may look up articles on your own). The more of these you read through, the better you will understand your role in the exercise and the better you will understand your own feelings about these issues. “ Sioux logo debate is in tribes' hands : Settlement with NCAA lets UND try to win approval by 2010 from tribes to use the Indian nickname and logo.” By Pam Louwagie, Star Tribune “ Disagreement arises about taking stances : More controversy arose from a Sept. 22 ad in the Grand Forks Herald” By Ryan Johnson” “ UPDATE: Native Mascots & Nicknames ” - May 19, 2006 -- In the wake of the NCAA's recent ruling deeming Native American mascots "hostile or abusive," some colleges and universities continue to resist change. By Camille Jackson

12. In a comment to the owner of the Redskins, Winona Yepa, a Wahpeton Sioux woman states: “ As a native american women i am aslo very offended by the name "redskins". Perhaps your name should be changed to washington "whitetrash" then perhaps you could see why i feel the way i do about the name. We are native American's, not redskins. i find it to be a very offensive name. At least NDSU has enough respect for Native americans to address us properly as "Sioux" the fighting part is debatable but they don't refer to us as "redskins". we have names.”

13. Student reflection I feel like the role play was a really good idea and we got to talk about an interesting issue that is real and that is going on right now…I liked seeing the sides of all different people and what they thought about the issue…I thought that it was a lot easier then what it might have been if we did it in person. We could share our opinions without maybe getting into a heated discussion that might have ended badly. I also liked that we had a bio that people read so they knew where we came from and why we thought the things we did .

17. Using a Ning as the platform for online role-play:

18. Bubbl.us mapping to identify roles and relationships between roles

19. Threaded discussion allows students easily follow discussion

20. Students use their role to create an arguments and use hyperlinks

21. Students use the bio pages and comments sections to personally connect to other characters.

23. Students evaluated themselves by using the rubric below (see handout for rubric)

25. . Students wrote a paper from their own point of view addressing a problem with Internet access