Beginning Digital Acoustics Through Professional Development @writingproject @kwamealexander

Somewhat thawed, but not much, I arrived from Dallas to the ice-covered/school-delayed professional development in New Haven, Connecticut - another phase of the work CWP-Fairfield is doing with a K-8 school. Today, the introduction of school-wide digital storytelling was begun and Eric Komoroff of Community of Unity arrived to provide a courageous conversation about school culture and to establish a foundation for everyone who teaches at Hill Central to find their song.

It needn't be an orchestration of one kind of music, but a cacophony of many genres that makes a harmonic mixed-tape of ideas, ideologies, purposes, content, and communicative needs. Komoroff helped all to think a little deeper about who the WE can be in terms of larger, individual classroom goals that typically occur. His modest, yet astute delivery, made many think about the music that makes them tick - the internal philosophy of the profession and what that 'song' means to the accomplishments of sometimes challenging students. Learning this sound book, however, requires deeper work.

In addition, Kwame Alexander's Acoustic Rooster arrived and the books were quickly wrapped to be used as a touchtone text for writing, thinking, speaking, and reading across the content areas - this before the writer's arrival in the spring of 2014 for National Poetry and Jazz month.

The Rooster in Kwame Alexander's text found his barnyard band by tapping into the originality of his farm friends in a symphony that syncopated larger rhythm to his community - that is the essence that Eric Komoroff, too, introduced to the teachers today.

The next steps are to write around our own songs and, if possible, to incorporate the life skills of Community of Unity: self-awareness, focus, integrity, self-esteem, sense of humor, responsibility, empathy, and self esteem. Today we focused on community and from here we will write the words to make our own digital acoustics in the art form of digital stories. At the heart of it all, however, is our attempt to embrace Ubuntu in the literacy communities we inhabit. The goal is to become more familiar with 21st century tools to best provide instruction to the next generation of writers. As Chris, a middle school student, told Eric and me, "The best thing about Hill Central is the technology." When we asked him what the worst thing was he replied, "Nothing. It's great."

Yet we all agree - great can be greater and greatest! That's the goal!