If You Want to Learn About a Subject, Write a Book About It.

I was about to tweet about the #OER I'm working on, and then when I read Jessica Zeller's post about #ungrading, I thought about tweeting, too... but I don't know how long Tweeter will be around anymore, so my itty bitty blog is a better plan. Right? Right.

Before I blab about my #ChildrensLiterature textbook, here is a delicious nugget from Jessica:

"As those of us involved in Ungrading understand so well, there is always more to know and do with it—to refine our applications of its principles." This idea connects to #OER and #OEP just as much as it does to #ungrading. There is so much I want to know and understand and undo with my students and the classrooms we hang out in.

When it comes to the creating and remixing of this open textbook, I have to say that if one wants to learn about a topic, create a book on the topic! My other #open textbooks for #fyw First-Year Writing courses (college composition 1 and 2) as well as creative writing did not require me to dig into the subjects as much as I am with Children's Literature. Sure, I wrote up some solid chapters about ungrading and subjectivity and inclusivity/diversity for those other textbooks, so those ideas were new, but I know very little - WAIT I knew very little about this new subject. Now, a few weeks into development, I feel like I'm getting a grasp on what I want the chapters to say, what I want the flow to be from chapter to chapter, and why I want to cover what I want to cover. I went from knowing a tad bit from what I know in reading children's lit to my nieces/nephew and buying books for them TO NOW I feel like I see more of the complexity of subject.

I see the controversies. I see the dark underbelly. I see the creativity and difficulty in being good at this craft.

Possible flowchart of open textbook covering the study of children's literature.

Yet another nugget about ungrading from Jessica that pertains to OER: "Sometimes we have to do something pedagogic first, before we can fully understand what it means: we have to put something into practice to see its effects when students participate in it." I can create this bugger of a textbook, but until my students use it, I won't know what it's really missing. Beyond the structure of it - accessibility, alt-text - does it function in ways that work for them to learn from?

Also, if I continue on the ungrading path, I need to continue to remind myself of another design aspect that might need tweaking before, during, and after my classes - the idea of "no deadlines" can be great and terrible all at once, for various types of learners/students. And, of course, this is another connection to Jessica: "I’ve since learned that the effects of burning the place down can present problems for students who need anti-oppressive structures, as opposed to no structures at all."