Reaction Paper

1.      Sabine Posy-Stewart

Eng. 5020

November 9, 2015

Tutoring ESL Students: Issues and Options

Muriel Harris and Tony Silva begins the article by first defining the goal of the tutor. They state, “The goal of tutors who work in the center is to attend to the individual concerns of every writer who walks in the door.” after describing the goal of the tutor Harris and Silva states the challenges tutors face when trying to explain certain concepts to non-native speakers. They wrote that tutors can be reduced to stunned silence when they try to explain why “I have many homeworks to complete” is wrong. They also note that new tutors often see a draft by an ESL student and are unsure of what to address first, their advice is to begin by looking for what the student did well in the paper and begin the session on a positive note. The authors reveal that tutors do not really know how to work with ELLS. They advise that in order for tutors to work effectively with ELLs they need some perspective on rhetorical approaches. They begin by introducing rhetorical preferences then they ask the question, is it helpful to generalize ELL students? To answer this question the authors brought up the issue of “contrastive rhetoric,” (which is how a person first language and culture influences his or her writing) vs. “contrastive analysis” (which states that positive transfer would occur where two language are similar). They assert that understanding “contrastive rhetoric” and “contrastive analysis”   would be valuable to the tutor because both describes pattern of rhetorical preferences in other culture and describe first language transfer, all possible reason that could explain the seemingly inappropriate rhetorical strategies used by ELL students.  But in the end both authors concludes that tutors should know rhetorical preferences in culture, but should not expect all ELL students to fit the molds they have learned because obviously everyone is different. Harris and Silva transition into the next discussion “recognizing differences” by stating that tutors think that all ELLs are the same and therefore must have the same problems. They advise against this perspective because every student has different strengths and weakness.  Harris and Silva suggest that tutors assess the skills the student has or doesn’t have and determine whether the student need help with the writing process or the language.

The authors briefly talk about ELL students overall writing process. In that section they discuss research on adult ELL writers. The research states that adult ELL writer plan less, write with more difficulty, and reread what they have written less. The authors provides various strategies so the tutor can better help these type of students. Strategies include helping them plan their ideas and writing in stages. They also offer other important strategies and solution to the tutors when they encounter sentence level and grammar issues. The authors wrote, “A merely intuitive understanding of how English works would not be sufficient for helping ESL writers---who do not share the tutor’s native speaker’s intuitions and who often need explicit explanations.” They further express that knowing the rules can better help tutors with ELL’s grammar errors, mechanics errors, and overall writing rules. Knowing the rules can especially help those ELL students who are rule oriented and rely on organizing their knowledge of English by rules.  But they also advice against tutors becoming “grammarians” who shout out rules.   Furthermore the authors suggest that tutors resist the urge to correct everything. They write, “Tutors need to resist their impulse to help as much as ELL students need to resist their desire to have every grammatical error corrected.”

At the end of the article Harris and Silva reiterate the goal of the tutor and emphasizes that ELL instructors and writing tutors need to keep interacting and learning from one another. They also advice tutors to be mindful of rhetorical strategies and languages of other cultures and to always make the tutoring session interactive. Overall I though Harris and Silva did a great job of identifying the issues tutors usually encounter when working with ELL students and I also though they did an even better job in providing effective strategies to remedy these issues.

Teaching composition in the multilingual world

Pal Kei Matsuda begins his article by describing the demographic shift of student population in U.S college composition program. This shift, he concludes has made the U.S higher education highly heterogeneous in terms of the language backgrounds. He urges college writing programs to provide opportunities to prepare students for a globalized world. Matsuda wrote, “ Today, with  the globalization of economy and information, teaching writing  to college students is not just about preparing students for academic, professional, and civic writing within the national boundary; it is also about preparing students--- both domestic and international---for the increasingly globalized world that  always been, and will continue to be, multilingual.”

He continues by first examining the various terms used to describe second language writing which refer to writing in any language that the writer did not grow up with.  He defines the many terms that are sometimes used interchangeably. Such terms include ESL, ESOL, and the current one ELL.  Matsuda explains that these terms have been in reference to both international and resident ESL students. Now, because the distinction of these terms have not always been clear they have caused confusion and even conflict among teachers and researchers. He further states that the terms have also been problematic for some resident students who, associate ESL with being “foreign.”  These students resist the institutional label imposed upon them and more recently have been using the term generation 1.5. This Matsuda states is a term describing college ESL students who are U.S.-educated learners of English and whose linguistic profile is distinct from that of prototypical international ESL students.  After drawing our attention to the problematic matter of terms Matsuda jumped straight into the history of second language writing in composition studies.

In this section Matsuda writes second language issues became an important concern among teachers and administrators of first year writing program in the late 40s when the conclusion of WWII brought an influx of international students to U.S. higher education and into first year writing programs. In response to this situation administrators developed separate sections of first year writing programs for “foreign” students. Although this population of students continued to enroll in mainstream writing courses at many institutions, the discussion at CCCC came to a stop in 1966 when the creation of TESOL organization “institutionalized the disciplinary division of labor.” But in the 70s and 80s that all change when the rise of basic writing and the growth of resident ESL began. Matsuda explains that second language writers were placed in basic writing classes because not all institution had separate ESL course. These placement could have been productive if only basic writing teachers had background knowledge in second language instruction. Fast forward to current times and second language issues have become more visible. Second language students are still place in first year writing program taught by teachers who may not be experience with working with second language writers of various kinds.  In response to the current demographic shift Matsuda believes that separate section of first year writing courses for second language writers need to be establish and if unable to separate the course he advice to at least make the first year writing courses ESL friendly. He also talks about the importance of creating professional development for writing teacher. While some schools are already doing this Matsuda further emphasizes the importance of making the curriculum in writing programs appropriate for students who bring a broad range of linguistic and cultural differences to the class.      

Lastly, Matsuda mentions the lack of second language issues being discussed in professional literature and text.  Which ironically focuses on international issues. He further addresses the writing center. In the topic of writing centers he ask writing center administrators to examine their assumptions of the writing center, which were developed with monolingual English users in mind. At the end of this article Matsuda basically reiterate his point and states this: Composition specialists need to embrace the multilingual reality of the global community and today’s classroom by exploring ways to engage all students in the development of global literacy.   

1.       Explain one thing that you learned about second language learners that you didn’t know before?

2.       How would you work with ELL writing students? What strategies would you use?

3.       Consider one advice you would offer an ELL student about writing? 

English is a Crazy Language

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in
eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England. We take English for
granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can
work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from
Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers
don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of
them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship…
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?

Retrieved from LiveMocha.com

Revision Strategies (Sommers) &Teach the Motivating Force of Revision (Murray)

Sommers begin the article “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experience Adult writers” by stating that, “although various aspect of the writing process have been studied extensively of late, research on revision has been notable absent.”   Sommers suspect the reason for this is that “current models of writing process have directed attention away from revision.” Then she went on to name two type of writing models, first, “Gordon Rohman’s model which suggested that composing process is move from prewriting to writing and rewriting. Then James Britton’s model, which described the writing process as a “series of stages described in metaphors of linear growth, conception, incubation, and production.”Sommers also describes the linear model, which she states is base on speech in two specific ways, “traditional rhetorical model” and “stages of composition.” She further add that the “linear model produce a parody of writing.” after her introduction to the writing models she continued the conversation by including her research study in which she examine the revision process of students writers and experienced writers. In the beginning of the study Sommers defined the termed  “experienced” then she introduced the students’ side of the study by saying that the students did not seem comfortable using the word revision and explained that revision was not a word they used, but a word their teachers used. She concluded that the student writers predominate concerns were vocabulary. She stated that, “students understand the revision process as a wording activity.” She also states that the students placed a symbolic importance on their selection and rejection of words as the determiners of success or failure for their composition. For the adult experience writers Sommers concluded that they defined revision as the primary objective when revising as finding the form or shape of their argument. When Sommers questioned them about this emphasis the experienced writers responded, “that since their first draft are usually scattered attempts to define their territory, their objective in second draft is to begin observing general patterns of development and deciding what should be included and what excluded.” According to Sommers the adult experienced writer seek to discover meaning in their engagement with writing through revision. At the end of the article she summarizes her thought by saying that, “students do not see the incongruities. They need to rely on their own internalized sense of good writing and to see their writing with their “own” eyes. Seeing in revision—seeing beyond hearing ---is at the root of the word revision and the process itself.”

After the reading I thought it was very interesting how the student writers and the adult experience writers differ from their point of view of revision strategies. As stated before the experience writers tried to find meaning in their engagement with writing while the student writers mostly focused on rewording, but then again shouldn’t that be expected? After all the adult writers are experienced which mean they had years and probably good reasons to have developed and perfect their skills regarding writing revision, while the student writers are still developing their writing skills, a skill as described by Sommers they see passively through the eye of their former teachers. 

Reading Murray’s article was awesome. In the beginning I thought wow! what such strong opening statement. This may have nothing to do with the reading, but I have to say Murray is by far one of my favorite writers amongst the writers we covered in this class thus far. He is such an idealist and there’s an ease to his writing that you don’t have to try to decipher his point. He pretty much lay it out there and say what many like myself would like to say, but only he can do it so eloquently. Anyways moving on to the article.  In it Murray states in the beginning that his major goal as an English teacher is to encourage students to change their sense of what it means to write so it reflects more of their intuitions and less of their trained belief.  Knowing he might encounter opposition for this statement he quickly added that he does not want to fight any more opposing forces than he already has in his hand.  Murray further described his goal by saying this: “ I want them to understand that the movement from personal writing to formal and abstract modes of writing does not involve the death and burial of the self, but rather a reconceiving of the self that writes.” A beautiful statement that pushes teachers and students to tap into creativity and become better writers, however he realized that this idea of his is a mere dream especially in the of time of standardize test. Murray continues his disapproval of the state of writing by saying that language teachers do not appreciate the importance or the excitement of revision, he said instead they teach rewriting –if they teach it at all as punishment the price you have to pay if you don’t get it right the first time.  He advise instead of teaching rewriting as punishment teachers should use revision as the opportunity to enable students to experience the adventure of writing. Murray affirms his point by providing personal examples and anecdotal experiences of how teachers can help students discover their thoughts through writing. Although he did not provide details on how the process of revision should be done or looks like he offers thoughtful and even inspirational suggestions.

Again, I can’t help to admire Murray’s effort in trying to encourage the writer to focus on their inner realties rather than outside realities or influences. Like I mentioned before he is definitely an idealist and his ideas on writing is necessary for anyone who is interested in the writing process.

Regarding the final project for some reason I had it in my head that this week’s assignment was asking us to share our titles for our individual pieces. Since it’s for the overall project I would say Laura’s suggestion stands out. I thought both titles are great, however I prefer “Writing from the Heart” vs. “Writing Matters.” I simply say this because when I hear “Writing from the Heart” I think of unique, powerful, and creative writing that naturally flows to whomever is writing and when I think of “writing Matters” I’m sorry to say, but I think of structure almost like developing writing skills. Anyways, that’s just my two cents. Again, both titles are very strong and I am excited to hear what we come up with as a group.   

Writing Comments on Student’s Papers (Bean) and Response to Writing (Beach & Friedrich)

“The paper graders are here, sir. Shall I send them in?”

The article written by John Bean was a nice read. The opening statement about teachers forgetting the human being who wrote the word and then becoming so harsh and sarcastic that they let their irritation show on the pages reminded me of the cartoon strip above. It is true writing teachers sometimes are too harsh of a critic. The article also reminded me of Peter Elbow, Nancy Sommers, and Donald Murray’s main points all wrapped up in one regarding constructive feedback. Especially the comment about writing teachers being coaches at the drafting stage and being judges at the final stage. This idea of teacher’s being “coaches” during the writing process was a common theme among these three authors I’ve mentioned above.  Although, John Bean’s view point seemed like reiteration of the other authors we read about, the style in which he wrote this article was different.  He not only talked from the student’s view point he also provided a sympathetic perspective. He stated, “We let our irritation show on the pages even though we know how we ourselves feel when we ask a colleague to read one of our drafts (apologetic and vulnerable).” This thoughtful approach make you want to reconsider your method if you are one of those teachers who shows no sensitivity towards student’s work and progress.  Bean also included student’s reaction and view point to teachers’ comments on their paper and alongside that he provided ideas of positive commentary. Bean further provided advice on constructive feedback and how to properly guide students through the writing process.  Again, this article was a great read because it offered in details the proper way to guide and communicate to students throughout the writing process and it also gave great tips on how to implement positive commentary without insulting or devaluing students’ work.

Beach and Friedrich’s article is very similar to the many articles that I have read in terms of discussing and providing guidelines on the effective ways teachers can provide feedback. Although Beach and Friedrich article dated a little later than the others, I don’t think they mentioned anything new that haven’t been said already by the many others that had covered this topic. They did however categorize their main points and included several research findings to back up their arguments.  Even the research findings and their recommendations were conclusive in their approach and remediation. That goes to show you that there was and still is a general consensus regarding this topic. Everyone (meaning the authors who had covered this topics and even the students and teachers who had read these articles) pretty much agree that without effective feedback from teachers, students will not engage in substantive self-assessment and revision that can help students improve their writing. It is pretty much agreed upon that teachers’ feedback need to be specific and nonjudgmental in order for it to be effective, and it is pretty much agreed upon that that various strategies need to be implemented into the writing class to further help develop the writer and the writing process. Having read yet another article on responding to students’ paper led me to believe that there was and still is a lot of focus in this area, but current writing classes do not reflect or put to practice some of these ideas and strategies recommended  through these researches because the last I remember I was still getting vague feedbacks and given really no room for self-assessment  in some of my college classes  and last I remember my teacher colleagues were doing something similar with their lower grade students. Overall I enjoyed reading the article and I will be using a lot of the strategies and tips recommended.

Bi, Butch, and Bar Dyke: Pedagogical Performances of Class, Gender, and Sexuality

The three articles were very interesting. I like how Gibson, Marinara, and Meem each talked about their own personal experience of class, gender, and sexuality performance, but for each reading you had to follow the narrative closely to tell who was telling the story. The first article examine how story telling work as a way to construct identify narratives and voices. Especially the voice of lesbian or working class. In the article she writes, “all identity, all social construction, begins with narratives.” The second article talks about how being a butch lesbian  has more advantage than being a femme lesbian because being butch is associated with both visual and non-visual characteristics. The final article talks about “speaking our memories” how writing about our personal experiences can give voices them. Although all three article were interesting and had a common theme of identity and voices, the first article seemed to stand out the most to me.  In this article Marinara discussed her position as a bi sexual and working class woman, who has “entered the academy”. In the beginning of the article I didn’t really understand the connection between the story about the little girl at the grocery store and being lesbian. With that it seemed like she jumped from one point to the next without a proper transition. Also, I couldn’t tell who the author was refereeing to because she had a general sense to her tone. Anyways, Marinara argues that we see identities primarily in terms of binaries. She writes, “This politicized voice emerges from a self –empowerment that hinges on an appeal to universalities of class and sexuality, self-empowerment that depends on binary opposition.” She basically said we can be working class or professionals, straighter, or  heterosexual or we can  create complexity in our self-construction, but the reality remain that we see things in only black and white there are no in between.  And she stated it’s because of this "dualistic system of thought" that makes it impossible for her to come out of the closet because she doesn’t fit that mold. Marinara ended her article by pointing to the fact that identity is not as simple as black and white it is by far more complex than that.   

Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking & Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar

Although, Peter Elbow’s article was written in 1993, his opening statement about assessment driving and controlling teaching was not only honest, it rings true in today’s classrooms. In this article Elbow talks about “sorting” the different act of assessment. He begins his argument by reminding us all that he is by no means a professional in this field, but strongly feels that nonprofessionals such as himself should work and focus on sorting out assessments because the so call professionals “have not reached definitive conclusions about the problem of how to assess writing (or anything else, I'd say).” Elbow also reminded us that decisions about assessments are often made by people even less professional than we, namely legislators. Although, this was a very small part of his argument it was one that needed to be said because it gives a reason to why assessments need to be sort out. After reading this I found myself sharing similar views to Elbow. Maybe like him I am idealistic and want to also find fairness in judging other’s work, or maybe as an educator I too find my self frustrated and want to try to find constructive ways of assessing student’s paper because some of the current assessments that are in place are shamefully stupid, whichever the reason I did find myself agreeing with a lot of his ideas and also disagreeing with some as well. One of the arguments I agree with is the problem with ranking.  Elbow writes, “I see three distinct problems with ranking: it is inaccurate or unreliable; it gives no substantive feedback; and it is harmful to the atmosphere for teaching.” He further went on to add that “ranking or grading is woefully uncommunicative. Grades and holistic scores are nothing but points on a continuum from "yea" to "boo"-with no information or clues about the criteria behind these noises.” This statement is quite true because as an educator when you assess it needs to meet several criteria in order for it to be considered valid and one important criterion is feedback. What good is an assessment if the score is based on feelings rather than judgment that tries to discriminate strength and weakness? What good is an assessment if it can’t influence students to develop or even enhance their learning? So, in these regards I agree with Elbow, we should have less ranking and more evaluation.  An assessment should be able to provide more than just a numerical score. Elbow not only argues for evaluation but he provided the beneficial reasons.  He states, “Instead of using grades or holistic scores-single number verdicts that try to sum up complex performances along only one scale-we should give some kind of written or spoken evaluation that discriminates among criteria and dimensions of the writing. “Again, I agree with Elbow on evaluation 100 percent, however we must consider current realties and be a bit pragmatic in how we view and implement evaluation.  The reality is that teachers need to rank and level students. They need to distinguish the lows from the high and the passing from the failing not just for teaching purposes but for state, international, status, and funding purposes. So, Elbow’s suggestion of minimal holistic scoring where you give only 2 scores sounds more reasonable to me. Also, Elbow’s idea of “liking” seems like a radical idea, but again because of current realities and the way teachers are trained these progressive ideas seems far away for now. After reading this, I do have to say that Peter Elbow is bold in the fact that he entertains us with the idea of changing the way we view assessment (in his case writing assessment). Elbow made a powerful statement that has truth to it. He said, “we see around us a deep hunger to rank-to create pecking orders: to see who we can look down on and who we must look up to, or in the military metaphor, who we can kick and who we must salute.” Beautifully said!  There is this feeling in education, well I can’t speak for all, but this feeling in my educational community at least, that thorough evaluation is not real enough, and that a numerical score on a paper speaks more volume. Unfortunately, I wish that wasn’t the mindset, but in many instances it is, so that is why I applaud Elbow for his attempt in tackling ranking and offering alternatives and making them sound like they are things that can be done if we put forth a little effort.

The Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar was interesting. After reading the first few pages I was surprised to find out how many experimental research had been done on this topic alone. 75 years’ worth of research and still counting is a lot and for the issue of grammar learning to remain unresolved still today says a lot about the complexities of language and language acquisition. I couldn’t help but to be curious about how these studies were conducted because Patrick Hartwell did not really go into details about these experiments, however the questions that came to mind were: In these grammar experiments, did students have to memorize patterns, grammatical rules, or drills? How was conversational grammar used? I asked these questions because I don’t believe that grammar teaching and learning is effective if it’s taught explicitly. Conversational and pronunciation skills are also important to grammar learning and teaching.

 I though the author did a great job of covering all 5 grammars, however I believe grammar 1 and 2 are the ones that carry weight or real significance, all the others follow after. Hartwell defined grammar 1 as “the internalize system of rules that speakers share” In many ways I agree with this statement because as a second language teacher when teaching my students grammar I’m not really teaching them a new set of structure and rules, these students already come in with their own rules and teaching them is really about helping them discover how to fit those rules into the new language.  Overall this article proved that grammar and the application of grammar is not only intricate, but also divisive.

Responding to Students Writing (Sommers) & On Reflection (Yancey)

I like how Yancey open up the article by describing her class activity and characterizing the conversations and the students that made up her narrative composition class. The beginning of the article read almost liked a journal entry and I was convinced that would be the tone of the whole article. However the article changed form when she introduced the research study conducted in the 70s and 80s that asked the question “how do students learn to write.” Yancey stated that this question aroused because teachers who taught writing didn’t know much about the process. She stated, “We didn’t know much about the very thing we were supposed to be teaching: writing and the process that create it. We certainly didn’t know much about it from the point of view of those we were daily practicing upon: The students.” Yancey also discussed the writing process’s shift from traditional to current theories.  She briefly discussed these theories and stated that reflection played a very small role in their histories and out of theses popular practices in composition she asserted that only one single article was able to link reflection and composing together and this article was published by Sharon Pianko. In this article Pianko wrote, “The ability to reflect on what is being written seems to be the essence of the difference between able and not so able writers from their initial writing experience onward.” Although, both Pianko and Yancey admitted that reflection is a critical component of learning and writing, their descriptions of reflection is a bit different. In Pianko’s 1979 article, reflection was described as the author’s pauses and rescanning during the writing process and 20 years later in Yancey’s class room, reflection is “not defined behaviorally as pauses and rescanning, but as a means of going beyond the text to include a sense of ongoing conversations that texts enter into.” Further along the article Yancey clarified the term reflection in her text. “What I’ll mean in this text when I say reflection will be 1) the processes by which we know what we have accomplished and by which we articulate accomplishment and 2) the products of those processes.” Through out the article she continued to define and discussed reflection as a necessary body of practice that can help enhance the developing writer. Yancey does this by quoting others like Donald Schon, Brookfield, Dewey, Vygotsky and Polanyi.

Yancey ended her article by introducing 3concepts that she applies to teaching and learning of writing and they are reflection –in-action, constructive reflection, and reflection in presentation. 

Yancey’s article was very encouraging in that it discussed how reflection can enhance student’s learning of the writing process, however I had to trudged through it because its was not only boring, it felt very repetitive, wordy, and even a bit disorganized. I though too much emphasis was put on defining reflection rather then exploring how to apply it during the writing process and more importantly how to apply to teach and into the classroom.

I though Nancy’s article shed a light on a not often mentioned topic in education. As Nancy stated in the beginning of her article commenting on student’s paper is needed because “as writer we need and want thoughtful commentary to show us when we have communicated our ideas and when not, raising questions from a reader’s point of view that may not have occurred to us as writer,” however its not always clear that students learn from teacher’s comments on their writing. In my educational experience I don’t ever remember getting insightful feed back comments from my writing teachers that had help me to better evaluate my writing, I mostly remembered making the changes that my teachers requested so I can get a good grader and also to follow directions. Now that I’m a teacher I try to add thoughtful commentary to students writing and at times to the point of hinting to them what to add to their text, however I haven’t really put too much attention on whether they truly understand some of the comments. As the article stated this is an area teachers truly lack training in and I appreciate Sommers’s article because although there’s not really a right or wrong way to response to student’s writing, unlike Yancey, Sommers provided practical guideline teachers can use for commenting on students paper.

Regarding the final project I thought the handbook idea where everyone share their expertise in a subject is exciting, however like many have already stated the right audience and grade level need to be established before moving forward. Also, the idea of going digital vs. print is a good one to ponder on, but I would prefer a printed book because for me as an educator if the book is physically present I am more likely to read it and retain the information in it. But that’s just me though, others may see it differently. In any case we can always combine both.