EXP: To Enact, To Tell, To Write: A Bridge to Expressive Writing through Digital Enactment

这个网络学习项目探索了一种被称为数字增强颁布（DAE）的新方法，以支持4-5年级关键发展时期的儿童学习表达性写作，重点是英语学习者（ELLs）。表达性写作是学校所有科目学习的核心。令人震惊的是，高比例的学生进入中学时，写作水平很低，这阻碍了他们在高中和大学的进一步学习。来自这些服务不足人群的儿童尤其有可能在最重要的4-5年级阶段放弃写作。儿童写作困难的关键原因在于，写作不仅需要掌握写作机制（如语法、句子结构），还需要掌握要表达的思想，掌握将思想转化为表达的过程。因此，DAE方法通过利用假装游戏的力量来激发孩子们的想象力，使他们能够专注于想法，而不必同时关注写作的技术细节，从而将写作过程分为两部分。DAE结合了低成本的运动跟踪技术，如kinect和动画技术。这种技术环境允许孩子们用道具表演，并制作动画漫画作为他们论文的“大纲”，作为他们写作的脚手架。一所特许学校和一所公立小学探索了表达性写作的新技术方法，这两所学校都有很高比例的ELLs，大多数学生都参加了减少午餐计划。该项目将帮助来自不同背景的儿童在现代社会中成为有文化的人。该项目还为本科生和研究生提供独特的跨学科教育和学习机会，以服务于主要服务不足的社区。在这个关键的发展时期，随着自我评价的加强和符号思维的逐渐参与，如果没有提供支持，儿童就有可能对写作产生负面看法。DAE方法旨在帮助儿童通过制定想象力的过程从想法转变为书面表达。这个想法是让孩子们通过具体化的表演来实现他们的想象力，并将其转化为动画。孩子们能够看到并与这种凝固的想象力互动，以参与他们的技术写作技能。这让孩子们有机会发挥自己的能力，进行生动的假装游戏，形成想法，推动写作过程。因此，DAE通过制定和反馈促进了思想和正式写作活动之间的“思想”桥梁。DAE方法体现在一个具有代表性的系统中，该系统结合了运动跟踪、草图识别和动画技术。该系统将帮助孩子们将想法具体化、组织起来，并将其转化为可写作的想象力。通过实验室研究的迭代开发，测试和评估策略将用于确保一年级和二年级的可用性，并在三年级进行课堂研究以测试新技术类型的有效性和潜力。来自两所学校（一所特许学校和一所公立小学）的一个四年级或五年级的班级将使用DAE方法进行两项写作作业，并使用传统方法（例如，图形组织者）进行两项可比作业。这两所学校都有很高比例的ELLs，他们将参与研究。基于视频的心理语言学和手势分析、访谈、问卷调查和写作评估将被用来了解DAE如何将儿童的想法与正式写作联系起来。本项目将扩展对具体化过程如何参与构建和表达写作思想和想象力的核心理解。

This cyberlearning project explores a novel approach, called Digitally-Augmented Enactment (DAE), to support learning expressive writing by children at the critical grade 4-5 developmental period, with a focus on English Language Learners (ELLs). Expressive writing is core to the learning of all school subjects. An alarmingly high percentage of students enter middle school with low proficiency in writing, which hinders further learning in high school and college. Children from these underserved populations are particularly at risk of withdrawing from writing during the grade 4-5 stage in school when it matters most. The key reason for children's difficulties is that writing requires not only mastery of writing mechanics (e.g., grammar, sentence structure), but also the possession of ideas to convey, and a mastery of the process of translating ideas into expression. Accordingly, the DAE approach bifurcates the writing process by harnessing the power of pretend play to bring forth children's imagination, enabling them to focus on ideas, without at the same time having to be concerned with the technical details of writing. DAE combines low-cost motion-tracking technologies, such as Kinects, with animation technologies. This technological environment allows children to enact with props and produces animated cartoons as the 'outline' for their essays which serves as a scaffold for their writing. The new technological approach to expressive writing is explored in a charter school and a public elementary school, both of which serve a high percentage of ELLs, and the majority of the students are on reduced lunch programs. The project will help children from diverse backgrounds to become literate individuals in a modern society. The project also provides unique cross-disciplinary educational and learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to serve predominantly underserved communities.With the intensification of self-evaluation and the gradual engagement in symbolic thinking during this critical developmental period, children are at risk of developing negative perceptions of writing if no support is provided. The DAE approach intends to help children to move from ideas to written expression through a process of enacted imagination. The idea is for children to materialize their imagination through embodied enactment, and to transform this into an animated cartoon. The child is able to view and interact with this congealed imagination to engage their technical writing skills. This gives children license to engage their capacity for vivid pretend play to give ideas form and fuel the writing process. Hence, DAE facilitates a "minds-on" bridge between ideas and the formal writing activity through enactment and feedback. The DAE approach is embodied in a representative system that combines motion-tracking, sketch-recognition and animation technologies. The system will scaffold children's externalization, organization and conversion of ideas into writing-ready imagination. An iterative development, test, and evaluation strategy through lab studies will be used to ensure usability in Years 1 and 2, and classroom studies will be conducted in Year 3 to test for effectiveness and potential of the new technological genre. One grade 4 or 5 class from each of two schools (a charter school and a public elementary school) will engage in two writing assignments using the DAE approach, and two comparable assignments with conventional methods (e.g., graphic organizers). Both schools serve a high percentage of ELLs, who will participate in the studies. Video-based psycholinguistics and gesture analysis, interviews, questionnaires, and writing assessments will be used to understand how DAE may bridge the children's ideas to formal writing. This project will expand core understanding of how embodied processes participate in structuring and articulating ideas and imagination for writing.