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新的方法，称为数字增强环境（DAE），以支持儿童在关键的4-5年级发展时期学习表达性写作，重点是英语学习者（ELLs）。 表达性写作是所有学校科目学习的核心。进入中学的学生中，写作水平低的比例高得惊人，这阻碍了高中和大学的进一步学习。来自这些得不到充分服务的人口的儿童在学校的4-5年级阶段尤其有可能放弃写作，而这一阶段是最重要的。 孩子们遇到困难的关键原因是，写作不仅需要掌握写作技巧（例如，语法，句子结构），但也掌握了思想传达，并掌握了翻译的想法表达的过程。因此，DAE方法通过利用假装游戏的力量来激发儿童的想象力，使他们能够专注于想法，而不必同时关注写作的技术细节，从而将写作过程一分为二。 DAE将低成本的运动跟踪技术（如Kinect）与动画技术相结合。这种技术环境允许孩子们用道具表演，并制作动画片作为他们论文的“大纲”，作为他们写作的支架。表达性写作的新技术方法在特许学校和公立小学进行了探索，这两所学校都为高比例的ELL学生提供服务，大多数学生都减少了午餐计划。该项目将帮助来自不同背景的儿童成为现代社会中有文化的人。 该项目还为本科生和研究生提供了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。随着自我评价的加强和符号思维在这一关键发展时期的逐步参与，如果不提供支持，儿童有可能发展出对写作的负面看法。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的行为来实现他们的想象力，并将其转化为动画片。孩子能够观看并与这种凝固的想象力互动，以发挥他们的技术写作技能。这给了孩子们许可证，让他们发挥自己的能力，生动的假装游戏，给想法的形式和燃料的写作过程。因此，DAE通过制定和反馈，在思想和正式写作活动之间建立了一座“心灵上”的桥梁。DAE方法体现在一个代表性的系统，结合运动跟踪，草图识别和动画技术。该系统将为儿童的外部化、组织和将想法转化为写作准备的想象力提供支架。通过实验室研究的迭代开发，测试和评估策略将用于确保第1年和第2年的可用性，并将在第3年进行课堂研究，以测试新技术类型的有效性和潜力。两所学校（一所特许学校和一所公立小学）各有一个4年级或5年级的班级将使用DAE方法进行两次写作作业，以及两次使用传统方法的类似作业（例如，图形组织者）。这两所学校都有很高比例的ELL，他们将参加这些研究。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。这个项目将扩大核心理解体现过程如何参与结构和表达的想法和想象力的写作。

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.