Making Your Mark

We invite you to read and annotate a foundational text about the “16 Habits of Mind” proposed by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick “to create a more thoughtful, cooperative, compassionate generation of people who skillfully work to resolve social, environmental, economic and political problems.” (https://www.habitsofmindinstitute.org/about-us/)

Use a tool called NowComment to make comments on Costa’s “descriptions for 16 of the attributes that human beings display when they behave intelligently.” Describe the habits with your own words and give examples from your life. Click here: Describing the Habits of Mind.

What we are inviting you to make:

We want you to spend some time making personal connections by writing responses to specific sentences and paragraphs in Describing the Habits of Mind, by Arthur L. Costa. He has crafted descriptions of the 16 Habits of Mind and other readers have already added their thoughts in the right plane of this document. We invite you to enter these conversations with your own takes and your own examples for the habits that have been most meaningful in your life. Write as many comments as you can, and reply to other readers as well!

Using an RSS feed, we will pull each of your NowComment annotations into the activity stream on your Youth Voices wall. (If that’s not happening yet, contact Paul Allison allisonpr@gmail.com and ask him to set you up.)

At a later time, we will ask you to bookmark the NowComment annotations and replies that are most meaningful to you and to say why.

Examples of Comments on Costa’s article:

How to do this, step-by-step:

Annotation means adding notes to the text (or image or video) about things you think and care about as you read (or watch). You can make notes as you read. You can show your thinking. You can “talk back” to the text or video. You can highlight important words or ideas. (Special bonus: You do not need to use full sentences or worry about grammar.)

Join and start a lot of conversations. Describe the habits with your own words and give examples from your life. Click here: Describing the Habits of Mind.

NowComment is free. Take 60 seconds to get an account now. Click here: Sign up. OR Log in (or Sign in with Google) if you already have an account.

If you are new to NowComment, check out these NowComment Basics.

Watch this video for help with making text comments.

Click here to see how to start a new conversation on NowComment

Reflecting on the Habits of Mind

When you finish annotating Costa’s descriptions and replying to other readers, write a status update on your Youth Voices wall. Reflect on how you used one or two of these Habits of Mind.

We invite you to set up a digital space for your portfolio using Web Stories.

What we are inviting you to make:

When you are done with this activity, you will have created a Web Story with three sections – one for each of the Habits of Mind that you have chosen – and blank pages that you will fill in later.

You will share your working draft portfolio in a Discussion Post on Youth Voices.

Examples of Habits of Mind Web Story Portfolios

Anti-Racist Books Portfolio

Kevin – Portfolio

Drew’s PORTFOLIO

Ocean’s Portfolio

Luis – Portfolio

View all stories

How to do this, step-by-step:

1. On the Youth Voices home screen, hover over the section Member’s Wall.
2. When the drop-down menu pops up, Click on “Create or Edit a Web Story.” A new tab will open.
3. Search through the Web-Stories until you find “Marina’s Portfolio.”
4. Hover over the title, “Marina’s Portfolio.” Three Vertical Dots will appear. Click on the three vertical dots.
5. When the drop-down menu appears, click on duplicate.
6. A duplicated copy of “Marina’s Portfolio” will appear. This will be YOUR template for your portfolio.
7. Hover over the cover of your duplicate. A button titled, “Open in Editor” will appear. Click on this button. 
8. You are now in editor mode for your portfolio. Consider using this blog post, How to Build Google Web Stories in WordPress, to support your revisions for personalizing your portfolio.
   1. Make sure that you rename your duplicate portfolio with your name.
   2. Don’t forget to select three Habits of Mind that you plan to highlight in your portfolio.
9. When you have completed your portfolio set-up, click on the purple rectangular button in the upper right corner labeled “Publish.”
10. A pop-up will appear on your screen. You can review the checklist before publishing or move forward by pressing “Continue to Publish.”
11. A pop-up will appear on your screen. Click on the word “Dismiss.”
12. Move your cursor to the right side of the screen. Click on the Section “Document.”
13. Scroll through the section until you find the permalink to your portfolio. Copy the link.
14. Return to the Youth Voices home screen, hover over the section Member’s Wall.
15. When the drop-down menu pops up, Click on “Create a Discussion Post.” A new tab will open.
16. Click on the blue square with a white plus sign in the upper left corner.
17. In the Search tab, type “Web Stories.” Click on the icon that has the words “Web Stories” underneath it.
18. A block will appear on the screen. Click on the 3rd rectangle labeled, “Story URL.” The rectangle also has a hyperlink symbol within it.
19. Paste the permalink to your portfolio in the space provided. Click on the blue rectangular button that says “Embed.” Your portfolio will appear on the screen.

Read this blog post to see how to build Google Web Stories in WordPress.

Reflecting on the Habits of Mind

When you finish setting up your portfolio and embedding it into a discussion post, write a status update on your Youth Voices wall. Reflect on how you used one or two of these Habits of Mind.

We invite you to introduce yourself to the Youth Voices community of youth, teachers, and mentors. Write and record a Bio that will be one of your first discussion posts on the site.

What we are inviting you to make

When you are done with this activity, you will have the text and a recording ready put up as a multimodal discussion post on Youth Voices. It will be a three paragraph bio that is written in a Youth Voices Doc with an MP3 file attached.

Three Examples of Bios in YV Docs with MP3’s Attached

How to do this, step-by-step:

1. Review your comments in NowComment. Click here: Describing the Habits of Mind.
2. Choose the three Habits of Mind that you seem to relate to the most. (This could describe who you are or who you want to be).
3. Copy your comments about the three Habits of Mind that you selected.
4. Paste your comments in one Youth Voices document.
5. Revise this writing with the idea that it is an introduction of yourself to the Youth Voices community.
6. As you revise, consider some of these questions to support your revisions and expansion:
   1. Have I connected my ideas to my selected Habits of Mind?
   2. Have I grouped ideas cohesively to maintains focus?
   3. Are there places where I can eliminate or combine ideas?

When you have completed your written bio, you are ready to record your bio with audio.

1. Select one of these two platforms to record your audio: Vocaroo or Online Voice Recorder.
2. Make sure to download and save your recording to your device.

Watch this video for helpful tips to support your revision:

Habits of Mind you will practice when you do this activity:

When you finish writing, revising, and recording your bio, write a status update where you reflect on how you used two or three of these Habits of Mind to complete this work. How is your work evidence of your ability to use these Habits of Mind?

We invite you to create a multimodal discussion post on Youth Voices to introduce yourself to the other members of your class and the wider YV community!

What we are inviting you to make:

This might be your first post on Youth Voices. Welcome! We call these published documents “discussion posts” because we see each of them as the beginning of a conversation. The Block system on Youth Voices allows you to publish images, videos, and text in as many ways as you imagination can take you. Here we are asking you to include an audio file and a featured image along with your written text.

Any Discussion Post you create also gets listed in your Activity stream and your wall has a tab to highlight all of your posts. We’ll ask you to bookmark your most important, meaningful discussion posts at a later time and include them in your portfolio.

Let’s see where this goes!

Three Examples of Bios on Youth Voices

More Examples of Multimodal Bio Posts on Youth Voices

How to do this, step-by-step:

When you have completed your recorded bio, you are ready to post your bio in as a discussion on Youth Voices.

Steps for Creating a Discussion:

1. On the Youth Voices homepage, hover over Member’s Wall. A dropdown menu will appear.
2. Click on “Create a Discussion.” A new tab will open up.
3. Click your cursor where you see the words “Add Title.”
4. Title the Discussion Post– Make it a short, clever, unique, attention-grabbing title about your bio.
5. Copy your bio & paste it in the Paragraph block where it says Start writing or type / to choose a block.
6. Add a new block above your text.
7. Click the black square with a white plus sign. A drop down menu will appear.
8. In the search bar, type the word “audio.”
9. Locate the music note icon that has the word “audio” underneath it. Click on the icon. An audio block will appear next to your written bio.
10. Click on the blue rectangular button that says “upload.” A Window will pop up for you to select your file.
11. Your audio file will upload onto the post.
12. Move your cursor to the column on the right.
13. Click on Post.
14. Scroll down until you come to “Categories.” Click on Categories and more options will appear.
15. Type the word(s) “bio” or “getting started” or “journalist bio” or another category that fits your work. Check the box.
16. Click the category “showcase.” 
17. Underneath Categories, you will see Tags. Add your school’s tag (LUTE – STEM) You have to type the whole name of your school or wait for it to pop up. 
18. Underneath Tags and Series, you will see Featured Image. Click on Feature image.
19. Click on the Gray Square Box labeled “Set Featured Image.” Use a search term and find and select an image. Choose one of the three tabs:
    1. Upload files  (Download a Creative Commons image to your desktop, and upload it as a Featured Image.)
    2. Media Library (Choose an image and insert it as a Featured Image.)
    3. Instant Images ((Choose an image and insert it as a Featured Image.)

You must add a Featured Image or your post will not be published — even though it may appear published to you.

20. In the upper right-hand corner, click on Publish > Publish (or Update).

NOTE that the Checklist strongly recommends that you have the following before you publish:

• Between 2 and 10 categories
• Between 2 and 10 tags
• Featured image

Watch this video for help with how to create a discussion post:

YouTube Tutorials for creating discussions on Youth Voices

• Simplify the YV Interface 2:
• Create a discussion on YV9
• Finding your YV drafts and posts

Habits of Mind you will practice when you do this activity:

When you finish creating a multimodal discussion post about yourself, write a status update where you reflect on how you used one or two of these Habits of Mind to complete this work. How is your work evidence of your ability to use these Habits of Mind?