Twitter in the English Classroom

Social media is very influential in today’s society. Everybody talks about it and you see references to celebrities’ social media accounts on the news sometimes. More users register for accounts on various social media sites every day. One of the most popular social media sites is Twitter. Twitter is a site where people create accounts where they can “Follow” their friends, family, celebrities, politicians, and everything else in between.  Other people can “Follow” them as well, and they can see when you send out “Tweets,” which are 140 character limit messages that can be about virtually anything.

There is a multitude of ways that I can integrate Twitter into the English classroom. One method is that I can assign a piece of literature for students to read, and then I tell them to come up with a 140-character summary of the piece of work. This is a very challenging activity, but it forces students to condense a work to its most essential parts. In addition, I can have students add hash tags that capture the themes of the piece they read. It is very important to teach students the art of summary, so I think that this would be a very useful way to get students to learn that skill. 

Even though this is not a unique, innovative way to use Twitter in the classroom since many educators already do this in their classrooms, I could have students create Twitter accounts for literary characters. It is important to teach characterization to our students. This would be an interesting assignment for students since they need to get to really know the character’s personality and use plot elements to create an authentic Twitter.

I can also use Twitter to keep my students informed about the class. I can post homework on there and keep my students informed about tests and larger assignments. I can also post supplemental links that might help students who are interested in augmenting their knowledge about the topic I am currently teaching in class. Students can also tweet to me asking questions they may have about certain assignments, and I can give them the proper feedback that they require. Twitter can help facilitate communication between my students and me. In addition, since many students now have Smart Phones, they can access Twitter on their mobile devices. Thus, it is always very easy for students to access Twitter from anywhere. If they have some downtime while waiting in the doctor’s office, they can easily do the assignments while they wait.

Twitter is not without fault though. Many parents are still weary of social media. In addition, many students may not see the educational value in using social media to learn. However, teachers must be sure to state the learning goals explicitly before they allow their students to work on Twitter. Then, they must state the acceptable uses of it because cyber citizenship is important. Teachers need to make sure that the assignments that involve Twitter align properly with standards, and that it is an appropriate way to learn about the content. Many may argue that it is the death of our language, so teachers need to make sure to tell students that they need to use the proper English conventions for assessment. Even though social media does foster bad writing, students are writing more than ever. I feel that is the most important. I feel that Twitter can be a great tool for the English classroom. I just listed only some of the uses of Twitter in the classroom, but I know that there are myriads more.