Authentic contexts

My favourite weekend activity is to go for a walk around the city and the waterfront. Wellington's a great place to live, mainly because we have Wellingtonians who love to get out and explore the city.

Walking around the waterfront last Saturday I came across a piece of artwork.

I looked at it and realised it was probably put there as part of the Arts Festival and then moved around to look at the other side.

How cool! NZ Post had supported Reader's and Writer's week by putting out postcards that invited people to write a story or a poem. Each postcard had a sentence that the writer could use to start/end/inspire a piece of writing.

And people did it! There were 3 sentence poems. There were short stories. Some were written in ballpoint, others took the time to type and print it out. What was so cool was that I loved reading every word! And that people took the time to do an activity that they've probably never done before.

So I started wondering why they bothered? Was it just the creative endeavour? Was it the opportunity to be published? How long did they spend pondering their ideas and getting it 'just right' in the name of having their work viewed by other people?

I find similar things with the kids. When they know they are going to be watched, they try harder. But it goes beyond that. When they know they have a real audience to create for, they keep them in mind in order to make them happy.

So maybe part of authentic contexts is really thinking about where the work we do ends up. Who gets to read it and what's the opportunity for social change. Take the age old project where you research a topic and make a poster. Usually it's the making of the poster that gets the most time and attention. Why? Because it's the bit that will be seen by others. It's what the kids relate to in terms of what will be 'assessed' by it's viewer. They wouldn't use that term but that's what's essentially happening.

So. What can I do? Post the kids' dramas on Utube? Our school intranet? Performing to eachother at the end of a lesson to show what they have done is just as good.

What can we do in other subjects to consider audience? What else is an 'authentic context'?