On this rainy Sunday afternoon, I’m about to curl up in front of the fireplace and delve into my hot-off-the-press copy of the National Writing Project’s Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Online and Multimedia Environments. Through my on-going affiliation with the NWP, I’ve been privileged to work with, listen to, and learn from all three authors: visionary educators Danielle Nicole DeVoss, Elys Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks.

I have the book open in front of me and am already pulling the cap off my highlighter pen to mark basically all of page 1, Introduction: Why Digital Writing Matters, and have copied onto a sticky note that “‘much has changed in the landscape of what it means to ‘write’ and to ‘be a writer’ since 2003.”

While BDWM is certainly a stand-alone read, my plan is to extend the introduction, each off the five chapters, and the afterword with side trips to the NWP’s much awaited Digital Is website. Over the next few weeks I’d like to create and post an annotated tour of BDWM via the Digital Is lessons, stories, resources, and insights.  I’m only 2 pages in to the book, but am already thinking that Bud Hunt’s piece What’s New, or What’s Good: On Writing Connectively will be one of my side trips for the Introduction.

If you’re also reading BDWM and touring the Digital Is site, I’d love to hear how you would annotate the chapters!