I'm glad to see that media literacy in schools is not just an idea, but a course that is actually applied in schools. City Voices, City Visions in Buffalo practices media literacy in grades 6-12 in order to challenge academic standards. Students are not sitting in their seats the entire time in a teacher-centered classroom where they solely listen to a lecture given by the teacher. Instead, they are constantly out of their seats, shooting footage with mini-DV cameras, acting out skits, discussing issues, planning and storyboarding, researching in books and on the Internet, writing scripts and narratives, and clustering around computers in cooperative work groups, creating meaning out of the curriculum and their experiences. Sounds better than most of the classes I took in high school.
These classrooms are filled with excitement and learning. When those two words go together, you know that students are learning. You know that students actually want to be there instead of slouching on their couches to zone out to hours of television.
Vocabulary lessons, or visual vocabulary? Students will learn more if they are physically and intellectually engaged with the material. Worksheets with vocabulry words and rote memorization will not retain in their minds.
Here's another vocabulary video clip.
Or how about students actually performing their poetry? I was introduced to a similar concept in a classroom I ovbserved in the past. Students podcasted their poetry and showed their work to their family and friends. They were excited to present and share their work because it was authentic and was being displayed to a real audience. Awesome.
Another media literacy program in progress is Just Think. Just Think develops compelling standards-based curricula that connect with today’s youth. All of their projects integrate media literacy and production in a way that allows students to tell their own story. This is student-centered learning--students can actually take away necessary skills from this type of instruction and learning. That is how we should be developing our students for the real, everyday world.
I love that the website has three different components: teachers, students, and parents. I love that parents are involved with students' learning and school work. I would love to readily involve friends and family in the learning process. Bridge gaps inside and outside the classroom--it's beneficial for studnents' personal lives besides their educational lives.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Media/Communication Course
Chapter 2 of Hobbs
Hobbs' research was conducted at Concord High School, where, during the 2002-2003 school year, the majority of students performed above average on standardized tests (21). During that same year, the drop-out rate declined, and two thirds of the class were going on to higher education while the other one third of the class was pursuing the military after high school (21). This school was a great selection because students seem motivated to learn, and they are performing at an accelerated level.
This media/communication course that was adopted into this ELA curriculum emphasized the following standards (20):
Active self-directed learners: students inquire creatively about their world, take risks, and examine opinions as they initiate actions and complete tasks.
Effective communicators: students write well, read widely and in depth, listen perceptively, share ideas orally, and use language, numbers, and symbols to convey and receive information.
Effective collaborators: students assume various roles to accomplish group or community goals, using self-knowledge, compromise, cooperation, and respect.
Informed decision makers: students define the issue, research alternatives, consider consequences, and make choices that demonstrate intellectual integrity and rigorous evaluation.
Creative producers: students produce art in the classical, contemporary, and practical traditions using invention, design, and critical assessment.
Life planners: students determine options and pursue career and personal goals including a consideration for physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
Community participants: students understand and practice democratic traditions and values, including respect for human dignity, honesty, and fairness, and who accept the consequences of their actions.
These expectations seem fair, and they seem incredible to put into a classroom. These sound more like learning standards we should have in our own classrooms-not just "they should read Macbeth because Shakespeare is amazing."
We should have objectives that should really value our students' lives and their learning. The objective should not be "to learn symbolism." We always need to know why we're teaching what we are, and this curriculum really stresses and emphasizes this point: they're aiming to "help students become critical thinkers in responding to the world they live in" (27). This Media/Communication class is designed specifically for this.
This class entails the following: they address nonfiction reading and writing, they explore issues of media influence, they examine advertising from a critical perspective, they reflect and analyze visual approaches to the narrative, and they encourage students to "read" the media of their everyday life with a critical eye (27). Students are applying learning inside and outside the classroom. Isn't that an amazing goal?
One of the best facts from this chapter was the closer connection students formed with their teacher as a result of the new course. Students gained mutual respect for one another and the teacher. These two quotations jumped out at me:
"There's a connection with these topics that sometimes doesn't happen when you're talking so much about literature that students are familiar with" (34).
"Students now let [the teacher] into their lives outside the classroom, and that provides [her] with opportunities to understand what knowledge and skills they need" (34).
These student/teacher connections are powerful. The teacher develops a closer relationship to her students so that they are more comfortable sharing and learning in a warm environment. The teacher knows how to push each student so each can excel to the greatest of his/her abilities. The student is pushed to keep learning outside the classroom because learning inside the classroom is fun and relevant. This type of learning is one that students can actually use in the real world. Why else should we be teaching them?
Hobbs' research was conducted at Concord High School, where, during the 2002-2003 school year, the majority of students performed above average on standardized tests (21). During that same year, the drop-out rate declined, and two thirds of the class were going on to higher education while the other one third of the class was pursuing the military after high school (21). This school was a great selection because students seem motivated to learn, and they are performing at an accelerated level.
This media/communication course that was adopted into this ELA curriculum emphasized the following standards (20):
Active self-directed learners: students inquire creatively about their world, take risks, and examine opinions as they initiate actions and complete tasks.
Effective communicators: students write well, read widely and in depth, listen perceptively, share ideas orally, and use language, numbers, and symbols to convey and receive information.
Effective collaborators: students assume various roles to accomplish group or community goals, using self-knowledge, compromise, cooperation, and respect.
Informed decision makers: students define the issue, research alternatives, consider consequences, and make choices that demonstrate intellectual integrity and rigorous evaluation.
Creative producers: students produce art in the classical, contemporary, and practical traditions using invention, design, and critical assessment.
Life planners: students determine options and pursue career and personal goals including a consideration for physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
Community participants: students understand and practice democratic traditions and values, including respect for human dignity, honesty, and fairness, and who accept the consequences of their actions.
These expectations seem fair, and they seem incredible to put into a classroom. These sound more like learning standards we should have in our own classrooms-not just "they should read Macbeth because Shakespeare is amazing."
We should have objectives that should really value our students' lives and their learning. The objective should not be "to learn symbolism." We always need to know why we're teaching what we are, and this curriculum really stresses and emphasizes this point: they're aiming to "help students become critical thinkers in responding to the world they live in" (27). This Media/Communication class is designed specifically for this.
This class entails the following: they address nonfiction reading and writing, they explore issues of media influence, they examine advertising from a critical perspective, they reflect and analyze visual approaches to the narrative, and they encourage students to "read" the media of their everyday life with a critical eye (27). Students are applying learning inside and outside the classroom. Isn't that an amazing goal?
One of the best facts from this chapter was the closer connection students formed with their teacher as a result of the new course. Students gained mutual respect for one another and the teacher. These two quotations jumped out at me:
"There's a connection with these topics that sometimes doesn't happen when you're talking so much about literature that students are familiar with" (34).
"Students now let [the teacher] into their lives outside the classroom, and that provides [her] with opportunities to understand what knowledge and skills they need" (34).
These student/teacher connections are powerful. The teacher develops a closer relationship to her students so that they are more comfortable sharing and learning in a warm environment. The teacher knows how to push each student so each can excel to the greatest of his/her abilities. The student is pushed to keep learning outside the classroom because learning inside the classroom is fun and relevant. This type of learning is one that students can actually use in the real world. Why else should we be teaching them?
Education Gaps
"American society started to coast in the 1990s, when our thurd postwar generation came of age. The dot-com boom left too many people with the impression that they could get rich without investing in hard work [...] Who needed an education? Who needed to sweat over an engineering degree?" (325).
Friedman, above, discusses a common idea that I constantly ponder: Why are Americans becoming so lazy?
The answer is not too difficult. With increasing technology, many things are done for us much easier than they were in the past. Look at the washing machine, the microwave, the dishwasher, the INTERNET, etc. Everything, today, is made easier by new and innovative tools that essentially do the job for us. Our time is cut in half by these machines, allowing us more free time to relax.
These inventions are great, but they produce a lazy nation, especially regarding education and the work force. Friedman discusses the education gap at the top, implying that we are not educating enough young people in advanced math, science, and engineering. I think that any educational subject could be applied here, though. He discusses how young people have to master the fundamentals in order to excell at and tackle these advanced studies, but fundamentals appear "boring" and "not fun" to people anymore. He says, "The culture now is geared to having fun" (338). How true is that?
These fundamentals and hard work that is necessary for certain advanced jobs that will truly help this country progress in the future are not happening right now. We need work ethic, something that is becoming abandoned because of this laziness, and this idea that we don't have to work hard to make money.
Even students going to college aren't using these high-level skills we need in order to compete and catch up to other nations. With 26.4 million college graduates in 2003, only 31% fulfill these high-level skills (340). We can't be the powerhouse we think we're going to be if we're performing at this level.
This extra free time, I mentioned above, is not going to productive studies, but to television watching, gaming, instant messaging, and phone calls. Friedman writes that "the literacy of college students has dropped because a rising number of young Americans in recent years had spent their free time watching television and surfing the internet," thus, "we're seeing substantial declines in reading for pleasure, and it's showing up in our literacy levels" (340). Okay, this is where we come in. Our job is to teach literacy, among multiple texts, technological and not. We need to provide different texts which are appealing to students' interests--not throwing age-old literary texts at them. If we stimulate interest in learning, students will be more apt to be life-long learners--an ultimate teaching aim.
At the bottom of the education gap, many schools are still teaching the same materials and strategies as they did so many years earlier. We need to change with the times. In our country, since each school's curriculum, teachers, materials, budget, and principles are dependent per school, each has a different way to do it with different means of income. Poor schools have little materials, less qualified teachers, which leads to a poor education, and vice versa. Friedman says that other countries fund differently, making their education system more effective: "[they] fund their schools according to what it will take to deliver a standard curriculum, and then they take the money out of the state's general budget" (346). We can't change the system, but we can try to work with it and around it. We can try to give our students the best education we can with the resources we have. We can write grants and use what we have in order to make up for this fault.
School is supposed to be the "agent for social mobility," but we know that that is not true for all people in all areas of the country. I know that I cannot be the next president or a pre-med student. We need to teach for social justice.
But the main point is, that "there are fewer and fewer decent jobs for those without a lot of knowledge" (347). So what do we do? We want our students to have jobs. We want them to be smart. We want them to succeed. So, we need to make learning "fun." We need to incorporate their interests and technologies to appeal to them. Learning is diverse, coming from many forms and in many, many ways. We have to be creative, take what we have, stimulate interest, and instill student-centered classrooms that promote life-long learning and life-long literacy. We can't do this with desks in rows, reading aloud a dull book with a dull theme. We have to meet students where they're at and then push them to have work ethic and interest so that they will be able to succeed far after they leave the classroom.
Friedman, above, discusses a common idea that I constantly ponder: Why are Americans becoming so lazy?
The answer is not too difficult. With increasing technology, many things are done for us much easier than they were in the past. Look at the washing machine, the microwave, the dishwasher, the INTERNET, etc. Everything, today, is made easier by new and innovative tools that essentially do the job for us. Our time is cut in half by these machines, allowing us more free time to relax.
These inventions are great, but they produce a lazy nation, especially regarding education and the work force. Friedman discusses the education gap at the top, implying that we are not educating enough young people in advanced math, science, and engineering. I think that any educational subject could be applied here, though. He discusses how young people have to master the fundamentals in order to excell at and tackle these advanced studies, but fundamentals appear "boring" and "not fun" to people anymore. He says, "The culture now is geared to having fun" (338). How true is that?
These fundamentals and hard work that is necessary for certain advanced jobs that will truly help this country progress in the future are not happening right now. We need work ethic, something that is becoming abandoned because of this laziness, and this idea that we don't have to work hard to make money.
Even students going to college aren't using these high-level skills we need in order to compete and catch up to other nations. With 26.4 million college graduates in 2003, only 31% fulfill these high-level skills (340). We can't be the powerhouse we think we're going to be if we're performing at this level.
This extra free time, I mentioned above, is not going to productive studies, but to television watching, gaming, instant messaging, and phone calls. Friedman writes that "the literacy of college students has dropped because a rising number of young Americans in recent years had spent their free time watching television and surfing the internet," thus, "we're seeing substantial declines in reading for pleasure, and it's showing up in our literacy levels" (340). Okay, this is where we come in. Our job is to teach literacy, among multiple texts, technological and not. We need to provide different texts which are appealing to students' interests--not throwing age-old literary texts at them. If we stimulate interest in learning, students will be more apt to be life-long learners--an ultimate teaching aim.
At the bottom of the education gap, many schools are still teaching the same materials and strategies as they did so many years earlier. We need to change with the times. In our country, since each school's curriculum, teachers, materials, budget, and principles are dependent per school, each has a different way to do it with different means of income. Poor schools have little materials, less qualified teachers, which leads to a poor education, and vice versa. Friedman says that other countries fund differently, making their education system more effective: "[they] fund their schools according to what it will take to deliver a standard curriculum, and then they take the money out of the state's general budget" (346). We can't change the system, but we can try to work with it and around it. We can try to give our students the best education we can with the resources we have. We can write grants and use what we have in order to make up for this fault.
School is supposed to be the "agent for social mobility," but we know that that is not true for all people in all areas of the country. I know that I cannot be the next president or a pre-med student. We need to teach for social justice.
But the main point is, that "there are fewer and fewer decent jobs for those without a lot of knowledge" (347). So what do we do? We want our students to have jobs. We want them to be smart. We want them to succeed. So, we need to make learning "fun." We need to incorporate their interests and technologies to appeal to them. Learning is diverse, coming from many forms and in many, many ways. We have to be creative, take what we have, stimulate interest, and instill student-centered classrooms that promote life-long learning and life-long literacy. We can't do this with desks in rows, reading aloud a dull book with a dull theme. We have to meet students where they're at and then push them to have work ethic and interest so that they will be able to succeed far after they leave the classroom.
Death of a Salesman
"I believe that the common man is as apt to a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." -Arthur Miller (from "Tragedy and the Common Man")
Last week, I attended Syracuse Stage's production of Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman, which was absolutely fabulous. The reference material the audience was given was absolutely incredible, giving wonderful pictures and writing on Miller and the play. I found myself devouring the reading material in the booklet before the play, wondering if this material would be interesting for future students. By the way, I did not know that Miller was romanticall involved with Marilyn Monroe... Interesting fact.
Viewing this play made me realize how impertive and crucial it is for us, as educators, to involve our students in cultural experiences like this. I read this play on my own, as an English nerd, but I will not remember it as fully and deeply as I will now that I have seen it performed. I will remember this performance perhaps more than my initial reading of words on paper. This play brought the plot and themes to life--an experience that we should introduce and instill for our students. This experience made me realize how valuable this experience is, and how I want to bring my students to these plays and events in order to instill a love and appreciation for performing arts, and of course, literature.
Students could even interpret the characters/setting/tone/etc. from the play itself. The stage was decorated wonderfully, represting the home of the common man quite well. I was thinking how interested I would be to hear what students thought about the layout of the stage and props. I was even curious of clothing selections; such topics would make for great discussion in class.
Above, I included a quote from Miller on the common man. I started my blog with this because it really connects to Freidman's points of this flattening world. He fears that we will have to many Willy Lomans in our future--people who are expendable and more like cogs in the machines than useful, innovative workers. We need to avoid preparing our students to become Willy Lomans, and instead, have free thikers who can produce and develop their abilities in versatile methods in a variety of ways (including technologically producing their ideas via internet blogging or iMovie). Our country will not keep up with other countries and companies if we produce Willy Lomans. We need to avoid shooting for average/the common man, and instead, aim higher than we want so that we can over-prepare students to compete in this ever-developing, growing, and changing world.
I do pity Willy though. I hope not to see more Willys in my future.
Last week, I attended Syracuse Stage's production of Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman, which was absolutely fabulous. The reference material the audience was given was absolutely incredible, giving wonderful pictures and writing on Miller and the play. I found myself devouring the reading material in the booklet before the play, wondering if this material would be interesting for future students. By the way, I did not know that Miller was romanticall involved with Marilyn Monroe... Interesting fact.
Viewing this play made me realize how impertive and crucial it is for us, as educators, to involve our students in cultural experiences like this. I read this play on my own, as an English nerd, but I will not remember it as fully and deeply as I will now that I have seen it performed. I will remember this performance perhaps more than my initial reading of words on paper. This play brought the plot and themes to life--an experience that we should introduce and instill for our students. This experience made me realize how valuable this experience is, and how I want to bring my students to these plays and events in order to instill a love and appreciation for performing arts, and of course, literature.
Students could even interpret the characters/setting/tone/etc. from the play itself. The stage was decorated wonderfully, represting the home of the common man quite well. I was thinking how interested I would be to hear what students thought about the layout of the stage and props. I was even curious of clothing selections; such topics would make for great discussion in class.
Above, I included a quote from Miller on the common man. I started my blog with this because it really connects to Freidman's points of this flattening world. He fears that we will have to many Willy Lomans in our future--people who are expendable and more like cogs in the machines than useful, innovative workers. We need to avoid preparing our students to become Willy Lomans, and instead, have free thikers who can produce and develop their abilities in versatile methods in a variety of ways (including technologically producing their ideas via internet blogging or iMovie). Our country will not keep up with other countries and companies if we produce Willy Lomans. We need to avoid shooting for average/the common man, and instead, aim higher than we want so that we can over-prepare students to compete in this ever-developing, growing, and changing world.
I do pity Willy though. I hope not to see more Willys in my future.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Text Messaging
Fifteen-year-old girl wins $25,000 in a text messaging contest.
Contestants had to text the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious" as fast as they could.
Check out the quick story on msnbc.
Is anyone surprised that the winner is 15 years old?
Contestants had to text the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious" as fast as they could.
Check out the quick story on msnbc.
Is anyone surprised that the winner is 15 years old?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Shape-Shifting
Shape shifting: educational, social service, and sports experiences and achievements that can be arranged and rearranged in order to define and redefine oneself as a certain kind of competent person.
This blog is focused on the article from Young, Dillon, and Moje entitled "Shape-Shifting Portfolios: Millennial Youth, Literacies, and the Game of Life." These portfolios can come from a variety of things, like school subjects, sports clubs, academic clubs, internships, or they can explore how "family income, race and ethnicity, native language, social class, gender, popular culture, digital technologies, globalization, and/or geographic and social space" because these elements influence students' lives (115).
Imagine the amount of material we all have to include in our shape-shifting portfolios from this semester alone. The blog we're writing on right now could be included in our portfolios. I have had some passionate blogs and revelations on my blog, which act as pieces that I could include in my portfolio, or more specifically, my ENG307 portfolio.
My ENG307 portfolio would mainly consist of my blogs, but it would also include the projects I have worked on. I would include the pages I worked on for social bookmarking, the pages for bookmaking, and now the media literacy lesson that Staci and I are working on right now.
Portfolios are important though--especially those that come from our education classes for when we eventually apply for jobs. We'll want these materials anyway to refer back to when we're in the profession, and to add to once we're there. A student named Katie wrote that "Learning how to put together the portfolio and market yourself is the most important thing that I learned" (118). Marketing ourselves... I think that's what it comes to at this point in the game for us here.
One could have multiple portfolios for the amount of talents and skills he/she possesses. Honestly, I could see myself putting forth a lot of portfolios if I dedicated the time. Students could put together theirs before college, in order to market themselves and promote their talents. Our role as teachers is to assign meaningful and relevant projects that students can produce to put in those portfolios. If we allow students choice and range to work on projects that they can produce to the best of their abilities, then we are doing them a great service in regards to adding to portfolios.
What's in your portfolio?
This blog is focused on the article from Young, Dillon, and Moje entitled "Shape-Shifting Portfolios: Millennial Youth, Literacies, and the Game of Life." These portfolios can come from a variety of things, like school subjects, sports clubs, academic clubs, internships, or they can explore how "family income, race and ethnicity, native language, social class, gender, popular culture, digital technologies, globalization, and/or geographic and social space" because these elements influence students' lives (115).
Imagine the amount of material we all have to include in our shape-shifting portfolios from this semester alone. The blog we're writing on right now could be included in our portfolios. I have had some passionate blogs and revelations on my blog, which act as pieces that I could include in my portfolio, or more specifically, my ENG307 portfolio.
My ENG307 portfolio would mainly consist of my blogs, but it would also include the projects I have worked on. I would include the pages I worked on for social bookmarking, the pages for bookmaking, and now the media literacy lesson that Staci and I are working on right now.
Portfolios are important though--especially those that come from our education classes for when we eventually apply for jobs. We'll want these materials anyway to refer back to when we're in the profession, and to add to once we're there. A student named Katie wrote that "Learning how to put together the portfolio and market yourself is the most important thing that I learned" (118). Marketing ourselves... I think that's what it comes to at this point in the game for us here.
One could have multiple portfolios for the amount of talents and skills he/she possesses. Honestly, I could see myself putting forth a lot of portfolios if I dedicated the time. Students could put together theirs before college, in order to market themselves and promote their talents. Our role as teachers is to assign meaningful and relevant projects that students can produce to put in those portfolios. If we allow students choice and range to work on projects that they can produce to the best of their abilities, then we are doing them a great service in regards to adding to portfolios.
What's in your portfolio?
Monday, April 23, 2007
RIP Kurt Vonnegut
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before." -Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut passed away recently, a tragedy for lovers of his literature. The NY Times wrote an article about his passing.
I am a huge fan of his work; I even got my little brother (who was not interested in reading whatsoever) to be infatuated with his writing. He has now read more Vonnegut than I have! I want to inspire others to read like I have him--part of my mission as an aspiring ELA teacher.
Anyway, if you haven't read Vonnegut, check out his most famous novels: Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. Or, check out this short story if you would teach utopias or are interested in utopias: "Harrison Burgeron."
I read an article on Vonnegut in my local newspaper in Albany recently, and it turns out that he actually worked at the General Electric plant in Schenectady for a while in the 1940s. A lot of his ideas on science fiction, machines, and factories generate from this location. What a great way to get students interested in Vonnegut, for he lived here and was inspired by local places.
Over the summer, Rolling Stone Magazine put out an article on Vonnegut, which I saved perhaps for future class reading material. Articles from sources like that are exciting and interesting, but if I gave them an article from the newspaper, it might not be as appealing. Yet, they would be more apt to read Rolling Stone. That magazine has very good writing in it, however, so it is sort of a trick to get them to read that.
Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge a great writer lost.
RIP Kurt Vonnegut
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