Shannon said...
I believe it is important that students who are at an intellectual level to do so should be taught to accept that there are many faces that each individual presents to the world and themselves. A person can be their own audience or write for a certain aspect of the public. The fact that "writers need audiences" was illustrated by John S. Hart, a significant figure in language arts education of the 19th century and his support of many student publications at his high school. This is true to the point that if a writer does not have an audience, they will cease to produce quality matterial or even stop writing completely.
"Freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one." This used to be a statement saying that there was limited access to the machinery needed to publish written communication. But, with our modern computer networks that span the whole world, everyone with a computer at home or even access to a library computer can become a published writer.
But, what does this mean for the quality of work that these new writers offer? The quantity of publications has increased exponentially but the vetting process that winnowed out libelist, biased or just plain bad writing has been circumvented. How do we as consumers of internet as well as traditional print publications choose the wheat among the chafe?
Our role as classroom teachers is to encourage the students to be discerning readers and not believe everything they read and to be thoughtful writers whose products contribute to world dialogue of artists, writers and journalists and their followers.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Being Critical Readers
It is important that students are critical readers... this does not mean that they can look at an End of Grade test (EOG) and be able to answer a few questions based on what they've read. I agree with you-- movies as "texts" help students to use certain strategies they have learned and apply them outside the confines of the 4 walls of a classroom. Students must be critical readers of their society and surroundings.
When students are asked to make "text-text" connections as readers I tell them that they can use a movie/TV Show as a "text". Students look at me confused but seem surprised that many of the reading strategies they use to aid in comprehension can be applied to the visual arts... for instance: With a film you can still...
A) Question B) Make Predictions C) Make text-connections D) Infer E) Visualize
F) Clarify G) Provide support for opinions H) Evaluate and I) Summarize
In my class when students watch a film version of a book or a film that suits a unit thematically, we analyze how music and color affects the mood of the film. We READ body language. There are so many skills that can be applied to films. Teachers need to stop using FILM DAYS as a means of catching up on some grading and use it as a teaching experience.
When students are asked to make "text-text" connections as readers I tell them that they can use a movie/TV Show as a "text". Students look at me confused but seem surprised that many of the reading strategies they use to aid in comprehension can be applied to the visual arts... for instance: With a film you can still...
A) Question B) Make Predictions C) Make text-connections D) Infer E) Visualize
F) Clarify G) Provide support for opinions H) Evaluate and I) Summarize
In my class when students watch a film version of a book or a film that suits a unit thematically, we analyze how music and color affects the mood of the film. We READ body language. There are so many skills that can be applied to films. Teachers need to stop using FILM DAYS as a means of catching up on some grading and use it as a teaching experience.
I tried to post this 2 weeks ago but kept getting error
“Until they become integrated, current school reform movements will remain stuck in their own inertia, like other such movements of the past.”
–Wolf & Antinarella (Deciding to Lead, Ch. 5)
In your last post you bring about a point of creating a modern environment for students, thus creating a more beneficial environment for students. I wholeheartedly agree with this although the achievement gap that exists in lower income schools becomes widened when we discuss technology and modernization. At my school students must take a computer skills test that assesses basic computer skills on Word, Excel, etc. There were only 23% of our 8th grade students who revealed “competency.” We have one computer lab and two traveling laptop carts that are missing keys. Our wireless internet is less than sufficient and when one attempts to integrate technology into a lesson you must have at least 20 minutes wait-time for these older computers to boot up.
It is through community building and having conversations and meetings with influential people and colleagues (as you said) that can at least aid in remedying situations such as this. Many teachers would rather sit and complain and point fingers than be proactive and do the extra work necessary in coming closer to achieving your classroom vision and goals. This issue reminds me of the chapter “Teacher as Leader” in Deciding to Lead and Lisa’s class comments about teachers working for reform and being advocates for our students and community.
I am curious about your take on the issue we have recently read about: do you believe that a sense of high self-esteem is a necessary precondition for achieving anything? This chapter (5) makes me think about my beginning of year activities in my classroom the first week of school attempting to build classroom culture. I have lessons focused around explicitly teaching about the Achievement Gap, creating and sharing our Life Maps, Malleable vs. Fixed Intelligence, etc. I’ve created all of these activities in an attempt to raise students’ self-esteem and also their awareness about others in our class. My theory is that I cannot have a successful classroom without having students be a community of learners. Being a community of learners cannot happen when students lack the self-confidence necessary to take risks in the classroom. Any thoughts on this?
–Wolf & Antinarella (Deciding to Lead, Ch. 5)
In your last post you bring about a point of creating a modern environment for students, thus creating a more beneficial environment for students. I wholeheartedly agree with this although the achievement gap that exists in lower income schools becomes widened when we discuss technology and modernization. At my school students must take a computer skills test that assesses basic computer skills on Word, Excel, etc. There were only 23% of our 8th grade students who revealed “competency.” We have one computer lab and two traveling laptop carts that are missing keys. Our wireless internet is less than sufficient and when one attempts to integrate technology into a lesson you must have at least 20 minutes wait-time for these older computers to boot up.
It is through community building and having conversations and meetings with influential people and colleagues (as you said) that can at least aid in remedying situations such as this. Many teachers would rather sit and complain and point fingers than be proactive and do the extra work necessary in coming closer to achieving your classroom vision and goals. This issue reminds me of the chapter “Teacher as Leader” in Deciding to Lead and Lisa’s class comments about teachers working for reform and being advocates for our students and community.
I am curious about your take on the issue we have recently read about: do you believe that a sense of high self-esteem is a necessary precondition for achieving anything? This chapter (5) makes me think about my beginning of year activities in my classroom the first week of school attempting to build classroom culture. I have lessons focused around explicitly teaching about the Achievement Gap, creating and sharing our Life Maps, Malleable vs. Fixed Intelligence, etc. I’ve created all of these activities in an attempt to raise students’ self-esteem and also their awareness about others in our class. My theory is that I cannot have a successful classroom without having students be a community of learners. Being a community of learners cannot happen when students lack the self-confidence necessary to take risks in the classroom. Any thoughts on this?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Movies as Text
Shannon said...
We evolved our human communication from hand-signs to speaking to drawn pictures to writing to still photographs and finally to moving film. We do not yet have holographs or virtual reality in the mainstream but they are coming. It is important that a teacher is able to view diverse media as text because increasingly our world is made of the more complex medias, including movies. After so much reading and study of the printed word, it was great that we got to see clips from so many classic films. It was worth the time. Movies are another form of communication that do not get examined in a scholarly light as much as writing, but still have all the same elements. They have setting, characters, and plot just like books. Movies are more easily accessed, in that you don't need to be able to read and they also use less time to tell the same story. But, they can still be dated by the clothes characters wear, by the quality and method of the filming and special effects, and by the film's treatment of certain subjects, even by the actors themselves.
The movies we saw portrayed teachers in front of a classroom. But teaching can happen anywhere. Anyone or anything, when examined in the proper way, can yeild wisdom. I only hope that I am able to collect this wisdom more often than pass it by.
We evolved our human communication from hand-signs to speaking to drawn pictures to writing to still photographs and finally to moving film. We do not yet have holographs or virtual reality in the mainstream but they are coming. It is important that a teacher is able to view diverse media as text because increasingly our world is made of the more complex medias, including movies. After so much reading and study of the printed word, it was great that we got to see clips from so many classic films. It was worth the time. Movies are another form of communication that do not get examined in a scholarly light as much as writing, but still have all the same elements. They have setting, characters, and plot just like books. Movies are more easily accessed, in that you don't need to be able to read and they also use less time to tell the same story. But, they can still be dated by the clothes characters wear, by the quality and method of the filming and special effects, and by the film's treatment of certain subjects, even by the actors themselves.
The movies we saw portrayed teachers in front of a classroom. But teaching can happen anywhere. Anyone or anything, when examined in the proper way, can yeild wisdom. I only hope that I am able to collect this wisdom more often than pass it by.
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