Week 7: Wrap Up

In our parking lot exercise today, my favorite idea put on the board was the one Alyssa brought up having to do with teaching critical literacy. This is something that was not really taught to me in high school. We always just sat and absorbed what our teachers told us, what the authors wrote, and what we saw happening in the world. It was not until my AP lit class that I learned how to read critically. My AP lit teacher told us that even though the text is our main source, we still have to examine every factor that went into that text. It was not created in a vacuum. Its main influence is the biases of the author, which is influenced by the history and culture of that time period, and so on.

I don't believe that this needs to be limited to Advanced Placement classes, and obviously it does not need to be limited to ILA courses. We learned in this semester that any subject and any text can be read critically. Because so many students are taught to just absorb absorb absorb, we are going to have to shatter this idea about school and build up a culture of critical literacy.

Week 6: New Media Frenzy

There were all kinds of new media learnin' happening today. I really liked the new Voice Thread as a way to get students to reflect in a fun new way. Rather than assigning a paper, assign students a podcast. That way students still have to write out a script, but then they get the chance to perform it. The students will be more willing to perform, and even collaborate via a new media platform rather than in front of the whole class. Even better, you can replay these podcasts in class to address ideas and questions brought up by students.

The RAFT project was something that I was not into initially, but once we got going it got super interesting. The best part was that we got to decide what we wanted our project to be. So the students who are talented artists, comediens, or writers can all participate in a way that makes them shine. One of the important factors of motivation is autonomy. So, this is assignment is a great way to get students motivated because their learning is coming from their own interests.

Power & Race

Overall, I am really happy with the way our (Race) presentation went today, but I'm also really glad that it was paired with the Power presentation. I suppose that Power kind of goes along with all the subgroups, but it was a really great way to synthesize all of the discussions going on across our courses right now. 

The Power group presented really great new ideas about the correlation between power and information. I don't think we really came to a consensus, but I don't know if anyone really can. Overall it just sounded like the censoring of information by any public institution is bad, whether that is the state or a public school system or the public library. Concealment of knowledge from the public is a misuse of power by the state. 

I saw a great quote about this the other night on Pinterest: "The books that call the world immoral are the books that show the world its own shame" - Oscar Wilde

The big issue is that for the most part the government is run by the racial majority. Which means that the majority race gets to decide what goes into "public knowledge" and on a smaller scale, what goes into public school as the "canon". That's our real issue as teachers. We must deconstruct the idea of "normative" and seek our own personal self. 

Week 3: Classroom Management (the art form)

The page of notes that I took today during class probably should have been things about newspaper (and a few bullets are), but most of it is all about classroom management and tips and tricks for lesson planning. The simplicity and the beauty of simple room placement changes the feel of the classroom. We read "Choice Words", and it turns out that the things we say don't just come from what we say, but also how we say that.

My favorite part, though, was when Jason made us question what he was doing, the purpose behind it. Isn't that what the dialogic, "color conscious", deconstructive classroom does? It makes the students ask questions. Why did you choose to do that? Why did the author choose to do that? What are we learning and how? How can we make it relevant to our own lives? That's exactly what all our readings are saying, and that's how we can make dynamic, inquisitive classrooms.

Week 2: Deconstruction

One of the biggest components of the Watson article is the idea that we, as readers, have to address the biases that go into any kind of news reporting. There are so many different factors that shape the news that we end up reading in papers, online, and even in our twitter feeds. There is nothing,according to Watson, that has not been edited.

As a teacher of texts, in any field, not just ELA, we have to teach our students to think critically and understand every text as a creation by an author with an agenda. No text is an absolute truth. By stating this, and putting this into practice, we can teach students to read anything critically. They will deconstruct texts from Shakespeare to Buzzfeed. They will think about what biases and events have influenced an author and therefore the text. The goal is to then make them critical of their own writing. Instead of just writing whatever they think about, they take the time to evaluate how their readers may interpret what their saying and how they can write to get across the message they intend.

One of the things I did not like about the classroom that was in the pinwheel video was that the students were able to say things like "maybe he was just some weird guy". That is not helpful to a discussion. I feel that by requiring the use of textual evidence (like in my high school AP Lit), students would be steered towards the relationship between the text and outside forces, not just random comments. I bring this up because defining a culture of background knowledge, understanding the author and other driving forces inherently leads to evidence based reasoning.

Week 1: Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier

We asked today if there has ever been a court case about freedom of speech and school newspapers, and there has. In Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988)  student journalists were not allowed by the school to write a story about a teen mom who felt her relationship with her father was a factor in her teen pregnancy. It went to the district courts where they ruled in favor of the school district. The students appealed to the US court of appels where they ruled in the students favor - saying their rights were violated. Finally the school appealed to SCOTUS, where they ruled in the favor of the school. Their ruling was that the paper is sponsored by the school, and therefore the school has legitimate reason to limit publication to what is deemed appropriate. Also that the paper is not an unlimited forum for students to express their opinions

One of the things the kids in the video were looking for was a safe place to discuss controversial topics, a place where they could express their opinion and hear the opinions of others. While I don't believe that the newspaper is the place for that, as the court has already ruled, i do believe that a school should have an outlet. One option I have come across holding a class, the same way as any history or math class, but instead of those subjects, the class is an open forum in which students can express themselves, ask questions, and hear other points of view. The key point of this is that parental permission is required. 

The Role of Journalism

I rely on media/journalists/news to convey information to me every single day, consistently throughout the day. I mostly rely on new sources from twitter, including @BBCNews, @BuzzfeedNews, and @BreakingNews. After twitter sources, I enjoy putting on the evening news as background noise while I do things around my apartment. I like following twitter new sources because they are updated rapidly, and the information is concise. Also, in 140 characters, it is difficult to skew the new stories toward any bias.

Within the past two weeks, for instance, I have been following the story of the two Wisconsin preteens that stabbed a peer because a fictional internet character told them to do so. I don't know if that news story has permeated the television media, but it has certainly infiltrated the internet world. Maybe this is because the girls use the internet as their source of meaning. However, I have been following it throughout twitter sources and through the entertainment/news source Buzzfeed. What seems to vary the most between sources is the emphasis they place on blame. Some sites are quick to place blame on the girls and their parents, for a lack of supervision. Others, more often sources that are not solely internet based, like tv media outlets, have a tendency to blame the internet for creating this subculture.