Reflect

It's so weird to think that this semester is drawing to a close. Not so long ago, it felt like we were in Writing for Non-Print Media every other day. Now it's gotten to the point where it seems like it's been every other week.

Regardless of the time that past, I'm extremely glad I took the course, because, in just simply meeting only every Monday since the semester started, I've learned so much more about different technology and media than I ever thought I really would. If someone told me that I'd blog, podcast, and make have a video I helped make uploaded to Youtube, I'd have told them they obviously have the wrong person.

I don't regret a thing, though. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the class and using every different technology that we did. Having gone through this class is definitely going to make me much more open to trying new technologies and media that I take for granted.

Drama

It's interesting to see that drama sort of has the same issue being implemented into the classroom as technology, despite having been around longer. Both seem more of frivolous than a commodity in a lot of educators eyes. I had two English teachers in high school with completely opposite end of the spectrum opinions on drama. The one teacher loved drama, constantly having the class act out scenes from the story in order to better understand the material. The other was under the unbending opinion that drama was a waste of time and that "having students pitifully reenact scenes by stumbling over lines and butchering the source material" did not help the learning process at all. Understandably, these two did not like each one another and wouldn't even be in the same teacher's lounge at the same time.

Now, I admit the one teacher had us act out scenes a little too often for my liking, but I could see it help some other students understand exactly what was going on in material such as the Iliad or how there were many different facets of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

It was nice to read Pririe's article and see the different ways drama was implemented into the classroom and how it was more than a novelty to the teachers and the students.

Duh

Modern children learn differently than children of the past. You don't say, Edmonson? In all seriousness, though, the sad part is that her article hits the point right on the nose, but a lot of educators either don't realize it or refuse to get with the times.

Now, I'm not saying every teacher needs to make a Facebook account or update their Twitter every twelve seconds from their iphone 9, however, a little bit of concession can go a long way. A lot of these websites and mediums can be a distraction, of course, especially if treated only as such by teachers and professors. On the other hand, though, if students can be shown there's more to these than merely wasting time and avoiding doing actual work, perhaps ways of instituting them in the classroom setting wouldn't sound so far fetched.

 

New Novels

So, it's no secret that I'm not the biggest fan of some of the books forced on students every year. Be that as it may, I'm still under the impression that everyone should read and a quote I heard the other day sums that sentiment up nicely. It's somewhere along the lines of, "the man who does not read has no advantage over one who cannot read." In the college setting, I feel like this is even more true, because I know plenty of people who wouldn't be caught dead reading a book, and that's a damn shame.

Back to my point, however; while I feel as though every copy of the books should be burned, and by no means am I saying that it should  be part of the curriculum, but the Twilight series did get a lot of people reading, the same way the Harry Potter series (which, incidentally, I believe has a decent case for being used in a classroom setting) did before. Here's hoping the Hunger Games books/movie trilogy can keep up the trend.

In a day and age where we're bombarded with so much media, I feel like the movie treatment a lot of these books are getting can be extremely beneficial. I, personally, had never heard of the Hunger Games before, but picked up the book in an effort to read it before the movie came out. I know I wasn't the only one who went through this, or a similar scenario. Having a movie bring attention to the book to the youths who barely have the time to look up from their iphones anymore is nothing to sneeze at.

Interest

The article by Jonathan Ostenson and Elizabeth Gleason-Sutton was another piece this week that I related to. I don't really remember a single book I was forced to read during high school. I either didn't actually read them or I read enough to get assignments done and then wiped them from my mind.

To get sort of off topic for a moment; it's sort of funny that I'm becoming a teacher, because I can't remember a single one that actually inspired me to do so. Instead, I constantly thought about how I would actually run a classroom so that students not only could learn, but wanted to. My memories from high school are those of being herded along, from one grade to another, in order to help the school just enough to get AYP and to avoid the ire of NCLB. I don't remember any connections with teachers; even the friends of mine that went back after they graduated only did so in order to say hi to the teachers that they had fun with. a.k.a. the teachers that didn't actually do work in the classes, and simply bullshitted with the students they liked for an hour.

During my high school English classes, I remember thinking that these books we had to read had no basis. They were all "classics" that had no connection with modern day kids; they were simply novels that older people viewed through rose colored glasses with frames made of nostalgia.

Though I still hold to the opinion that certain books, ones that shall remain unnamed *cough*thechocolatewars*cough*, aren't exactly the classic, necessary material for high school students to learn, I do know now that these books can not only be relatable, but used in a way that can catch these students' collective interests without forcing them down their throat.

I completely agree with both the authors in that we should strive to make these "necessary" novels meaningful to them. We can do this by looking for key factors that strike their interest, by asking questions that can instigate meaningful discussion, and mostly, by finding a balance between teacher and student involvement.

Different Facets

Broz's article about graphic responses to literature resonated on a meaningful level with me. It's funny, though, because I'm actually pretty confident in my own writing abilities. However, I know plenty of my friends are not. Because I'm an English major, I'm normally the go to guy for my friends when they have issues figuring out how to do essays and research papers, though I absolutely abhor the latter of the two. Regardless, it upsets me to see all of these people so doubtful about their own prowess at writing to the point that they actually sabotage themselves before they even begin. My girlfriend and my best friend both know, down to their core, that they're bad writers, and feel as though they'll never get better at it. I find that a huge shame, because, and I've shown them several times, they are only making minor errors that could be rectified quite easily. Unfortunately, they're just stuck in the mindset that that's as good as they can do, and hate writing because of it. However, they both absolutely excel at more creative elements, being able to ace any sort of project or assignment that is sort of outside the box.

This is where I feel Broz's ideas come into play. Too often have I seen teachers use the five paragraph essay for any and everything they're going to assess. Even my senior project in high school, which was a project based on our vocation, was graded more on the paper than on the actual project itself. I had a friend who literally took scrap from a junkyard and built a working car engine from scratch, only to barely pass with a D because his paper wasn't "up to par". Man, I was furious for him, but he was already in the mindset that that's as good as he deserved. I remember feeling bad for him and thinking, what could I have done to help him? Well, I may not have been able to help him, but I hope that I can learn from my, and others, experiences and be able to use different types of medias to assess my students. Broz's example of the young man and his drawings on the deer skin is exactly what I'm getting at. Some students are not good test takers, some aren't the most creative, and some aren't, or at least think they are not, good writers. I feel like it's necessary to attempt to cater, at least somewhat, to these students, to let them know that, just because they aren't "up to par" in certain regards, they aren't irredeemable outcasts.

20 Shot Film

I admit, I was not going into this project with high hopes. It had nothing to do with my group; I just know I'm not exactly the most tech savvy person in the room, and I wasn't sure how we'd fit the entirety of the story in twenty shots, or how we'd get it done in just two and a half hours. So, I was honestly shocked at how well my group picked up the task. We all sat down in the library, and within seconds we were all discussing the ins and outs about the story, explaining how we interpreted certain scenes, and showing each other our storyboards.

It didn't take long before we had a concrete idea about how we were going to tackle this project, and we went to work quickly. Though I wasn't in the film as much as others, I did enjoy helping set everything up and the experience in general. Not that I dislike the class, because I enjoy the open discussions we all have and the general atmosphere of it all, but this was definitely a nice change of pace from the norm.

Just like the podcast, I felt dreaded this assignment at first, but the simplicity of both medias was actually quite comforting, and, on both occasions, I actually enjoyed myself. They were both a great change-up from the norm, and, were much better than having to simply write a paper. The thing I enjoy the most, though, is that they didn't feel forced. I understood what the projects were, and it didn't feel like it was done simply for show, and that's what I feel is most important about using multi module medias in the classroom.