A major problem I have witnessed with some of my middle
schoolers is a lack of interest in school.
They are trending towards losing motivation to try, and it breaks my
heart. While not only rooted in reading,
I do believe that many of these students disinterest comes from the constraints
or struggles they have encountered with the printed word. Either reading was hard to learn or writing
“just wasn’t my thing.” Literacy became disjointed at some point. But, there are “tremendous literacy and life
learning opportunities possible through the production of original student
media products” (Gura, 2014, p. 185).
Through the use of audio and video, we can tap into students interests
as well as teach them how to craft products of expression. A news broadcast invests students in local
affairs in conjunctions with their analysis (Gura, 2014, p. 192). Production and product are as valued as
content creation (Hicks, 2013, p. 96).
These outlets provide occasions for “students [to] be conscious of their
writing and thinking” while developing critical means of composition in a way
that capitalizes on an investment in the craft (Hicks, 2013, p. 136).
The following are the major themes that made me invest in
incorporating more multimodal forms of expression in my classroom –
·
Audio texts composed in small segments allow
students to take risks without the fear of messing the whole piece up. Through editing and revision students can
play around with what works and what doesn’t (Hicks, 2013, p. 98). For me this
is analogous to copy and pasting in a word processor.
·
Crafting audio texts encourages prosody and
fluency (Hicks, 2013, p. 91). Students
have to be aware of how they say something.
Translate that into the written word – students have to be thoughtful
when composing an email. How will the reader take it?
·
We live in a world where images speak louder
than words (Hicks, 2013, p. 104).
Therefore, students, who are already invested in social media, can use
pictures and videos to craft a “concise message that critiques an existing”
thought, idea, theme, or preconceived notion (Hicks, 2013, 107).
·
Developing video texts can be messy in the same
way developing a piece of written expression. But students can practice achieving
the same goal, a well-defined, connected texts, in a medium that speaks to
their generation (Hicks, 2013, p. 115).
As for a mentor text, I am in love with this 90 second short. The website http://jameskennedy.com/90-second-newbery/ invites students to create a video that tells the entire story of a Newberry book. The one that stuck out to me was about Charlotte's Web.
I chose this as a strong mentor text because I feel that it decorates the original text, illustrates a concept and illuminates the viewer on media elements (Hicks, 2013, p. 110). The costumes and setting used bring the book to life. The act of summarizing a text is a hard concept for many students let alone in 90 seconds. But, my favorite thing, is the use of cartoons, humans and the song. Those elements incorporate the tenants of a strong transformative video text, audio text, and elements critical for written text.
"While not only rooted in reading, I do believe that many of these students disinterest comes from the constraints or struggles they have encountered with the printed word." I have an elementary school education background and I see the struggles that students have with reading and how it gets all to easy to label them as "struggling readers." Once they get labeled, they typically do one of two things: They either do everything in their power to live up to that label of a struggling reader because to expect anything else from themselves would require them going against the people in authority who gave them the label in the first place. If they don't have that particular response, their second response that they will give is to act out behaviorally because even negative attention is at least some form of attention and typically because of their label they don't receive praise much. By the time they get to you at the middle school years, they have dealt with years of having a label and it is difficult for them to know any different than what they have experienced almost their whole educational career.
ReplyDeleteThat is why is so important, no matter what level, to teach reading in a good context. What I love about the class that we are currently in now is that we are learning ways to use technology in our classrooms to bring about a teaching literature in a meaningful context. The majority of our students in some way, shape, form, or fashion are exposed to technology in their personal lives so why do we insist on strictly using print based materials to teach our literature classes with. Why not use the methods to teach that they use at home so they can make personal connections and bring their own background knowledge into the learning process? Doing this would bring a much higher form of interest in literature in our classrooms as well as potentially help avoid the labels that have been placed on students early in their academic lives. But it is up to us to change.
EloiseThree,
ReplyDeletePrinted text, audio files, or moving imagery can certainly change is one's understanding of what is being presented. As a language arts and social studies teacher, this fact often has great influence on how I present an event in history. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are understood on a completely different level when they are presented as printed text as opposed to pictures or moving imagery.
As a fellow six grade language arts teacher, I completely agree that students began to lose interest and middle school. You're absolutely right when you said, "While not only rooted in reading, I do believe that many of the students disinterest comes from the constraints or struggles they have encountered with the printed word." Students and encounter a large amounts of audio and video in their daily lives. Between twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat students come in contact with thousands of images and soundbites. It is disheartening to see that many teachers only value the written word as a legitimate form of "literacy." When students are not in our classrooms, they come in contact with many different forms of literacy whether they realize it or not. It is crucial for teachers to help students understand that the content they're coming in contact with is laden with personal opinions and bias. If audio and visual components are not recognized as literacy in the classroom, students will continue to view school and their lives outside of school as completely disconnected arenas.
Sean Spade