Introduction and Chapter 1

I have been fortunate this semester to be working in a classroom that is technology friendly and where technology and media are integrated successfully into the everyday classroom. The positive experience I've had with students who are exposed to different types of media has been rewarding and makes me consider, quite strongly, using it in my classroom.

One idea that stuck out to me was the challenge of showing a film in class and if that is a valid assessment/assignment/learning tool. My cooperating teacher doesn’t usually show many films in her class. She believes that there are many ways to get students engaged in the material and is very effective at doing this. However, she did show Kenneth Branaugh’s version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It which, I felt, really helped the students connect with the text and see the humor/comical aspects acted out. I feel that with Shakespeare especially, it’s really important for students to the see the text in action, as it was intended to be. The students finally understood more of the humor of Touchstone’s character and the farcical nature of mistaken identity. I also observed the students in her grade level English 12 class watching Joyeux Noel to parallel the goings on in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front. As our students grow up in such a visual age, it makes sense to enhance their knowledge, or enhance the number of access points to a piece of literature. I do not, however, believe that showing films should be a staple of teaching English/Language Arts.

Britain and Australia's ideas concerning student analysis of media and its role is something that is very significant to me. I feel that it is our job as teachers, to make whatever subject we are teaching valid and important to the students. We could all tell our students when they whine about having to read "an entire book!?" that they have to read it "because I said so" but instead we give them valid reasons as to the deeper meaning of the text and how it might be significant in their own lives. While students may not see the immediate reasoning or significance of reading All Quiet of the Western Front or Things Fall Apart, teaching them to critically analyze media and to be media literate is a skill that they can employ right away.

I also never really considered the importance of social literacy (like computer chat and email) as something that involves "high levels of thinking, learning and social development” (Beach 2). I think of email and instant messages as another way to to keep in contact with my friends and family and never really considered the higher level thinking and learning that I went through in order to achieve a highly proficient level.

My cooperating teacher set up a class wiki site (for 10IB and 12 Regular) and each student has their own blog set up. The students in 10IB use their blogs quite frequently, posting assignments on them if they can't get things printed on time or if there is a problem with their word processing document. I do like the convenience the blogs have for the students and that I don't have to carry around their papers. However, it makes it a little harder for me to assess their assignment because I can't make comments or underline things that I like. I think that might be my own style of reading and taking in information contrasting theirs. The students look to the class wiki for assignments when they are absent, which I think is wonderful. I appreciate in college having a listserv or email access to all my group mates/partners and hope that that will be the next step.

Back to the topic at hand of media literacy, I feel that it is truly something that we have to address, especially as English teachers. Reading and writing are taking on new forms, forms that are just as valid as books in print and handwritten essays. My cooperating teacher and I were talking today about student presentations and how media has changed them. When asked for a creative presentation about their novel, many students made PowerPoint presentations, thinking that it was creative enough. However, these presentations weren't done effectively so the new media may have hindered their creativity.

I think media literacy instruction is crucial for students, especially since “people spend about two-thirds of their waking hours interacting with media, more time than they devote to sleeping, eating or work" (Beach 2). If media is so prominent in the lives of our students (and people in general) then why not use it in our classrooms? If taught correctly, students can have a greater understanding or media and become active receivers of information.

Joyeux Noel: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/
As You Like It: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450972/