Date a Girl Who Reads

I just found a really cute article.  I thought all you INLA majors would appreciate it. http://themonicabird.com/post/3273155431/date-a-girl-who-reads-date-a-girl-who-spends-her

Multi-Modal Literacies: Great Films and How to Teach Them

     I just finished reading the book "Great Films and How to Teach Them" and I'm left with varying opinions about how I feel about this book.  I like the fact that Costanzo brought up the point that films are unique forms of art and that many films are inspired by books, but they should be treated as their own unique forms of art.  I also liked the fact that Costanzo brought up the fact that so many different elements combine to make a good film.  Camera angle, cuts, music, camera movement, etc. are all elements that create a scene.
     While I thought the whole book was very informative, I thought the last two chapters provided me with the most information.  I really enjoyed the chapter that discussed portrayals of different races on film.  I think this could be a great unit in a language arts or social studies classroom because the portrayal of people on film parallels their place in society historically.  In a language arts classroom, the teacher could have the class read a book such as Native Son depicting race relations in the early twentieth century, then have students study the portrayal of African Americans in film during that time period.  I think this would be a great way to pair up film study along with the study of literature.  Furthermore, I also watched the documentary "The Celluloid Closet" last semester in a class and it taught me a lot about the ways in which homosexuality has been addressed in film throughout the years.  I think this would also be a great resource to use in the classroom, either in it's entirety or just clips.  I've included a youtube clip of "The Celluloid Closet" at the end of this post.
     Finally, I think the most challenging issue this book has brought up is how to include film in the language arts classroom.  The major thing that concerns me is that teachers have so much literature to cover and state tests to prepare for, that I think it would be difficult to find time to fit film into the classroom.  Furthermore, I'm pretty sure there aren't any state standards pertaining to film study so I'm not sure how this could be included in the classroom.  This isn't to say that film isn't important, I'm just not sure it's in the curriculum. Do any of you have ideas about how this could be addressed?  For me, I think one way would be to pair up historical aspects of films with the literature that is being read in the class so that the film can be used as a supplement to the literature.  I'm sure there are many other ways to include film and I would be interested in all of your ideas.

Teaching Literature in Secondary Schools: Jago Chapter 1

So far, I think this book has made a lot of important points.  I like the fact that the author pointed out that students should be reading books that they can't necessarily understand on their own.  This is something that I haven't really thought about before but it's something that I think has a lot of merit to it.  Students learn more from reading books that are challenging.  However, while I agree with the author's point I think it also brings up concerns.  How do teachers deal with students that don't do the assigned reading for homework?  How do teachers teach such challenging books in their classrooms with students who struggle with decoding and reading skills?  Also, could reading such difficult books turn students away from reading on their own?  These are all issues that I think should be considered in choosing what books to teach students.  I really like the idea of pairing young adult literature with the classics.  In this way, students are being exposed to canonical literature, but they're also getting exposed to literature that they can relate to, which I think is important.  I also liked Jago's point about metaphors being everywhere, not just in literature.  I think this point was something that I had never really thought about before, but after I read about it it made a lot of sense.  I think this is a point that we need to teach students so they can see the relevance of the material being taught in the classroom.  I think students will respond better to the lessons in the classroom if they see that it has relevance in the real world.

Multi-Modal Literacies: Pleasure Reading: Monster (Walter Dean Myers)

I finally was able to get the chance to get in some of my own reading and it's been very refreshing for me.  I think it's important for people to read books on their own so they can just enjoy reading and be exposed to a variety of different texts.  Also, as future language arts teachers I think it's important for us to be familiar with a variety of different texts to recommend and discuss with our students.  Last week, I read Monster by Walter Dean Myers.  I think this is a really good book to read for a multi-modal class because it's written in such a unique format.  The book tells the story of a sixteen-year-old boy who is wrongly accused of murder.  The book chronicles the main character, Stephen's experiences in jail and his murder trial.  While the story is interesting enough, it's also written in a unique format.  The book starts out with Steve's diary entries in jail, then switches over to a script of a movie he is writing to chronicle his experiences.  The character uses the movie script as a coping mechanism throughout his ordeal.  The entire book is written in journal entries or a movie script.  There is no strict narrative which makes this really interesting.  This is just another example of how different types of texts influence people in different ways.  I think this would be a great book for young adults to read because it's an example of a different format of literature, and it also has important themes like the goodness in humanity, corruption of the justice system, race issues, etc.  I'm definitely planning on having a copy of Monster in my classroom library. I'm also providing a link to Walter Dean Myers' website for more information about Monster and his other books.  http://www.walterdeanmyers.net/index.html

Multi-Modal Literacies: The Social Network

After reading the article about the history of the facebook, I decided that I wanted to watch the movie "The Social Network" about how facebook was created.  Overall, I thought the movie followed the article really accurately.  Most of the information in the movie seemed to be pretty accurate and only a few things seemed to be added for entertainment purposes.  I was really interested in this movie, because I think it has a lot to offer in the fact that it addresses a lot of important issues in our new media age.  One of the most important issues addressed was the idea of intellectual property.  While watching the movie, I went back and forth between feeling that facebook was "stolen" by Mark Zuckerberg and feeling that he simply expanded on the ideas of others.  I think it's important in this day and age to be conscious of the idea of intellectual property because it's important to respect the work of others.  I think this movie really informed me about the history of a program that I use everyday and I think it's really interesting to know the background of the services I use.  I think it's important for everybody that uses different websites and programs to be familiar with what they're using along with the backgrounds of different programs.  This helps to create a more informed and educated society.  I would highly recommend the social network, it's definitely worth your time.

Multi-Modal Literacies: The Socially Networked Classroom

I just finished reading the first chapter of Dr. Kist's book "The Socially Networked Classroom" and I have to say that so far I'm really interested.  So far in my college career, I've thought of literacy as basically having to do with written material, specifically in print, not on the web.  However, Dr. Kist's book has shown me that the definition of literacy is something that changes along with the times and with the development of new technologies.  I liked the classroom demonstrations he wrote about as well.  In class, we did many of these activities such as counting to ten and the snowball activity.  I thought it was informative to read the rationale for using these activities and I plan on incorporating some of these into my own classroom.  Overall, the main idea that I really like in this book is that students can learn across multiple platforms.  Students can read traditional books, watch films, look at art, write blogs, and participate in online communities discussing the books they read.  I think this is a great way to keep students interested in the class and to provide them with different ways to express themselves.  I particularly liked the lesson about writing multigenre papers.  Students could learn so much from writing a traditional essay about a piece of literature and then transfering those ideas into a news article or an artistic piece.  I think using different platforms of expression can appeal to all learners and increase students' interest and creativity.