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.

Multi-Modal Literacies: Little Brother Post 2

I'm so interested in this book! It has so many issues worthy of discussion I don't know where to begin.  One thing I've found particularly interesting is the censorship of the press and the references to the Declaration of Independence and the first amendment.  The situations in this book remind me of the state of America directly following the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Everyone was overly paranoid about terrorism which led to the passage of the Patriot Act which took away certain civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution.  The situations in the book are obviously on a much higher scale than they were after 911 but I think the message remains:  Citizens' civil liberties should not be taken away under any circumstances.

Multi-Modal Literacies: History of Facebook

I thought this article was really interesting.  Before reading this the only thing I knew about the development of facebook was the fact that it was developed in a Harvard dorm room by Mark Zuckerberg.  However, I think this article shed light on a lot of important issues.  First of all, I think it's really amazing that a person younger than I am now was able to create something that is so influential and widely used today.  However, I also thought all the legal issues were interesting.  I think the fact that Zuckerberg had so many confrontations with close friends and associates proves that he wasn't a very good person which makes him difficult to admire for his work.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about this because I think facebook is a really impressive invention but I don't admire the ways in which it was created.  I think this article also brings up important issues about the nature of facebook in general.  For teachers, I believe it's important for teachers to teach students acceptable use of facebook.  It can be a great way to communicate with friends and work towards educational goals, but students need to be aware of the way in which they are representing themselves and be careful not to post pictures or statuses that can be incriminating or represent themselves in a way they would not want.  I think facebook is a great tool that needs to be used responsibly.

Multi-Modal Literacies: An Oral History of the Internet

I think this was a really interesting article which contains a large amount of information.  I liked the fact that the authors combined factual information with interviews from the different people involved with the development of the internet.  It must have taken a lot of research to create this article due to all the people that were interviewed.  One thing this article really did for me as that it showed me how new the internet really is. I was born in 1989 and the internet basically grew up along with me, which is something unique about my generation.  Reading this article showed me that different online services such as youtube, facebook, wikipedia, ebay, and amazon were really only developed in about the last decade.  It's amazing to me because these are websites and services that I use regularly and have become things that I have taken for granted.  However, ten years ago, when I was eleven years old all of these things were in their early development.  I think the internet has really changed the way in which college campuses are run as well.  When I think about colleges twenty years ago, they didn't have the same technology we have.  We communicate with professors and receive memos through e-mail and vista.  We have numerous online assignments such as our blog assignment in our class. We also have access to research databases in the comfort of our homes. I think these things have really aided in my learning experience and I plan to utilize the educational services the internet has to offer in my future classroom.

Multi-Modal Literacies: Little Brother

So far, I've read about one-third of the book "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow.  At this point in the novel, I have a lot of positive things to say.  I think this book is a great example of a  book that could be used in a high school classroom.  It addresses a lot of key issues such as the country's increasing reliance on technology and the idea that many fear that technology is becoming too powerful.  The book also touches on the idea of human rights and what people can do to stand up for their rights.  Furthermore, I also think the book touches on the idea of the importance of each individual.  I think this would be important for high school students to read because it provides students with an example of a teenager who can make a difference.  I think teenagers often think they aren't important and they can't make a difference in regards to world events, and I think this book shows that teenagers are very important.  This book was interesting because it's very different from a lot of books I've read.  At the beginning of the book, it seems like the events take place a long time in America's future.  However, after reading more of the book I'm beginning to think it takes place in present day America because of references to historical events in relation to the lives of the characters.  Overall, I think this book is very thought-provoking and can lead to interesting discussions with high school students.  It will be interesting to see how the book turns out as I continue reading.