Multi-Modal Literacies: Film Festival Experience

     I attended the Cleveland International Film Festival over spring break and I really enjoyed it.  Overall, the whole experience was very similar to simply going to see a movie with just a few differences.  First, it was important for me to purchase my tickets online in order to insure that my movie didn't get sold out.  Unlike going to a regular movie where there are multiple showing times, if I were to get shut out of my movie I wouldn't have another chance to see it.  Another difference was in the way the organizers of the even seated movies.  There were special lines for each movie and the theaters usually didn't start seating people until about fifteen minutes before the movie's starting time which is different than what I'm used to in going to see movies.  Also, the organizers of the even passed out voting sheets so that the viewers could rate their favorite movie which I thought was a great way to get feedback.
     Again, I really enjoyed the overall experience.  The film festival gave me the chance to see the type of movie that isn't normally shown in American theaters.  I saw a movie that took place in India and was entirely spoken in Gujarati.  The film was shown with subtitles so that English speakers could understand it.  This was a unique experience for me, because although I've seen movies with subtitles, I haven't seen very many and I think it gave me a good glimpse of another culture.
     One of the only drawbacks of the film festival was the price of the movie tickets.  I had a difficult time deciding what movie I wanted to see because there were so many really interesting movies to choose from.  I would have liked to see more than one movie, but the price ($12 per ticket) prevented me from doing so.  I'm a college student and I don't have a lot of money so I feel that the prices may deter people from seeing some of the movies they want to see.
     Other than that, I really enjoyed the experience and I will probably go to see a movie at the film festival next year.  I think it was a good example of the fact that film is very artistic and that the art of film should be showcased and appreciated.

Multi-Modal Literacies: Friday Night Lights

     Since we've been talking about texts as more than just the written word I wanted to talk about a TV show that I've fallen in love with.  I recently started watching Friday Night Lights on Netflix and I have to say I'm absolutely addicted.  This show didn't get very good ratings while it was on TV and it was eventually switched to DirecTV but I have to say it deserves a lot more credit than it was given.  There are many important themes explored throughout the show including family relationships, marriages, teenage relationships, and many issues faced by small town America.  While the premise of the show is about football, it really is about more than that.  I'm not really interested in football and sports shows but I loved this show.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone who's looking for a new show to watch.  It's also on the watch instantly queue on Netflix.

Multi-Modal Literacies: Hate List

After struggling to get through my midterm assignments I was finally able to do some of my own pleasure reading.  I decided to read Hate List by Jennifer Brown which has been sitting on my bookshelf since winter break.  Overall, I really enjoyed the book and I plan on eventually including it in my own classroom library.  The book follows the story of the main character, Valerie, who is recovering from the shock of a recent school shooting at her high school.  However, this is more difficult for her than for many of the other students because the shooter was her boyfriend.  Despite the fact that Valerie had no idea that he was capable of such violence, she has to deal with the aftermath of the loss of her boyfriend and the judgment of her peers and community.  I think this book has a lot to say about human nature and how the way we treat other people strongly effects them, more than we often realize.  I think it's important for teenagers to read this book because I think it helps to create tolerance and understanding for people that are different.  I think reading this book could lead to really good discussions about how hurtful words can lead to more than just words, and how it's important to treat other people with respect, even if we don't always get along.  I want to give students the message that they don't have to like everyone, but they do have to respect everyone, because words can often hurt more than actions which is very important.

Multi-Modal Literacies: Firestone Experience

            After going to Firestone High School and completing both my field experience and my tutoring experience I have gained new insights into the structure of American schools and the emphasis on test preparation and I have to say, what I observed opened my eyes to some very serious issues. I believe schools have placed too much weight on test preparation which has stifled critical thinking and I think this is a big concern for the public school system.

            Standardized testing was created in order to create accountability for schools but I feel that all it has done is hurt students’ learning.  Teachers have been forced to constantly drill students with test-taking skills rather than provide them with meaningful educational experiences.  However, I’m not blaming the schools or the administrators for this.  They are simply responding to a flawed educational system nationwide that places too much weight on standardized tests.  Throughout my time at Firestone, I observed countless numbers of frustrated teachers and students who were obviously sick of OGT prep, yet were forced to prepare for these ever important tests. 

            Another problem I have with standardized testing is that the questions are designed to trick students.  As I worked with my student, there were several questions in the OGT practice packets that confused me.  They were worded in such a way as to confused the students about what the question was asking when they could have been worded much differently.  I myself, struggled with a few of these questions.  I also consider myself a strong reader and a highly literate adult.  How will students be able to focus on figuring out the answer to questions if they don’t even know what they’re asking?  This is a question that has baffled me throughout my time at Firestone.

            However, despite the problems with the system of standardized testing, I learned a lot through tutoring my student.  Overall, I was very impressed with all the students in the tutoring program.  I’m sure by the time we got there they were all sick of OGT prep, yet they all showed up to every session and gave 100% effort.  I was particularly impressed with my student.  I was placed with a different student than the one I was with last semester because she was no longer in the program.  While I didn’t know this student very well, I believe we got a lot of important work done.  We mostly focused on practice reading tests where I worked with my student on test-taking strategies and the ways to approach a question that seems difficult.  I was very impressed with my student because despite the fact that he struggled with reading, he was able to articulate which areas he had the most trouble with which helped me know how to help him improve.  Although we were only there for four sessions, I was able to see a noticeable improvement in his reading skills.

            This tutoring experience also taught me a lot about teaching in general.  I tried some reading activities with my student that seemed to work very well and others that didn’t.  This experience helped me to become aware of my own strengths and weaknesses and the ways in which I could use them to help my student. 

            I also liked the fact that we were given the opportunity to work one-on-one with a student focusing on literacy skills.  I think this allowed me to see the struggles of an individual student which will be able to help me when I have my own classroom.  My student struggled with areas that I simply assumed he would know.  This opened my eyes to the issues that high school students struggle with and will help me be a better teacher in the future.

            Another issue I have with test preparation concerns the broadening definition of literacy in our society.  Literacy is no longer just canonical texts but includes a wide variety of different mediums including graphic novels, newspaper articles, magazine articles, film, television, and music to name a few.  Why is it that we test our students on mundane, traditional articles when we could be using a wide variety of mediums to assess their understanding of literacy?  The tests are not designed to test the knowledge of students in today’s modern world. 

            One way to combat this discrepancy may be to infuse multi-modality with test preparation.  It seems like an unlikely combination, but I believe there are several ways to combine the two.  One idea is to have students watch a film or read a graphic novel.  Students can discuss the elements of film or the elements of a graphic novel along with critical thinking questions.  However, the teacher can also assign students questions on these texts similar to the questions assigned on standardized tests.  In this way, students can maintain their critical thinking skills while also preparing for the tests.  Teachers can also do the reverse of this activity.  Students can watch a film or read a graphic novel, then create their own OGT test questions based on these texts.  This allow students to think about the important themes presented in the texts and the way in which OGT prep questions are usually designed. 

            However, while I believe these alternate activities can help to break up the monotony of traditional test preparation I also believe it’s unfortunately necessary that students need to complete traditional OGT review packets.  While I disagree with the idea of standardized tests, I understand that students need to pass these tests in order to graduate so it is my job as a teacher to prepare them.  There are several useful websites that could be used to aid students in test preparation (another use of multi-modality) such as study island and ogtprep.com.  Teachers can have students explore these websites in order to gain the necessary test taking skills they need in order to pass the state tests.

            My experience at Firestone has taught me that with the right teachers, students will work hard and become more educated.  I believe it is my job as a teacher to prepare students for the test while also helping students to learn critical thinking skills.  During the rest of my time at Kent State, I will work hard while trying to figure out how to address both of these issues.  

Multi-Modal Literacies: Extra Credit

     So far this semester I've learned a lot about the different ways in which multi-modality can be incorporated into the classroom and I plan on using many of these methods in my own classroom when I become a teacher.  I like the idea of introducing the multigenre autobiography at the beginning of the school year because I think this is a great introduction for a high school class.  I would begin the class by showing my students my own autobiography so they can see the ways in which different texts influenced my life.  It will also allow them to see what I value as a teacher.  I could explain to my students the ways in which historical fiction taught me a lot about the world I live in without even realizing it and how the different movies and TV shows I watched have impacted my thinking as well.  Then, I would like to assign the multigenre autobiography to my own students so they can learn more about themselves as consumers of literature.  I think the most important part of this project is to stress the importance of including texts that had a strong impact or influence on their lives, not just texts they enjoyed.  I think this really does teach the fact that the media does have a strong impact on everyone even though we don't often realize it.  I also think this project teaches students that a text does not necessarily have to be a book, but that movies and TV shows are also valid texts as well.
     In addition to the multigenre autobiography, I would like to include the study of many different texts in my own classroom.  I will mostly focus my classroom around books since I will be a teacher or language arts.  However, I would like to include a unit on the study of films and their influence on our culture.  I think students would really enjoy this and benefit from this.  Finally, I would like to have my students blog for their class. I think blogging is a great way to get students to interact with each other and share their opinions about a specific text or assignment.  It is also an example of the use of internet technology, which is important in this day and age.

Teaching Literature in Secondary Schools: Jago Chapter 5

     I think this chapter about teaching poetry and helping helping students understand it is a much needed chapter.  I think teachers often have difficult time teaching poetry because students often have preconceived notions about poetry that can be difficult to break.  Therefore, I think it's important for teachers to make sure that they're teaching poetry in such a way that students will learn and understand it.  I liked Jago's method of think-alouds.  I think it's important for teachers to model their thinking so students will know how to approach a difficult poem.  Instead of simply saying they don't understand something, student will learn what questions to ask  and how to make sense of a difficult topic on their own.  I also liked the activity that Jago used in her classroom by having students create graphic organizers and work in groups to try to make sense of the poem on their own.  While they may not be able to answer every question in their groups, they will at least be able to identify what questions they have which is another step to learning.
     While I agreed with many of Jago's methods, I disagreed with the fact that she said students should work on form before free verse.  I think students really struggle with poetry and I've learned a lot from my "Teaching Poetry in Schools" class that I'm taking right now. I've actually had experience teaching poetry to students through this class and I've seen the results of students who are given enough guidance that they aren't searching for an idea, but they also have enough freedom that they can really make their own poem.  Teachers that have used this method have observed students actually looking forward to writing poetry and sharing their poems out loud.  Poetry is a form of creative writing and students should be allowed to have the freedom to be creative.

Teaching Literature in Secondary Schools: Jago Chapter 3

     I'm finding this book really interesting so far and I think it'll give me a lot of ideas about the books I want my students to read and the way I want to structure my classroom.  I really agreed with Jago's criteria for choosing books. I think it's important for teachers to be aware of the reasons they are teaching a book and I like the criteria Jago has proposed.  I think all of these points will help teachers to choose whether or not the books they are teaching are appropriate for secondary students.  I also liked the fact that Jago stressed the importance of making connections to real life and how she analyzed the use of Frankenstein in the classroom and compared it to genetic experiments today.  I think all literature teachers should really stress to their students the connections the books make to the modern world and real-life problems.  After all, classics are a part of the literary canon because they contain timeless themes.  Students should be made aware of these timeless themes and the reasons why they are timeless.

     However, there were a few aspects of this chapter I disagreed with.  I understand Jago's rationale for having her sophomores read twenty books, but in my opinion, that's too many books for a high school language arts class.  I worry that by having students read so many books, they will grow to hate literature and reading because they are so overwhelmed by their assignments.  Also, I know from my experience as a student that trying to cram too many books into one class can be detrimental to student learning.  I recently took a class where the teacher assigned so much reading that it became so overwhelming that I had no time to really focus on any individual piece of literature and form my own opinion about it.  I think it's important that students have just the right amount of work that they're engaged and actively learning, but they aren't overwhelmed at the same time.  

     I also disagreed with the fact that Jago seems to think that young adult literature doesn't really have any place in the classroom.  I think young adult literature is very important for high school students to read because it piques students' interest in reading and provides them with important themes and life lessons.  Young adult literature provides students with characters and experiences that they can identify with.  It makes reading meaningful for students.

     In my classroom, I plan on teaching the classics in class and assigning young adult literature for choice projects and literature circles.  I think in this way, students will be exposed to both types of literature and benefit from the large variety of reading they are doing.