This week I am going to focus on Sweeny's article about using new media in English education--mostly because  it reminded me of lots of different stuff.

1. SIATech uses quite a bit of technology (it does have Tech in its name, after all). For example, the students watch videos on the awesome website brainpop.com.

The site features tons of short, animated, humorous videos on many different subjects. The videos are followed by links to quizzes, answers to questions that viewers have asked, activities, and more information on the topic. One of my tutorial students, Lauren, told me about a fun one she watched that featured a cartoon goat eating grass in a circle to teach circumference. You need a login name and password to view most of the videos, but here is a link to a free one:

brainpop Shakespeare video

2. I read an article from Wired over the summer (here's the link to it) about a website--khanacademy.org--that has a great many video lectures on various subjects including math, science, and art history (but no English...) as well as practice problems, at least for math, that are tailored to the student's ability level, which is calculated based on the questions they get right.

3. School of One in New York integrates technology into instruction as well as into calculating each student's ability in order to tailor instruction specifically to him or her.

4. In addition to technology, Sweeny also touches on the idea of writing in a community. This reminded me of National Novel Writing Month (November), which is explained here: National Novel Writing Month. Basically, you give yourself a month to write a complete novel of dubious quality, and you have the benefit of knowing there are lots more people out there doing the same thing at the same time who will encourage you.

5. And lastly, I wanted to share an assignment that my tutorial student Aya has due in the next couple of weeks for her theology class. It sounds like a great assignment aligned with Sweeny's article and with everything we have been learning about multiple literacies at first: The students have to read the story of Joseph and tell 12 different parts of the story from different characters' points of view using 7 different popular forms of technological communication; for example, they may choose to write a tweet from Joseph's point of view and then an email from Jacob's point of view, and so on. However...the students are not using the actual media--they are handwriting their tweets and emails, etc. and turning in these papers to the teacher. Seems silly to me.

The more I reflect on our reading and on my path toward becoming an English teacher, the more I come to understand that teaching English is not simply teaching reading and writing; it is teaching critical thinking. Wiggins and McTighe (2005) explain the importance of questioning the text book rather than accepting its claims as fact. Though in English classes we don't often have instructional text books of the kind they mean, it is certainly important to consider the perspectives of the characters and the author when reading novels and plays and short stories and news articles. Philippot and Graves (2009), like Appleman (2009), discuss different literary theories as different lenses through which students can read literature. These theories, particularly Marxist and feminist (and postcolonial in Appleman (2009)), are not only appropriate for looking at literature, but also at the world as we consider current power structures and multiple perspectives. It is important to realize that there is not just one way of looking at the world.

In discussing the best lesson designs, Wiggins and McTighe (2005) mention that they must be both engaging and effective. Good lessons, among other characteristics, are hands-on and have real-world applications. As I mentioned in my fieldwork post, my master teacher took a group of students to Occupy LA this week. Some students had interview questions prepared while some filmed or took photographs. This assignment was an exercise in journalism that was hands-on and not only had a real-world application but actually took place in the real world. In interviewing protesters, students became more politically informed and considered multiple perspectives; I was surprised to hear that many of the protesters do not have the same viewpoints--they just all agree that something needs to change.
I had hoped to include some footage from the students but I don't have any, so this will have to do. It gives a pretty good idea of what we saw, and the music is representative of the mood there yesterday afternoon--peaceful and relaxed.

As a lover of literature and of theatre, my favorite part of the protest was this Oscar Wilde quote written in chalk on the steps:

For my post this week I chose to illustrate and put to use the GRASPS acronym provided by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). The acronym stands for a six-step checklist of aspects that authentic performance tasks have. Here, I considered a common assessment for middle and high school students: a vocabulary quiz. Typically, teachers assign students to memorize definitions of words out of context and reproduce the definitions on a multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank quiz--not an authentic assessment. Below is my idea for a different vocabulary assessment. It would be based on a list of vocabulary words that students had come across in assigned reading, so they would have seen them in context before. They would have been required  to look them up if they did not know them already. I am assuming the students already know how to write formal letters and are familiar with persuasive writing.

Goal

The goal is to get a job interview with the Oxford English Dictionary for a newly open position--that of an editor who writes definitions and selects new words for the dictionary.

Role

You are a job applicant in a large pool of impressive applicants.

Audience

Your target audience is the selection committee for the position. The committee is a group of educated men and women who are experts in their field.

Situation

For this competitive job application process, you will need to show the committee your facility with difficult vocabulary words, as one of their criteria is, of course, an extensive knowledge of and ability to (correctly) use challenging vocabulary.

Product

You will write a cover letter using each of this week's vocabulary words in order to demonstrate your knowledge of and ability to use them. You must not only use the words correctly, but also use them to convince the employee selection committee that you are the best candidate for the job.

Standards

It is important that your word usage be correct and natural. Remember to follow the conventions of formal letter writing, and highlight the qualities and experience you have that make you suited for the job. (You may be creative--this letter does not need to stick to the truth.)

1. Write a letter to your teacher explaining why you have to miss class this Thursday due to the chocolate festival in San Francisco. Use pathos.
2. Write a letter to your teacher explaining why you have to miss class this Thursday due to the chocolate festival in San Francisco. Use ethos.
3. Write a letter to your teacher explaining why you have to miss class this Thursday due to the chocolate festival in San Francisco. Use logos.

One of my students, Lauren, had this quiz a few weeks ago in her ninth grade English class. Given the pointless quizzes she had last year (e.g. quizzes that tested whether she remembered minute details in Jane Eyre), we expected something similar. I was pleasantly surprised to see that her teacher this year gives more worthwhile assessments.
This is aligned with UbD in that one "facet of understanding" is application.

"To understand is to be able to use knowledge...We show our understanding of something by using it, adapting it, and customizing it" (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 93). 

For homework in the weeks before the quiz, the class was assigned reading from a packet that explained persuasive speaking. In class leading up the the quiz, the students and teacher discussed rhetorical strategies in depth.



It is clear that her teacher considers application an important skill.

I am happy to report that Lauren got an A- on the quiz. :)


After the quiz, the students began papers on Twelve Angry Men, a play they had read over the summer.


The assignment required them to analyze the viewpoint of one juror in particular (Juror Two in Lauren's case), evaluating what rhetorical strategies made him decide the defendant was guilty in the beginning, and then what strategies made him change his mind.




[Side note: Juror Two is a bank teller. Lauren needed someone to explain to her what that is because she is too young to remember a time when you actually had to go into the bank.]



This writing assignment is aligned with UbD's fourth facet of understanding: perspective. Lauren had to consider Juror Two's perspective--what made him initially believe the prosecution's case? and what persuaded him to change his verdict to not guilty?

Lauren got an A- on that, too. :)

The Reader Response Approach

I disagree with the basic premise of a reader response approach to literature--that the reader is the "creator of meaning" (Appleman, 2009, p. 29).

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

I would say yes. Sound is defined (by google dictionary) as:
"Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear."
Just because you are not there to hear it doesn't mean there aren't sound vibrations produced.

Similarly, just because you (the reader) do not identify with the work doesn't mean the work lacks meaning. It may mean you dislike the work. For example, I have never liked The Catcher in the Rye. I read it in high school, and I reread it recently with a student. I never identified with Holden; I was never a disaffected youth, and now that I am an adult I am particularly put off by Holden's constant complaining. I am not alone:

Tom Perrotta, author most recently of The Leftovers

On a recent episode of South Park, the kids got all excited about reading The Catcher in the Rye, the supposedly scandalous novel that's been offending teachers and parents for generations. They were, of course, horribly disappointed: As Kyle says, it's "just some whiny annoying teenager talking about how lame he is."

Is it more than that? Lots of people, including some writers I revere, seem to think so. But I've never been able to see what they're seeing, nor can I buy into the myth that Holden is some sort of representative American teenager. He's a self-pitying prep school esthete obsessed with his little sister, the kind of boy who takes it upon himself to erase obscene graffiti from bathroom walls. And that fantasy about catching children in a field of rye? "Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around—nobody big, I mean—except me." What's that all about? I'm not suggesting we need to like Holden in order to consider him important, I'm just baffled by the reverence and affection so many readers seem to feel for this peculiar creep.

Jonathan Rosen, editorial director of Nextbook and author most recently of The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature

When Mark Twain said that whenever he read Pride and Prejudice he wanted to dig up Jane Austen and beat her over the head with her own shinbone, it must have felt satisfyingly subversive. In the age of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it's more of a compliment. Hating great books just isn't that fun when there's nothing you are required to like or read, and perfectly smart people keep telling you that The Wire and TheSopranos, excellent television shows, to be sure, have replaced the novel. But for what it's worth, I could never read The Catcher in the Rye; even as an unhappy adolescent I found the voice cloying, annoying, and frankly phony. And for the record, ducks do very well in Central Park in the winter. If worst comes to worst, Holden, they fly. They're birds for Chrissake!

(http://www.slate.com/id/2301312/) 

The following is my student's amusing imitation of Holden's narration. I should explain that to entertain herself she started calling Phoebe Fabio, and that she would never, ever swear like Holden.

"wow, this was really goshdarn depressing. I feel so depressed now, that i even miss the annoying  phony people at St.Paul's before i got the axe.  I would buzz them, but i wasn't in the mood.  I still want to be the thrower in the wheat, even if it is so darn depressing and i wouldn't be with Fabio, she kills me, she really does, no really, i mean it.  DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? OH FOR CHRISSAKE! SHE REALLY DOES! SERIOUSLY! JUST BELIEVE ME!!!!! i really need some dough...nuts."

All that being said, I recognize that the novel has meaning. I understand (from my extensive CSET studying) that it is representative of what many people were feeling at the time it was written. It just doesn't appeal to me.

Not identifying with the work may also mean you don't understand it, but again, the meaning is still there, just not accessible to you.

This one-act play by Beckett is called Krapp's Last Tape. Watch the first 3 minutes. Then be informed that there are more bananas following that one. Then be glad you don't have to sit through the remaining 40 minutes of the play.

I saw a production of this in college, where many many students were into experimental, abstract theatre. I was not. I don't identify with this old, lonely man. I don't understand the point of the play. However, I have no doubt that Beckett wasn't just messing with his potential audiences when he wrote it, intending for us all to be confused and bored. I am sure there is an exploration of a theme there, but I don't really know it is. There is no meaning TO ME; that does not mean there is no meaning AT ALL.

I appreciate Appleman's bipartisan explanation of the reader response approach. I agree with her that a reader response approach is a good way to introduce a topic. Students will certainly be more interested if they feel personal connections to the work. I think Appleman is correct in her suggestion that the reader response approach is just one of many perspectives to consider.