This should be an interesting space and I’m cautiously optimistic about what will transpire. If you’re not able to make it in person, follow the event’s twitter hashtag: #ed2gether. I will try to update as I can.
Also, Thursday and Friday I will be at the annual NABE Conference in New Orleans.
If you are at either of these events, or in the area, let me know.
I’ll check-in soon about the various places I’ll be for this year’s DML Conference.
This New York Times article about search is fascinating. As much as I found the general peek into the power of a company like Google insightful, I think the article points to long-term implications for educators.
As we continue to think about the productive world that our teens are engaging within, how students navigate online, how students question the content they seek, produce, or encounter, and how students promote or validate sources is going to become a crucial part of their critical literacy development.
While traditional critical literacy and even critical media literacy engage in evaluating the power structures underlying authorship and production, this literacy is expanding to include how this information is found, suppressed, promoted. “White hat” and “black hat” optimization (whether knowingly or unknowingly as J.C. Penny claim in the article) are part of the components of critical literacy that educators could not have foreseen.
More than simply teaching students how to use critically the tools of search that are available (from Google to library catalogs to online databases like ERIC and DataQuest), we will need to engage in an inquiry into how results are yielded, how to parse metadata, and to question the programming structures at hand. Program or be programmed indeed. Perhaps educators should be demanding a large place at the table at this summit?
Time for a new course of study. If you haven’t read the article yet, please take a look.
[This post is my second set of comments related to Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously. The entire exchange between Daye and I can be found over here.]
Daye, thanks for checking in with the comments last week.
As we’re talking about chapters 3 and 4 this week, I am again struck by titles. It’s hard to really buy that “I am Not A Journalist” is a declarative statement by the author as she does little here but report on the death and aftershocks of a close friend, activist, radio-journalist. It reminds me of Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images.” And while I was personally oblivious to the effects of Jean Dominque’s influence, I can understand how listening, like reading in the first chapter of the collection, is poised as a political act.
Like one of your final comments, I’ve been thinking about the roles that Danticat places herself in and how these may relate to the immigrant youth I’ve been teaching for the past six years. Danticat quote’s Dominque, “The Dyaspora are people with their feet planted in bother worlds. There’s no need to be ashamed of that.” I reflect on a conversation with one of my students years ago that started off the class by declaring, “Mr. Garcia, when we come to this country, we become different people.” He was initially referring to the way he lost his “second” last name as a result of traditional American conventions (and the fact that school documents simply don’t have the space to include the characters from two last names). The discussion in the class, however, circled around the transformation – one that often felt shameful – for the students throughout the class.
Daye, I’m wondering if you could talk about how diaspora is seen as a character in Lwa. Is it too the “floating homeland” around which your characters reside? This is also a good place for me to briefly step out of my role as critic and remind readers about Daye’s awesome film project on Kickstarter. Please consider making a donation to her project – even a small contribution will help her, too, create dangerously.
A couple of years ago, I created a unit plan for my students called “Voices of Struggle.” Its overarching goal was to locate students’ ideologies in the eye of the storm of larger, global conflict. Books like Persepolis, What is the What, and Invisible Man acted as exemplars for students to ultimately record and literally voice the way the world has helped shape who they are and how they have helped shape the world. I liked the way these two chapters melded the singular struggle across generations, a father’s cause taken up in the writing of a daughter.
Daye, you talked about the liminal state in which you are creating work. Do you relate to the role of memory that Danticat describes in chapter 4? I know Lwa revolves around memory too. Would you mind talking about this?
For next week, since they are slower chapters (and to make sure we wrap this up before you move from pre- to actual production), what do you say about covering the shorter chapters that make up the middle of the book. I’m proposing we comment on chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8. Any objections?
Lastly, I know a few other people have been reading through Danticat as well. Please email me or post your reflections on these chapters as comments. We will include them in the exchange and welcome the extra “immigrant” bloggers.
Teaching ninth graders, the past month has been one centered around themes of conflict as my class analyzes Romeo and Juliet. Over this and a couple of future posts, I wanted to share some of the work my students and I have been engaging in. Essentially, the role of the seminal, ninth grade text, has shifted. No longer can students simply read and analyze Romeo and Juliet. Instead, it is not an option to include materials that exist outside of the original text; it is an imperative part of understanding the text. I’ll return to this idea after sharing some examples.
Utilizing the Flip Cams that Peter and I used for our What Son Productions course, the students will be recreating their own versions of scenes from the play. This is not an original or a very creative idea (more about that in a minute). What is interesting, though, is the process of reading Romeo and Juliet across different interpretations. As we read a scene, we may screen a scene from the 1996 Lurhmann interpretation as well as the 1968 Zeffirelli interpretation. We are then utilizing a 4×4 graphic organizer to note key differences between the original source, two films, and our own ideas of how the scene could be produced. These products are becoming the basis for a production log the students are creating as they note where one version may fall short – Tybalt being too aggressive to Romeo in the 1996 version before Mercutio becomes a “grave man,” for instance.
As I mentioned, the concept of asking students to recreate their own versions of scenes isn’t a very new one. In fact, as more and more students have easy access to tools of production – as these tools have become ubiquitous – it’s easy to see student work samples online. However, the vast, vast majority of these samples appear to be from overwhelmingly white communities. And these versions are taking significant liberties in their portrayal of urban reenactments of Romeo and Juliet.
Over the course of a week, I began each class by screening a 3-7 minute YouTube clip. I simply searched “Gangster Romeo and Juliet” and a deluge of student-created videos showed up showing “ghetto” versions of the play. [This was inspired by a conversation about developing this unit with my colleague Peter Carlson.]
This ghetto, however, is technically the community my students live and go to school in. This ghetto is stereotyped by white students in ways that at first issued guffaws. My students found the videos funny at first. However, after a couple of days, students said they felt “mocked.” They said that the videos didn’t show things correctly, were making fun of the community, and actually lacked textual understanding of Shakespeare’s words (several of the films, for instance, abbreviated Abraham’s name the same way that Luhrmann’s did).
Often times, these videos are posing these ghetto versions in lush, rural or suburban communities:
I want to underscore that I am not using these examples to criticize the students that have made them. However, when discussing them with students, we have noticed that there are not similar “ghetto” versions made by people of color. And if they are not creating them, essentially, an incorrect truth about what the ghetto is and how people act within it is being reified. My students shifted uncomfortably in their seats as they began thinking about the messages that a critical mass of lighthearted “ghetto” student clips are sending; these paired with YouTube clips of student fights are furthering stereotypes of student behavior and expectations.
As educators, our role is changing; the power of student production is a necessary tool for critical analysis. How can these tools break down existing assumptions?
As a class, my students are thinking about how they can create videos that respond critically to the samples they’ve seen, accurately reflect a nuanced understanding of their neighborhoods & worldviews, and express thematic interpretation of the canonical text. It is the necessary hard work I am excited about seeing develop in the next two weeks.
Again, as I said in the opening paragraph, the role of Romeo and Juliet is much more inclusive than simply the 92 pages of the Dover edition that my students have each been asked to purchase. The culture and understanding of the text is inclusive of a rich body of knowledge, assumptions, and continuing dialogue with the work through writing, acting, and recording. Social networking, new media, and a changing access to technology means that simply summarizing plot and theme is disregarding the other critical skills students need to learn in an English class.
So tomorrow and Wednesday my school will administer the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). In the past, there has been concern that some students have not taken the test “seriously.” Some of my past seniors, in fact, have retaken the test because they said they simply raced through it because it felt inconsequential (even though they need to pass it to officially graduate).
However, when I look at the work in my classroom and data from other measurements at the school, it’s pretty clear that many, many of the students have a lot of academic strides to make before they can pass the test. While participation and engagement may be part of the challenges our students face, quality instruction is probably most important.
Which is why the following excerpt from a faculty email is so problematic:
Every Student Who Passes a CAHSEE Test Earns a Prize as follows:
Proficient on Both Sections = iPad, IPod Touch, iPod Shuffle or $20 gift card
Proficient on 1 and Pass on Other Section = iPod Touch, iPod Shuffle, or $20 gift card
Pass on Both = iPod Shuffle or $20 gift card
Pass on 1 section = Gift Cards of $5-$20
Remember to tell your students a Pass Score is 350, and a Proficient Score is 380.
Additionally, another Small Learning Community (SLC) teacher emailed the following:
To [specific SLC] Teachers
Please remind our [SLC] 10th grade students that are taking the CAHSEE for the first time, and score proficient on both the math and english, they will receive $50.00.
They must score proficient on both tests. Also, we will raffle a pair of tickets to the Laker game February 22nd, as well as, other prizes for [SLC] students who show up both days and
show a sincere effort while taking the exam.
Hoping the best for all our students.
To me, it would be one thing to reward participation on the exam. However, when students are being rewarded (beyond intrinsic rewards) for passing the exam, it creates a false hierarchy on campus. My prediction: the students in the magnet academy, the NAI program, and a handful of students in AP & the honors tracks will clean up and get lots of rewards and the students that need the most academic support will feel deficient. There is some (problematic) support to the notion of paying students to get good grades. However, this differs significantly from performing on a single test over a two day period. We may be trying to reward diligence and participation, but the model looks–to me–like we’re instead penalizing struggling students for systemic poor teaching.
After discussing research strategies with peers and doing some online ‘vestigating, I recently bought a Livescribe Echo.
Briefly, the Livescribe pen essentially records audio as you are taking notes. As simple as that sounds, what’s most valuable is that it plays back audio tied to exactly what you were writing at the time – instead of listening through an entire lecture or trying to queue up to a moment you remember, you can tap on a jotting, chart, or note and the audio from the moment you were writing will play. It’s intuitive and user friendly and not necessarily affordable for widespread consumption yet. (Here is a useful article that talks about Livescribe and its potential.)
Particularly due to the need to create robust fieldnotes based on in-class instruction for my dissertation, the ability to record and pinpoint audio moments in a classroom that are tied to my own (sloppy) handwritten jottings looks to be a valuable asset.
And while a couple of cursory Google searches yield interesting reading on the role that some are seeing Livescribe as a tool for ethnography, its challenges, and risks of deceit, I have been thinking about its potential as a tool for pedagogical feedback.
Last weekend, as I sat through a panel at the MLA convention, I momentarily spaced out and began absentmindedly doodling on the Livescribe notepad. Later, as I reviewed my notes and queued up the audio for relevant jottings I took during the recording, I glanced at the scribbles I made in the notepad’s margins. Because of the way the device works, I could listen to the exact moment that a speaker lost my interest.
While I can’t afford a class set of Livescribe pens for my students (and I’m not sure if that’s necessarily the best way to invest in technology for my classroom), it would be interesting to give an arbitrary student a Livescribe in class each day. By simply listening to the audio from anytime the student draws, sends a note to a classmate, or begins working on something for another class, teachers can quickly note when their lessons are less effective and they are not communicating in a way that is maintaining interest.
I am now amassing pages that are empirically showing when I become naturally bored in meetings and presentations. I can think more critically about my role as a participant or audience member and could conceivably provide feedback to others based on this. Now it’s time to equip my students with the same possibilities.
[One note about Livescribe: though they are relatively affordable, the paper that Livescribe pens write on is proprietary. You need to purchase specific notepads and printing out your own isn’t the easiest thing to do. It would be nice to be able to buy Livescribe printing paper to make handouts, printout essays and do audio peer-review. I plan to write to the company about this shortly.]
I will be presenting as part of a panel on Digital Pedagogy tomorrow at the MLA Conference. Details:
MLA Presentation: 639. Where’s the Pedagogy in Digital Pedagogy?
5:15-6:30, Platinum Salon F, J. W. Marriott
This session will share the great number of practical and philosophical questions surrounding what it means to “teach digitally” today. We want to focus attention away from “toolism”—a preoccupation with new technologies for the sake of newness and technical power—and direct attention toward the pedagogy that technology and collaboration can unveil.
If you’re in LA and attending the conference, please come by and say hello. I will post my slides for this presentation here … soonish.
Also, if you are a teacher and you hate sleeping in on Saturdays, please come check out the FREE Writing Project workshop I will be leading with Clifford Lee:
UCLA Writing Project Advanced Institute
January 8, 2011 from 9 am to noon.
Moore Hall, room 2120.
No charge for this seminar!
Suggested parking is Pay By Places in Lot 2, located at Hilgard & Westholme, for $10.00.
Clifford Lee and Antero Garcia will focus on the immediacy of technology as a part of the contemporary writing process for youth. Read about the workshop below and then email us that you are coming!
In May 2010, the Pew Research Center noticed a continuing trend of Black and Latino youth far outpacing Whites in the use of the Internet on mobile devices. More and more of our urban students are utilizing the Internet and related technologies for myriad forms of communication—though not always via channels appreciated in school—including but not limited to social networking, blogging, and multimedia production. What does all this mean for the educators of these students?
This workshop will illustrate how digital literacy skills in a multitude of forms are critical in helping teachers address the challenges of the opportunity gap while helping students produce powerful texts that serve to recognize, value, and incorporate their knowledge and experiences. Building on the existing tools you’re already familiar with, this workshop is not about simply learning how to use technology as it is using technology to augment critical literacy within the classroom.
Please bring any tools (digital recorders, digital cameras, FlipCams, laptops, microphones, etc.) and/or a lesson plan or project you’re interested in exploring further in our workshop.
We may be using some of the following tools during this workshop: Podcasting, Prezi, Edmodo, digital storytelling, Wordle, VoiceThread, Tumblr/blogs, Flipcams/video.
