Doc Modes - Windows

Windows
http://youtu.be/aHu4fYVzixY

Done?

My idea would be to take a play text and use the students to research/discuss in detail, using Buckingham’s 4 areas of media analysis. This would work well as part of an advanced directing unit I think. I had the idea that it might be a good idea, instead of just using a typical Shakespeare text (although that could still work), to use something political, or something that had an impact on people, changed their minds. The first text that came to my head was Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and the prisoners of the San Quentin jail. This was the first place that this play was truly successful.

The students would read the script (and if possible, seeing a rendition of it might be good as well), then analyze it via the four media literacy areas – Production, Language, Representation, Audiences. This would help them to become very familiar with the script, but also to dig deeper and understand what the script is really trying to say, what the playwright intended it to say, and what audiences (either intended or not) are likely to get from it.

They could then turn this technique on other texts (though starting with something that was impactful to a specific audience will help them get the gist of it first I think), and create the proper meanings that they want to for their plays by attracting the right people for their audiences by advertising properly, and crafting a product for the audiences that they have, typically their neighbors.

Heather, Carson, Cali Handout!

SPEAK

Laurie Halse Anderson

By: Cali Wilkes, Heather Starr, Carson Wright

Instagram

By: Cali Wilkes

OVERVIEW: Students will use the ideas of Instagram to explore personal character themes taken from Speak.

PURPOSE: Students will be given a character from Speak and a theme.  The students will be split into the groups and told to express the theme through the assigned character using Instagram.

DETAILS:

·      Split the class into 4 groups of 3

·      Assign each group a character and a theme connected to that character

·      Hand out cameras to the class or invite the students to use their own personal cameras, cell phones, or I-pods/ I-touches to complete the assignment

·      Have the students discuss how they can artistically express a theme from Speak through the character they have been assigned.

·      Give the groups 10 minutes to leave the classroom and take a picture together

·      When the students come back have each group write a description under the picture justifying their artistic choices

·      Have the groups share their images and explanations  

Blog posts

By: Heather Starr

For each of the four quarters, one character will be chosen and a blog post will be written (on a closed class blog, similar to how we do it) as if the student was the character. Each set of characters was chosen because they exhibited growth during that quarter. The teacher should provide specific questions (see examples), but the students should write more than it takes to just answer the question to demonstrate their understanding of the growth the character.

Students should take into account what they know about the character from the readings as well as what they can infer from the novel. It is expected that they will explore the thematic development of the character they choose (i.e. Melinda’s parents, miscommunication; David, courage; etc.) They may include just text in the response, or any combination of text, images, sound or video.

1st Quarter - Melinda or any of her friends from Junior High
2nd Quarter - David Petrakis or Heather
3rd Quarter - Melinda’s parents or Ivy
4th Quarter – Rachel or Melinda

Ideas for questions:

• What event has fueled your actions this quarter? (If answering for Melinda, please use something besides the rape.) Why did this one event have such an impact on you?
• If you could have changed the way that event happened, what would you have made differently?
• Who do you feel has influenced you the most this quarter? Why did this person have such an influence?

Discussion ideas:

• How do you let people know how you are?
• How does posting in a combination of images, text, sound, and video create a portrayal of who you are?
• How do relationships play out similar/differently on blogs than through other digital media?

SoundCloud

By: Carson Wright

OVERVIEW:
Students will use SoundCloud to explore characters from Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.

PURPOSE:
Students will be able to explore and create fleshed out characters based on what is given to them in the text. They will also be able to explore the character of Melinda by responding to the perceptions/thoughts of the other characters.

DETAILS:

• Assign a character to each student (any character except Melinda). You may also allow students to choose their own.
• Have students write a short monologue (written in the first-person of their character) about what their character thinks/perceives about Melinda.
• Have students visit http://www.soundcloud.com.
• They can log-in using Facebook, or they can create their own account. If necessary, dummy email addresses (available for free at mail.google.com), to create SoundCloud accounts.
• Once logged in, student can record their monologues directly onto SoundCloud.
• When asked to privatize the upload, select yes, and then have the students add the other class members
• Student’s then will listen to the recordings made by their classmates and respond to them as Melinda.
• They can respond in the general comments section, or they can respond directly by adding a timed comment.

Social/Historical/Educational Contexts, making it pertinent to a Theater Classroom

SOCIAL CONTEXT:

• Theatre is not a stagnant object. Theatre is constantly moving, updating. Theatre is always using new technologies to get a message across, not simply because practitioners want to seem cool, but because that is the language through which their audience is now speaking. If theatre practitioners don’t keep up and learn the new languages, they won’t be able to accurately share their message with their audience. These activities will help our students use these technologies to accurately express their ideas and feelings, as well as how to portray them via another persona. These will be helpful in both theatre, and in life.

EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT:

• Media is about sharing. It’s about identity. It’s about speaking. Theatre is about sharing. It’s about identity. It’s about speaking. The two fit so well together because in many ways, they’re both accomplishing the same goal. The activities we’ve designed here are not only activities that will benefit our students as thespians, but it will show them other ways to speak, and other ways to be heard.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

·      In the classroom it is crucial that as teacher we implement things that are relevant to our students.  Incorporating these different media forms; Soundcloud, Instagram, and blogs is evidences of people documenting their history presently.  Using current form of recording experiences, these media forms, and connecting them to older idea from theater history takes a easily boring thing and gives it a twist that engages students.   

On time!

The main thought that I had while reading (that was actually brought up in the reading) was that we need to teach our students to always consider the other side of the issue. In the Hobbs reading, it mentioned a documentary about army recruiters and army deterrers (?) in lower income schools. However, the students creating the documentary didn’t think to include the point of view of the recruiter, the pressures and difficulties they have to deal with.

There are always at least two sides to a story, often more. I know a large fault of mine is that I will take what is presented to me at face value – as fact. This is something I’ve been trying to correct recently. And I think my struggle is one that my students will have as well – how do I question everything so I get the real story, but don’t be skeptical to the point of disbelieving everything. I don’t want to call people liars, but I want to get behind their biases so that I can see the whole picture without them standing in the way.

A good way to do this when writing or researching a story is to write down (either on the board as a class or have the students brainstorm on their own, though as a class may be more beneficial because others will think of things that one may now) all the different people involved in the situation or event being explored. Then, write down questions about each person concerning the topic. Always ask how they are involved and what their view on the subject might be. Caution the students to never put words into a subjects’ mouth. Always ask them what they think. If you can’t find someone in that area to interview, make sure that that gets mentioned so that people know that the other side of the story isn’t being represented.

There’s a saying that history is written by the winners. I believe this largely to be true. I think a great research exercise for students might be to research the “losers” and rewrite history as they saw it. A good example of this would be to read a journal from a slave in the ante-bellum southern states. Slaves were the subjugated group, so their perspective would be different than the owners of the same era that wrote many of the documents still surviving. The assignment could either be to simply write a piece from the “loser’s” point of view on the events that happened, or to write them as if the “losers” won. Either could be an interesting exercise on how things can change based on who is telling the story. (This could also be done with verbal storytelling instead of writing a paper.)

I feel like my role as a teacher is to ensure that my students at least try to consider other points of view while considering news articles as well as advertisements. Advertisements especially actually. They are even more likely to skew ideas based on their target audience in order to sell the product. I need to ensure my students are aware of this, and hopefully try to increase their confidence in themselves through other activities.

Post 6

The role of an educator in the creation process in public schools is that of a facilitator. Their job is to introduce and provide opportunities for the creative process to take place.

The issues that Hobbs raises really will be a problem in today’s classroom. Students are no longer afraid of the teacher, or think that the teacher holds all wisdom. This isn’t to say that they’ll be disrespectful, but rather that their curiosity will overwhelm any timidity and any question or ideas they have will much more easily come to the surface. They have all sorts of knowledge that they never had before, and aren’t afraid to share it. I think I’ll address each of the issues Hobbs thought of individually.

“Students reproduce mass media and pop culture texts” – I know I’ve done things like this, mainly because I’m either lazy and don’t want to work too hard to come up with my own ideas, or I’ve worked with the genre/media a lot so my mind is already overwhelmed by what goes on in it. Ways to solve this might be to have brainstorming time where students can share their ideas, perhaps anonymously through a blog or throwing papers in the front of the room.

“Students challenge adult authority” – I think this will often be a problem, not necessarily because the students just want to challenge authority, but also because they have a wealth of knowledge and information at their fingertips and a new-found capacity to share and express that knowledge. I think this can be acknowledged by simply…. acknowledging the students’ expertise. I think simply saying “hey guys, I’m not the best at this, but here’s what we’re going to do” would help them to not reject you as a leader or facilitator.

“The major production goes unfinished” – Hobbs made it sound like the main problem with this was not necessarily that projects go unfinished, but when failure occurs teachers don’t have the courage to revamp and try again. Part of this is just shaking it off and going and doing it again. Another thought is to think over every detail possible before the students begin their project (either the first or subsequent times) so that as few things as possible go wrong. Learn from other people’s mistakes; ask other teachers (or even the students) if they’ve don’t projects similar to this before and what problems they encountered.

“Coordinating student collaboration” – Sometimes it might be necessary to assign students to the tasks that are not their favorite jobs. Another way to help would be the divide-and-conquer approach Hobbs talks about. This would require either you or the students to make a list of what needs to be done, start to finish, and then assigning each step to a group member. Another way to help is to require each student to be accountable not only for themselves, but for other members of the group. By this I mean that at the end of the project each student could fill out an evaluation on their peers with comments, jobs accomplished, and amount of workload done instead of a straight grade. I think these several things, along with cautions from the teacher can help the students to spread out the work load and not overburden any one student.

“Quality of work is superficial when style reigns over substance” – The best way I can think of to make sure this doesn’t happen is to have information and source checks early on in the project process so that the students are finding everything that they need to make the work of high quality. This way the students can make sure that they have everything they need to answered, they can come up with potential problems that may arise, and their argument or thought process can be more fully thought out. Then they can work on making it pretty.

“Celebrating completion leads to an absence of reflection nor critique” – I’ve found this a problem often with myself. I think there are two good ways to solve this problem. One is to assign the reflection as part of the assignment, perhaps due a few days after the rest of the assignment. This way the product has a few days to gel before there is another piece due. Another option (and I think I like this one better) is to have a discussion either the day after or a few days after the project is due in order to foster that reflection/critique.

Media creation doesn’t just stop with things that happened. It concerns things that are happening. News stories are a great way to use a variety of types of media (for news now comes in many forms – paper, internet article or video clip, or as part of a larger news show) and let the kids talk about what they think is important. It can also use (as the article about Katrina uses) different types of media to make us stop and rethink a certain subject. This use of combination media hits us in multiple ways instead of just one as we are used to. It’s more like a typical newscast that combines images, descriptions, video, and often witness interviews in order to tell a story.