The Standards and Principles that shape individuals

I was intrigued by how similar the Core Principles of Media Literacy Education were in conjunction with the national standards in Theatre Education. Overall, the main goal for both Media Literacy Education and Theatre Education is to inspire, cultivate, and aid students in becoming free critical thinkers and process oriented creators of media and art. Within this standard are the sub goals that are catered to the different subjects but looking at the main principles of the standards it is obvious that they go hand in hand in “build(ing) and reinforce(ing) skills for learners of all ages.” (NAMLE)

First of all in Media Literacy’s 1st core principle they state that “Media Literacy Education requires active inquiry and critical thinking about the messages we receive and create.” This principles correlates with Content Standard 7 in Theatre Education which is, “analyzing, critiquing, and constructing meanings from informal and formal theatre, film, television, and electronic media productions.” By teaching and expecting the students to put forth active inquiry, analyzing, critiquing and critical messages they are able to not only understand media and performance in the various art forms that they come in but they are able to create and perform theatre, media and art so that there understanding is put into action. In this first core principle it is clearly stated that “simply using media in the classroom does not constitute MLE (Media Literacy Education).” The theatre education standards also prove that it isn’t enough to simply use theatre or perform but to “construct social meanings from informal and formal productions” by challenging and invigorating the mind.

I also found similarities in MLE’s 5th principle and TE’s 1st and 5th standard. MLE’s 5th principle is, “Media Literacy Education recognizes that media are a part of culture and function as agents of socialization.” Like wise Theatre Education’s standards 1 and 5 are: “Script Writing by improvising, writing, and refining scripts based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history” and “Researching by evaluating and synthesizing cultural and historical information to support artistic choices.” Both subjects are striving to integrate our various cultures whether they be past or present into media and performance. By connecting back to our roots and by using our communities and cultures we are able to gain from our community and give back to our community as well. Both TE and MLE recognize the importance of allowing and encouraging our students to use their personal experiences , cultures and influences that are in their lives. It is very difficult to write and create on things that we don’t connect or know in one way or another and we as teachers have much to learn from our students, their cultures and their personal experiences.

In closing I wish to share the last principle of MLE, “Media Literacy Education affirms that people use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages.” Each of the theatre standards add to this final principle by providing students with the abilities to use their skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages through playwrighting, acting, directing, researching, comparing, analyzing and understanding. Each of the theatre standards are active standards to the principles from MLE that were created to shape and cultivate students to become well-rounded, hardworking, inspiring individuals that impact this world to grow in mind, heart and soul.

Reading Response 1

I think that the CPMLE standards fit perfectly into the common core for English Education. Granted, some of the specific aspects of the core don’t match up entirely, the major themes of both sets of standards work in tandem to reach the same goal, which is to help students learn how to think about and digest a text; whether students are looking at a written text, a commercial, some sort of online media or anything else that could be considered a text, our goal as Educators should be to help our students learn how to think, not what to think. They should be able to learn skills that they can use outside of our specific classroom that will help them to be successful. I think that the CPMLE standards complement the English core standards because they point teachers in a direction that allows them to create a space for students where they learn to think critically and analytically. The first CPMLE standard says that, “Media Literacy Education requires active inquiry and critical thinking about the messages we receive and create.” This standard pairs perfectly with many of the standards from the English common core for grades 6-12, and more specifically one which says that students should be able to, “read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.” Notice that students in English classes aren’t only supposed to learn about literature; rather they need to comprehend a variety of different texts that are oriented towards a menagerie of different purposes.
The best example of this that I can think of was a lesson that my high school English teacher taught in the twelfth grade. One day we spent the entire class period watching commercials from the previous year’s super bowl. As a precursor to this we talked about the advertising industry and how expensive it was to purchase air time for these commercials as well as to produce them. While we watched the commercials we dissected them and discussed each one. We asked questions like: What was the goal of the advertisement? What artistic choices were made? Why did _____ happen? What does that specific thing do in the advertisement? In retrospect this lesson has played a pretty big impact in my life. My teacher had the foresight to teach us how to analyze and interpret a type of text that would (and did even then) have a huge impact on our lives. To this day I look at advertisements differently because I know how to interpret their appeals in an educated way. In other words, I can think critically about what they say and do. This week our class read in Seeing & Writing this that the average person in America witnesses something like two thousand commercial appeals each day. Although my high school English teacher was probably balked at when she told her colleagues that her students would be reviewing super bowl commercials in class, what she realized was that using super bowl commercials allowed her to teach us tools of interpretation and analyzing that we could use to assess other commercial appeals as well as many other types of texts. After all, a book or an art piece or a photograph, are all examples of texts that usually carry a message or point, just like a Super bowl commercial does. Perhaps this explanation is too convoluted, but what I mean to say is that English class or Theatre class or whatever doesn’t always have to focus on the obvious curriculum. Media is such a huge part of our lives and using it as a means to help students understand difficult concepts can be a lifesaver. I know that in my experience it was much easier to analyze a 30 second commercial and learn the concepts I needed to learn before I jumped into Dostoyevsky and some of the other difficult texts we looked at over the course of that year. I think if we use the CPMLE standards to complement the concepts we need to teach for our subject areas, we can find a happy medium between both sets of criteria. In the process, we’ll be able to help students use media in positive, powerful ways that help them to shape their lives and experiences in meaningful ways.
Another thing that I found interesting when I compared the two sets of standards is that on the front page of the English common core it says that they include standards for, “literacy in … technical subjects.” As an increasingly technical society I think it’s interesting that the creators of the common core took that into consideration and realized that today being literate means more than just being able to pick up a book and read, it also involves an individual’s ability to glean meaning from a variety of sources and formats I think that there has to be a balance in the classroom, one that allows students to learn about new types of media as well as the more traditional types of curriculum. In real life, students will depend on their ability to understand a news article or a memo just as much as a YouTube video or a novel. Using the CPMLE standards in tandem with the English common core standards will guide teachers through that process and will allow them to prepare their students for a variety of situations in the future.

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Although this doesn’t have to do with the CPMLE or common core, I thought this video about using video games in a positive, productive way was really interesting so I thought I’d post a link in case you’re interested:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

An Academic Jigsaw Puzzle

     Doing a jigsaw puzzle is tricky. You might have to search and search for the piece you are looking for. You might be tempted to use a scissors in an effort to force a piece to fit where you want it. But when the pieces have been put together correctly, the whole picture comes into view and there is much rejoicing in the land.
   
     Putting together the English/Language Arts Common Core Standards and the CPMLE felt a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle. I had to pour over both documents, looking for similarities and differences, compliments and contradictions. In the end, I felt restricted, and I struggled to make these two sets of standards come together. It seems that the ELACCS placed most emphasis on print texts and print writing. When technology was encouraged, it asked me to teach students how to "...make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest." (This reminded me of how businessmen in a board room use a Powerpoint presentation to show financial ups and downs.) It also, at one point, encourages teachers to teach students how to write digitally and how to read digital texts, but these requirements were small portions of the "Reading" and "Writing" sections. This may seem that it fits with the CPMLE, but I feel that it would require the scissors to really put these two together.
     
     This is because the CPMLE doesn't just ask us to teach kids how to read and write digital media. I believe that it is really asking us to teach students how to think about and analyze media in all forms. The CPMLE talks about "active inquiry" and "critical thinking" in detail. It "expands" on existing definitions, and aims to develop "informed, reflective, and engaged citizens." This document seems so much more active, and seems to ask much more of students than does the ELACCS. How do these two go together?
     
     I believe that the answer lies in reading between the lines of the ELACCS, specifically the "Reading" and "Writing" portions. As discussed in our reading from "Seeing and Writing 4," texts can be analyzed just like photos, paintings, and other types of media can be analyzed. The ELACCS asks students to be able to: "read closely," "determine central ideas," "assess point of view," and "analyze structure." Even though this section directs teachers as to what they must teach in regards to "Reading," it is clear that the mastery of these skills/knowledge is essential to meeting the goals recommended by the CPMLE.
    
     In the writing section, the ELACCS talks bout how media should be used as a source, and that students should be able to locate and analyze credible sources. The ELACCS also requires students to "write arguments to support claims," "convey complex ideas and informations," and "develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences." These requirements, while centered on print writing in the ELACCS, are the tools necessary to create any type of media as recommended by the CPMLE. This document encourages students to do lots of critical thinking, "to use document-based evidence and well-reasoned arguments to support their conclusions," and to "enable students to express their ideas..." No scissors are need to make these pieces fit together: the CPMLE and the ELACCS seems to encourage the same goals, despite referring to different types of media or "texts."
    
     The question then becomes one of implementation: How should I implement the recommendations of the CPMLE and the requirements of the ELACCS at the same time? I appreciate the fact that the CPMLE states that MLE should be taught in various settings and in multiple grade levels. Thus, I believe that I should use/teach media as frequently as I use/teach traditional reading and writing techniques. The end goal of my teaching, as more explicitly stated in the CPMLE, is to help students to become critical thinkers and "informed, reflective, and engaged participants" of a "democracy," and, by extension, the world around them (made ever bigger by access to the World Wide Web). I am excited to teach students how to read, write, speak, and listen in a manner that is analytical and evaluative, and that requires critical thinking. I recognize that this is much effectively accomplished if I incorporate the use and creation of various types of media in my teaching. 


     Indeed, the picture that this completed jigsaw puzzle creates is quite beautiful to behold.
     

Reading Response 1: CPMLE and Theatre Standards

Looking at how the national standards for Media Literacy Education (MLE) and Theatre Education intersect, one can see clear parallels between the two fields and how they can be used together. As a future theatre teacher I intend to use media in my classroom as a way to communicate ideas and to help educate about different art forms.

One thing that is made quite clear in both standards is that we must encourage critical thinking about different works. “MLE teaches students to ask the specific types of questions that will allow them to gain a deeper or more sophisticated understanding of media messages” (CPMLE, 1.1). In theatre we do similar types of analysis with playscripts and developing characters, as is outlined in national standards 9-12.8 (detailing how to study theatre, film, and television) and 9-12.3 (covering designing and producing as well as realizing artistic interpretations). To achieve these standards in theatre we can utilize media in our classroom to help inspire this critical thinking. This can be done through the use of video or musical clips to help students understand an idea in a script or to see different interpretations of a script. An example of this could be watching several different versions of Hamlet to see how different directors might interpret the work. However, as the MLE standards state, simply showing media in the classroom is not the equivalent of actually teaching MLE. As well as exposing the students to the different forms of media we must also educate them about those forms and encourage critical thinking concerning what they have seen. Media in the classroom is not just a fancy trick for teachers to use, but a useful resource that, when used correctly, can enhance the learning and understanding of students about the material we are teaching as well as the world around them. As we teach analysis in the classroom, we educate them about how to analyze and interpret what they see in their lives.

The use of media within actual shows also can help students to understand concepts or themes within the production. Perhaps a student could find a song or put together a collage of pictures that helps them describe their character as an exercise to fulfill the theatre requirement covering character analysis. Exploring different kinds of media will not only help to increase the students’ understanding of their characters and the situations they are in, but they will also increase their ability to relate to different types of media that they may not have been exposed to before in this capacity.

My father told me growing up that acting was a combination of movement and speech. A similar thing can be said about theatre, that it is a combination of visual and aural art. When comparing the two areas, one finds that they are closely related. Media includes television, music, visual art, writing, and other forms of communication. Theatre utilizes many of these art forms to help communicate ideas to the audience. The theatre standards encourage students to learn about different forms of media as it relates to their studies. It is important to educate students about these forms to help them understand their work in theatre as well as to understand what they see in the world around them.

MLE + ThEd Standards=BFF

The Media Literacy Education standards would be useful for theatre educators because many of the aims of MLE are the same or are closely related to the national theatre education standards. Any theatre education lesson plan based on one of the national standards could be benefited from using MLE inside of the teaching because theatre is a form of media. Theatre practitioners/consumers (which is what we are helping to students to become in one way or another) need to be visually and aurally literate as well as script literate (because it is a different kind of reading when you’re reading a script) they also need to be literate in “non-traditional” texts, such as the human body and non-verbal communications. These all coincide with an idea of MLE because they are found in all sorts of media. If the students learn to be literate in these different facets in theatre then they are also being taught how to read these things in film or radio or on a web-page. It’s more about then helping your students explicitly link what they’re learning to read in theatre to what they read in their moment-to-moment lives as they interact with different media.

One very important standard overlap between theatre education and MLE deals with meaning making. The National Theatre Education Standard 7 for 9-12 proficient is “Analyzing, critiquing, and constructing meanings from informal and formal theatre, film, television and electronic media productions.” This coincides with MLE standard 6: “Media Literacy Education affirms that people use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages.” As a theatre educator helps to teach his/her students about how to analyze a piece of theatre they’ve seen and how to articulate what they see, it would also be important to emphasize or at least talk about where we decide the meaning comes from. This brings in MLE standard 6. An example of this could be that a drama 3 class may have a discussion about a filmed version of Hamlet they viewed as a class. As students share their critiques and analysis a conversation could be started about why the students think what they think. After the students defend their answers, perhaps with evidence from the visual (which includes camera angles as well as lighting, costuming and set which are all aspects of both theatre and media literacy) and spoken text, the teacher may bring up that we have different opinions because we all come from a different paradigm. That part of meaning making in theatre or any other media is acknowledging that what we think is based in what we ourselves know and have experienced, either in our lives or vicariously through another medium (novels, films, play etc.). The discussion could include the idea that the fact everyone makes meaning based on his/her own experiences is fine but it sometimes needs to be explained in order to make yourself understood to others who do not have your same experience. The whole analysis of a filmed version of Hamlet also should be taken back to the fact that the students’ skills in analyzing this particular piece can be applied to both theatre and other types of media because it straddles that line. It is a film adaptation of a play script.

In short, the CPMLE standards and the National Standards for Theatre Education go hand in hand.  They can easily be combined, and when they are, it quickly becomes apparent that each is enhanced by the other.  Both standards can often be fulfilled when teaching theatre, and in my opinion, the lesson is augmented when the Media Literacy standards are taught as well.  Three examples of how the standards go hand in hand are as follows:  

1.  MLE Principle 1:  Media Literacy Education requires active inquiry and critical thinking about the messages we receive and create.
Theatre Education Content Standard #2:  Acting by developing, communicating, and sustaining characters in improvisations and informal or formal productions

Media is all around us and is constantly sending messages; it is inevitable that theatre will send messages as well.  By teaching these two standards together, students will develop a greater understanding of what possible messages they are sending when they create a character using different acting techniques (which can and often do include media).  Often students are unaware of the messages they are sending when they are acting or participating in a production.  It is imperative that they are, at the very least, aware of this.  This awareness will enable them to create deliberate messages in a production, or create opportunities for different messages to be received by the audience.

2.  MLE Principle 4:  Media Literacy Education develops informed, reflective and engaged participants essential for a democratic society.

Theatre Education Content Standard #7: Analyzing, critiquing, and constructing meanings from informal and formal theatre, film, television, and electronic media productions

Media Literacy helps students prepare to engage and interact in a society constantly bombarded with media. Theatre teaches how to analyze, critique, and construct meanings that are found in media.  Could there be a more perfect combination?  I submit that there cannot.  Students today live in a world full of technology and media; they need to be able to interpret it, and theatre can provide a way to do so.  

3.  MLE Principle 6:  Media Literacy Education affirms that people use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences toconstruct their own meanings from media messages.

Content Standard #1:  Script writing through improvising, writing, and refining scripts based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history

Media Literacy encourages students to use themselves and their experiences when constructing  meanings from the media around them.  Theatre encourages students to not only interpret, but to create new meanings.  These meanings will inevitably have media within them, as it is a part of each students heritage and culture.  

The list of how media and theatre are compatible (and often one and the same) could go on and on.  For theatre teachers in particular, combining the Media Literacy standards and the Theatre Education standards is exceedingly necessary because today, media is often incorporated into theatre productions...... and if not incorporated deliberately, someone in the audience will undoubtedly be using media at some point or another during a production.  By educating students using both standards, the students' resources will be doubled, and their knowledge expanded.  More options become available to them, and invariably they will end up enriching their own lives and the lives of those around them through what they have learned, and what they will create.

            I have recently read the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, which is a young adult novel that tells the story of a girl struggling with depression after she has been raped.  As an English teacher, reading a book like this would be an opportunity to help students realize the reality of these situations and encourage them to determine their own opinions and ideas relating to tough issues.  Books can open up new worlds, some of them harder and more painful to understand than others.  Still, books are something that a person needs to seek out, while other forms of media are all around us and inescapable.  People are bombarded with song lyrics, news articles, movies, television shows, Internet sites, and so many other things that discuss ideas from all types of life.  CPMLE and the Core English Standards work together is so many ways to encourage students to be able to come up with their own opinions on things, think critically, and is a way to address “topics like violence, gender, sexuality, racism, stereotyping, and other issues of representation.”  Students will always be encountering topics and ideas that may not be in line with their personal beliefs, but by discussing theme and point of view, students will hopefully be able to  “become aware of and reflect on the meaning that they make of media messages, including how the meaning they make relates to their own values.”  I will try to make sure that students in my classroom will be able to understand that ideas will differ between individuals, that lives are lived differently in every situation, choices are never the same, but that it’s alright and that there are “diverse voices, perspectives and communities.”  I think that it is important to make sure that students know how to process and take in the information that they will be hearing all around them.  We help them understand difficult topics in books and texts in class, we need to use CPMLE to carry over the skills they learn in regards to books and apply it to all forms of texts/media they will encounter in their lives. 

            CPMLE will also help when it comes to teaching informational texts, as well as literature.  There are so many resources to access information.  In an English classroom, students could be encouraged to see how many different forms of media will cover the same information.  CPMLE focuses on helping students make wise choices on their media use, something that can be guided in a classroom setting.

            English and Media Literacy work together well.  They have the same goal in mind, which is to keep students thinking critically and to help them be “skeptical, not cynical.”  Obviously we need to keep things at an age appropriate level, but we need to help them understand that they can question what they see and hear.  Students should be trained to be able to accept the difference in opinion while not feeling pressure to change their own stand.  CPMLE focuses in on having students feel safe, respected, and believed.  I will make sure that in my future classrooms I try to bring in the ideas of CPMLE, all types of media, and a variety of teaching methods in order to reach my entire classroom and diverse learners.

Theatre and Media as one

CPMLE and the Theatre National Standards for theatre education are both a means to the same ends—both desire to help students develop “skills of expression” and to be “critical thinkers”. A teacher cannot hope to fulfill the content standards without the use of media, because media is a part of our culture, and “functions as a way of socialization and communication”. For example, when we tell students to study a play such as Much Ado About Nothing, they not only read the play, but also watch the film. The reason behind having students watch the film is to help them in their understanding. Sometimes it is easier to see words spoken in the context of a scene played about before you, rather than to read them on a plan black and white page. Teachers have been using media within their lessons for decades knowing full well that the media is sometimes the best way to help students to understand the point or message of a lesson.

Within the Theatre National Content Standards themselves is media. Content Standard 8 states that teachers must help students achieve an “understanding of context by analyzing the role of theatre and media in the community”. The more tools teachers use to strengthen their students understanding of the world around them the better prepared students will be to face that world. The whole point behind why teachers teach theatre is to help students attain a higher level of thinking and understanding. We perform Hamlet as a class not because Shakespeare wrote it but because through this play students can achieve a greater understanding of the world that they live in. "Media Literacy Education develops informed, reflective and engaged participants essential for society." It would be a shame if theatre teachers didn’t use every tool within reach to assist in the goal of creating more enlightened students. There isn’t just one way for theatre teachers to achieve the understanding they seek their students to gain, and that is what the media is here for.

I will use CPMLE as an aid for my students in fulfilling the Theatre National Content Standards. I would like at least one aspect of every lesson or unit to incorporate media in some way, especially in my student’s performances. A fellow student gave me the idea of recording each student’s performance on a tape and letting them look over it on their own so that the student can discover new ways to improve their work. They can take notes on their performance (how they felt about their efforts) before seeing the tape and after. Then at the end of the year they can have the tape with all their performances on it and see how they have grown over the course of the year. I think this idea will help students to fully complete each content standard because they will be able to understand them better. Content standards 1-8 for kindergarden-4^th grade all talk about acting or visualizing performance in one way for another. For example, content standard 1 discusses “recording improvisations based on personal experience” which fits into my idea of recording my student’s work perfectly. I know that I can help my students to fulfill the National Content Standards through CPMLE in a way that will help them on the road to becoming lovers of learning.

Reading Response 1 - Core Principles of MLE (Group A Posts)

Examine the National Standards for your field. Describe how the CPMLE might work with those standards in your classroom. How might the CPMLE be useful to teachers in your discipline in particular (discuss and cite particular examples from each document).