Blog 12

Let’s have some fun with this one.

1. Watch Ken Robinson’s animated Changing Education Paradigms (approx. 11 minutes long).

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html

2. Respond personally: what do you think of what he has to say? Then, respond to the question posed by the person before you.

3. Use two references from ANY previous readings to support your opinion/reaction.

4. Pose a question for the next student to respond to.

This shouldn't be too complicated - it should be a chain dialogue in which you provide your personal response, answer the question from the person in front of you and then pose a NEW question for the next person.

Blog 11

1. Watch this video entitled "Oppression in Education" by the Forum
Theater Troupe (directed by Julian Boal, son of Augusto Boal)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecwFetYMy5Y&feature=related

Next, read the Ayers and Alexander-Tanner comic strip on reader page 961.

What closing thoughts on teaching does the comic strip leave you with?
What closing thoughts on teaching does the dramatic performance piece
leave you with?

2. Freire’s pedagogy of literacy education involves not only reading the
word, but also reading the world. This involves the development of
critical consciousness (a process known in Portuguese as conscientização).
The formation of critical consciousness allows people to question the
nature of their historical and social situation—to read their world—with
the goal of acting as subjects in the creation of a democratic society
(which was new for Brazil at that time). How (if it all) does Augusto
Boal's piece enhance/contradict/complicate our thinking about Freire's
original formulations on critical consciousness/critical literacy?

Have fun!

Blog 10

It is looking like we will cancel class on Tuesday for the general strike but keep your eyes on bspace for an official announcement.

Next Thursday, please bring your printed field notes for us to devote time to your case study!

Blog questions:

Multimodality and assessment

Stornaiuolo, A., Hull, G., & Nelson, M. (2009). Mobile Texts and migrant
audiences: Rethinking literacy and assessment in a new media age. Language
Arts, 82 (5), 382-92.

   -  In this article, the authors argue that young people growing up in a
   digitally mediated educational milieu have “wide-ranging opportunities to
   choose how to represent themselves in relationship with others (pp. 383 of
   original text).” Does this argument seem somewhat naïve or romanticized in
   that these very same young people face far greater constraints, where
   identity construction is concerned, i.e., available selves, vis-à-vis their
   more affluent white counterparts?


   - The authors argue for a re-conceptualization of the current
   measurements, which seek to gauge young people’s cognitive
   abilities/capabilities. More specifically, they argue for assessments that
   take into account poor, marginalized students’ multimodal,
   culturally-informed, pre-existent identities. If these types of
   measurements are enacted, what if any, effect do you feel they will have on
   the lives of young people whose lived experiences mirror the students
   highlighted in this paper?

Stein, Pippa.  (2004). Representation, rights, and resources:  Multimodal
pedagogies in the language and literacy classroom. In Bonny Norton &
Kelleen Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (95-115).
Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press.

   - The author argues that: “Classrooms are semiotic [meaning-making]
   spaces in which multimodal texts are constantly being produced and
   transformed by human beings who are the agents of their own meaning-making
   (pp. 98 of original text).” Do you agree with this line of thinking? More
   to the point—are students truly “agents of their own meaning-making” or are
   they identities, in fact, informed and (re)configured by the institutions
   and structures that they are enmeshed within? (This doesn’t have to be an
   “either/or” argument.)


   -  Do you agree with Stein’s argument that language is limited? What
   does she mean by this? Please explain.

Section tomorrow, November 10

Hi everyone,

As Nora mentioned in class on Tuesday, please come to section tomorrow with your printed field notes. It really will make your life a lot easier if you can have hard copies of your notes as we begin to work through your case studies!

Also, tomorrow we'll talk a little about the video I showed at the end of lecture and talk briefly about the boyd & Ellison and "Look at Me" articles.

Thanks, all!

Blog 9

Thanks for a nice informal discussion today. It was great getting to hear so much about your experiences and reactions to working at SMDP.

Just a reminder that you're all in the hot seat in lecture Tuesday. You are the names I know...you are the ones I'm going to call on. Hooray!

Next week's questions are here:

1. Hull and Stornaiuolo approach social networking through the lens of “cosmopolitanism,” which they define as “…a strategy for reconciling the tensions inherent in a vastly interconnected yet deeply divided world, where we have ‘obligations that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by the ties of kith and kind, or even the more formal ties of shared citizenship’ (Appiah, 2006, p. xv)” (p. 792 in reader). How does this concept further our discussion of literacy? Why should we view student behavior through this lens?

2. boyd and Ellison walk us through a history of social network sites and past research. How can we think of social network sites as spaces for literacy development? Do you think SNSs have a place in the classroom? Why or why not?

3. All three articles complicate notions of traditional literacy. How can we conceptualize the notion of a “visual literacy”? What are the benefits of thinking about literacy to include images? Does this add to the classroom or how we think about student learning?

4. You are college students. College students with, I imagine, Facebook pages. What are your reactions to Mendelson and Papacharissi’s article? What do you think they get right? Wrong? What does this study add to our discussion of literacy?

Section Thursday, November 3rd

Hopefully you've seen Nora's bspace announcement, but I'm following up re: Thursday.

There is a protest scheduled on campus regarding affirmative action on Thursday. You are welcome to miss section in order to attend. If you choose to attend the protest, please email me to let me know you will be absent. Please also turn in a field note from your observations. As Nora pointed out, even if you don't agree with the protest, it is an excellent opportunity to develop your ethnographic skills.

To clarify:

1. If you will not be in section, email me prior to Thursday's meeting.

2. You may turn in TWO field notes this week: one from the protest on Thursday and one from your weekly field site visits.

3. If you are not in section and you do not turn in a protest field note, that will count as an unexcused absence.

Blog 8

Here we go: 1. The "Methodology" section (720-725) of the Hull, Kenney, Marple, & Forsman-Schneider article details the process of constructing a qualitative case study. What's the relationship between these qualitative methdologies and course themes related to out-of-school literacy and learning? 2. On page (reader) page 724-5, Hull et al discuss the importance of agency and "de/recontextualization" and, in Gee's terms, how "good learning requires that learners feel like active agents (producers) not just passive recipients (consumers)." With these ideas in mind, discuss how the teachers in the Parker excerpts enabled students to learn agentively. What implications do these approaches have for pedagogy in general? 3. Choose one of the learning principles discussed in Gee's article about video games and discuss how you would use a video game to teach specific content (a concept in math, physics, language arts, physical education...)