I am attempting to create a blog for my final reflective literacy autobiography! I would rather take a risk by doing something completely out of my comfort zone and horribly fail and make a complete fool out of myself (ex making a blog when I have no idea what I am doing) than write a traditional boring ten page paper (which is quite frankly, not too bad)!!!!!
So here it is, this one is for you Dr. Thompson!!!
"A" for effort?!?!
I chose to do a blog because writing on a blog relieves the pressure of writing a "FINAL REFLECTIVE" paper. I used capital letters because that is how intimidating final papers are. I thought a blog would give me the chance to say what I want to say in a more relaxed environment allowing to focus more of my energy on what I was trying to say, basically allowing me to think about things more critically. :-)
Enjoy!!
This blog is proof that I have learned so much in LAI 552! For I never would have attempted such a thing before.
This blog touches upon, in one way or another, everything I have learned throughout this course. I have created something that represents everything I have learned- and it's not on computer paper!! Furthermore, this blog is a hypertext, a text, it is multimodal, it is tied to multiple literacies, it relates to my discourses, and in order to make it I had to use some of my critical literacy skills! ALL OF WHICH I WILL TAKE WITH ME WHEN TEACHING MY CONTENT!!!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Top Three Things I disliked about LAI 552
1. How the hell could I go through three years of undergrad and not know any of this?
2. It had to end
3. Peter had a girlfriend
2. It had to end
3. Peter had a girlfriend
Top Ten (11) things I learned from LAI 552!!
Here are the top ten things I learned from LAI 552!
1. Poetry can actually be used as a means of assessment!
2. Pokemon and other "out of school" literacies actually have worth! I know, right?!
3. Taking the time to research what your students are "in to" (researching it =officially uncool) will likely help you out in the classroom because you will know what "out of school" literacy you are trying to bridge (incorporating students' interests= meaningful)
4. Group projects can actually work and be meaningful learning experiences!! Who knew!
5. By using multimodality you are likely to reach all of your students in one way or another!
6. The term "discourse" is more than just a fancy word for "conversation"
7. Without a critical eye, advertising owns us
8. Literature circles are super fun!
9. Technology, technology, technology is to Education as Location, location, location is to Real Estate
10. As hard as I tried, No, my notebook is not a hypertext!
11. To censor or not to censor? Happy medium :-)
1. Poetry can actually be used as a means of assessment!
2. Pokemon and other "out of school" literacies actually have worth! I know, right?!
3. Taking the time to research what your students are "in to" (researching it =officially uncool) will likely help you out in the classroom because you will know what "out of school" literacy you are trying to bridge (incorporating students' interests= meaningful)
4. Group projects can actually work and be meaningful learning experiences!! Who knew!
5. By using multimodality you are likely to reach all of your students in one way or another!
6. The term "discourse" is more than just a fancy word for "conversation"
7. Without a critical eye, advertising owns us
8. Literature circles are super fun!
9. Technology, technology, technology is to Education as Location, location, location is to Real Estate
10. As hard as I tried, No, my notebook is not a hypertext!
11. To censor or not to censor? Happy medium :-)
Literature Circles and Roles
I hated the fact that we had to do literature circles at first. I complained about it while doing the assignments before meetings as well. It wasn't until during the literature circle that I began to really understand the whole purpose of the literature circle and in fact began enjoying it. I like having an assigned role beause I knew what my responbility was right off of the bat. I knew what I had to focus on and I took my job seriously because I wanted to share what I had come up with, with my circle mates. I absolutely loved reading Persepolis so much so that I had my dad read it. He is a hard one to please and even he loved the book- so much so that he passed it along to my older brother and tried to convince my brother (who is a toy designer/creater) to launch a Persepolis product line because he thought young girls, especially from the Middle East might like it. That whole short story is so powerful and I hope you see that.
I loved Step from Heaven too! And I also recommended that to many other people I know because it was a moving book.
From participating in literature circles I learned a lot. I liked that this class was more of small group discussions because it made it more meaningful for me. I really do not like to be in classes that are designed in lecture style- it is so hard to sit and listen to someone talk for three hours. Through participating in lit circles I was able to learn even more about the texts I read because when we all met and began to discuss the books, I found that different people had different perspective about the book, yet we all read the same book. It was like we had our own little book club in which we agreed on certain things and disagreed on other and happily agreed to disagree on some things too. My past experiences are probably some what responsible for how I intrepreted some parts of the book, or are responsbile for how I related to some parts more than others. And through discussing and sharing our roles, we were able to learn more as a whole group. Things were brought up that I hadn't paid attention to or thought much of. Essentially, it allowed me to have a deeper understanding of the text I read. Perspeolis' discussion even evolved into the whole censorship issue about what young children should know and what they should not know- and what to tell them when they ask a question and you know the answer- but don't think it is appropriate but you don't want to lie about it. And in the end, we didn't agree but that was okay because we left stronger as we were challenged to defend our beliefs. So I definitely loved doing the literature circles. I had not done them before either so it was a whole new learning experienece, as most of the class was!
Literature circles are totally applicable in my content area- being a Literacy Specialist I will totally use them for many of the reasons listed above. They make the reading so much more meaningful and they force you to look at the text differently and more critically allowing you to develop a deeper understanding. Based on whatever grade I teach, I would obviously change it to fit the needs of my students. I wish I would have done it student teaching because I think the students would have really enjoyed it. I also like how there are different roles becaues they appeal to the different literacies of students. Artful Artist? Brillant for the student who loves art- instantly getting them engaged and giving them a PURPOSE!!
I could use literature circles or the assignment of different roles in science, history, math and english, and even in foreign languages. In history students could be historians, investigators, reporters, etc as they investigate historical events. Same for science as students perform experiments or solve math problems in math. You could totally have an artful artist in Math- it would be totally cool! There is so much that could be done with literature roles and literature circles in the elementary classroom! Yeah!
I loved Step from Heaven too! And I also recommended that to many other people I know because it was a moving book.
From participating in literature circles I learned a lot. I liked that this class was more of small group discussions because it made it more meaningful for me. I really do not like to be in classes that are designed in lecture style- it is so hard to sit and listen to someone talk for three hours. Through participating in lit circles I was able to learn even more about the texts I read because when we all met and began to discuss the books, I found that different people had different perspective about the book, yet we all read the same book. It was like we had our own little book club in which we agreed on certain things and disagreed on other and happily agreed to disagree on some things too. My past experiences are probably some what responsible for how I intrepreted some parts of the book, or are responsbile for how I related to some parts more than others. And through discussing and sharing our roles, we were able to learn more as a whole group. Things were brought up that I hadn't paid attention to or thought much of. Essentially, it allowed me to have a deeper understanding of the text I read. Perspeolis' discussion even evolved into the whole censorship issue about what young children should know and what they should not know- and what to tell them when they ask a question and you know the answer- but don't think it is appropriate but you don't want to lie about it. And in the end, we didn't agree but that was okay because we left stronger as we were challenged to defend our beliefs. So I definitely loved doing the literature circles. I had not done them before either so it was a whole new learning experienece, as most of the class was!
Literature circles are totally applicable in my content area- being a Literacy Specialist I will totally use them for many of the reasons listed above. They make the reading so much more meaningful and they force you to look at the text differently and more critically allowing you to develop a deeper understanding. Based on whatever grade I teach, I would obviously change it to fit the needs of my students. I wish I would have done it student teaching because I think the students would have really enjoyed it. I also like how there are different roles becaues they appeal to the different literacies of students. Artful Artist? Brillant for the student who loves art- instantly getting them engaged and giving them a PURPOSE!!
I could use literature circles or the assignment of different roles in science, history, math and english, and even in foreign languages. In history students could be historians, investigators, reporters, etc as they investigate historical events. Same for science as students perform experiments or solve math problems in math. You could totally have an artful artist in Math- it would be totally cool! There is so much that could be done with literature roles and literature circles in the elementary classroom! Yeah!
RRC's
The most challenging part of doing the RRC's was the fact that they required me to break out of my schooling mold. I was so used to writing the traditional summary that it was hard to not write a traditional summary of an article. It still is a challenge and that is why I am doing my final reflective essay as a blog. I think that by using a blog it will prevent me from falling back into the traditional summary style final paper. A blog, to me, was more of a way of having a conversation and telling what I have learned and what I will take with me. I chose a blog because writing papers can be really intimidating. I become obsessive with the way my writing sounds and that becomes a huge distractant which prevents me from getting critical and reflective. For one of my RRC's I did a blog, for the other I made a puzzle and for the another I made a Zine. None of them were really that easy because when I first made my blog about supporting the troops it took forever because I had not idead what I was doing. I was frustrated and so badly just would have rahter done something else. It was annoying as I struggled to work with technology and a different kind of text. But by the end of it, I was having so much fun and I wanted to add more but I ran out of time. I was like wow this is really cool I can use pictures, movies, practically anything to get my point across. I was so excited that I even showed my dad when he came home for lunch and the next day the young boy I watch wanted to make a superhero blog so we did together because he is Batman. I even showed people in the armed forces in Afghanistan my blogs and they were happy to see something positive about the war- so I actually used the blog I created for this class, outside of class! It was applicable to the real-world!
I totally see blogs as being something that students would be interested in making and using in the classroom. I would totally use blogs to help me teach as well. Now, they are pretty easy to do and I'm sure I will get better at it as I make more. I think that having students create a blog on a specific topic would also be a valuable means of assessment and a way for them to bring their out-of-school literacies and cultures into the classroom. What young child would not love creating a blog all about dancing if dancing is what they love to do? Like I said, the 4 year old boy I watch wanted to make a blog all about Superheros and he took control of the situation and he is 4!
The zines were really useful too, but they were difficult to make in the beginning. I was like what is she talking about, why are we doing this, it is so stupid. But I quickly learned it was just an alternative way of showing what you know or what you have learned and an alternative way of expressing yourself. My zine was kind of bad and if I had to do it over I know how I could make it better. I would design it differently and use words. I was afraid to go too crazy because I did not want to offend anyone so I played it safe by just using images. When I looked at the comments people wrote upon completion of the gallery walk, I noticed that some people were unclear as to what I was trying to say, so I think words may have been more useful. I would use zines in the classroom and I am glad that we have that compliation of everyone's zines to use a models or examples for students. Examples always help clarify what it is you are trying to have them do. I do not see why you wouldn't use zines in the classroom. They have a purpose and they are meaningful so why not?
The two most difficult RRC's were creating the blog and the zine. They were difficult because I had never done either one before. I was at the frustrational level in trying to complete each assignment, but it was a healthy frustration, a learning frustration. I am glad that I went through with the assignments and completed them because I learned a lot. It definitely took a lot of pushing to get through it but in the end, it was well worth it because now I have a better understanding of two more tools I can use in the classroom.
Creating the multimdal response was probably the easiest just because I typically plan lessons using different modes, I just didn't know they were called "different modes" before. Creating an artifcat that was multimodal was by far the easiest assignment for the whole class.
If I were to write an RRC assignment I would ask my students to make zines and blogs but I would also have them make like a imovie or something of that nature. I orginally wanted to make a "True Life" episode called "True Life: Class with Dr. T" and document my experiences for my final reflective essay,like they do on True Life but I don't have a video camera and I have no idea how to edit and make things into a cohesive video (but I would have forced myself to learn for as assignment). My students made a video during student teaching and they absolutely loved it. The kids, even though they were in 5th grade, loved using the video camera to record and they knew how to edit things and make a somewhat professional looking video. It was so awesome and EVERY student was involved and wanted to be involved. I would have loved to have made our own Salem Witch Trials video where we acted out the Tituba part with Betty and Abigail! I definitely see myself having my students make a lot of videos when I have my own classroom. We could pretend we are experts and make "educational videos" to teach others. I had a teacher in undergrad who was all into technology and her husband was a teacher at a Montessori school and his students always made videos- like they actually wrote the scripts and designed the stage and video taped each other, and he got tons of grants and had digital cameras donated. He came in and showed us the videos his K students had made and they were awesome. Then he used to sell the videos to parts as a way of raising money for the class and he actually raised a lot of money because every parent wants a video with their child on it. So I would definitely make an RRC assignment of making a movie or some sort.
I totally see blogs as being something that students would be interested in making and using in the classroom. I would totally use blogs to help me teach as well. Now, they are pretty easy to do and I'm sure I will get better at it as I make more. I think that having students create a blog on a specific topic would also be a valuable means of assessment and a way for them to bring their out-of-school literacies and cultures into the classroom. What young child would not love creating a blog all about dancing if dancing is what they love to do? Like I said, the 4 year old boy I watch wanted to make a blog all about Superheros and he took control of the situation and he is 4!
The zines were really useful too, but they were difficult to make in the beginning. I was like what is she talking about, why are we doing this, it is so stupid. But I quickly learned it was just an alternative way of showing what you know or what you have learned and an alternative way of expressing yourself. My zine was kind of bad and if I had to do it over I know how I could make it better. I would design it differently and use words. I was afraid to go too crazy because I did not want to offend anyone so I played it safe by just using images. When I looked at the comments people wrote upon completion of the gallery walk, I noticed that some people were unclear as to what I was trying to say, so I think words may have been more useful. I would use zines in the classroom and I am glad that we have that compliation of everyone's zines to use a models or examples for students. Examples always help clarify what it is you are trying to have them do. I do not see why you wouldn't use zines in the classroom. They have a purpose and they are meaningful so why not?
The two most difficult RRC's were creating the blog and the zine. They were difficult because I had never done either one before. I was at the frustrational level in trying to complete each assignment, but it was a healthy frustration, a learning frustration. I am glad that I went through with the assignments and completed them because I learned a lot. It definitely took a lot of pushing to get through it but in the end, it was well worth it because now I have a better understanding of two more tools I can use in the classroom.
Creating the multimdal response was probably the easiest just because I typically plan lessons using different modes, I just didn't know they were called "different modes" before. Creating an artifcat that was multimodal was by far the easiest assignment for the whole class.
If I were to write an RRC assignment I would ask my students to make zines and blogs but I would also have them make like a imovie or something of that nature. I orginally wanted to make a "True Life" episode called "True Life: Class with Dr. T" and document my experiences for my final reflective essay,like they do on True Life but I don't have a video camera and I have no idea how to edit and make things into a cohesive video (but I would have forced myself to learn for as assignment). My students made a video during student teaching and they absolutely loved it. The kids, even though they were in 5th grade, loved using the video camera to record and they knew how to edit things and make a somewhat professional looking video. It was so awesome and EVERY student was involved and wanted to be involved. I would have loved to have made our own Salem Witch Trials video where we acted out the Tituba part with Betty and Abigail! I definitely see myself having my students make a lot of videos when I have my own classroom. We could pretend we are experts and make "educational videos" to teach others. I had a teacher in undergrad who was all into technology and her husband was a teacher at a Montessori school and his students always made videos- like they actually wrote the scripts and designed the stage and video taped each other, and he got tons of grants and had digital cameras donated. He came in and showed us the videos his K students had made and they were awesome. Then he used to sell the videos to parts as a way of raising money for the class and he actually raised a lot of money because every parent wants a video with their child on it. So I would definitely make an RRC assignment of making a movie or some sort.
ELL students
Some concerns I have for dealing with ELL
Honestly, I do not really have that many concerns. The primary concern is not scaring them or making them afraid to come to school. I also fear communication and the language barrier. Luckily for me, working with ELL is actually my favorite and I have always naturally gravitated towards them. I have learned that a smile goes a long way. I experienced first hand the language barrier when I spent a couple of weeks teaching in Panama. The children there knew no English and my Spanish isn't exactly the best. But that experience really taught me a lot because I was placed in a situation where I had to directly deal with it.
In the classroom, I foresee a problem with time and the problem of one on one time. As much as you want to work with them one on one, it is extremely difficult when you are responsible for twenty or twenty five other students. So probably, balancing time and being fair to everyone. Furthermore, being able to connect to the ELL's outside of school literacies and their cultural identities and giving them the opportunity to share their cultural identities with others in the class.
I do not have a classroom yet and I probably will not have one in the next year or two but I would plan on making things meaningful for them the same I would do it for non ELL's. I would try to integrate whatever it is they are interested in, in the classroom. I would also give them opportunities to share things about who they are and where they came from with the class so that students could understand them better. I could pair them up with others in the class to ease the learning process and make it more bearable. And always keep communication open so that they know that can come to you if they ever need anything. I would teach them using multimodality so that they could hopefully make some meaning from the different modes and learn something, and always model what it is I want them to do. During the Japanese lesson in class, I had no idea what it is you were talking about but pictures were used, body movement was used, number images, etc and you even modeled what you wanted to do and because of that I was able to do it. I will always keep the Japanese lesson in the back of my head when teaching ELL's as a gentle reminder of how difficult it is and can be for them. Trying to empathize with them and put yourself in their position. I onced as an ESL teacher what his teaching philosphy was and he responded with "empathy." He said that was really all you needed and once you have empathy towards those students, you can really feel what they are going through and that feeling will guide you in your instruction. You have to take into consideration who they are, recognize it, accept it and embrace it.
Honestly, I do not really have that many concerns. The primary concern is not scaring them or making them afraid to come to school. I also fear communication and the language barrier. Luckily for me, working with ELL is actually my favorite and I have always naturally gravitated towards them. I have learned that a smile goes a long way. I experienced first hand the language barrier when I spent a couple of weeks teaching in Panama. The children there knew no English and my Spanish isn't exactly the best. But that experience really taught me a lot because I was placed in a situation where I had to directly deal with it.
In the classroom, I foresee a problem with time and the problem of one on one time. As much as you want to work with them one on one, it is extremely difficult when you are responsible for twenty or twenty five other students. So probably, balancing time and being fair to everyone. Furthermore, being able to connect to the ELL's outside of school literacies and their cultural identities and giving them the opportunity to share their cultural identities with others in the class.
I do not have a classroom yet and I probably will not have one in the next year or two but I would plan on making things meaningful for them the same I would do it for non ELL's. I would try to integrate whatever it is they are interested in, in the classroom. I would also give them opportunities to share things about who they are and where they came from with the class so that students could understand them better. I could pair them up with others in the class to ease the learning process and make it more bearable. And always keep communication open so that they know that can come to you if they ever need anything. I would teach them using multimodality so that they could hopefully make some meaning from the different modes and learn something, and always model what it is I want them to do. During the Japanese lesson in class, I had no idea what it is you were talking about but pictures were used, body movement was used, number images, etc and you even modeled what you wanted to do and because of that I was able to do it. I will always keep the Japanese lesson in the back of my head when teaching ELL's as a gentle reminder of how difficult it is and can be for them. Trying to empathize with them and put yourself in their position. I onced as an ESL teacher what his teaching philosphy was and he responded with "empathy." He said that was really all you needed and once you have empathy towards those students, you can really feel what they are going through and that feeling will guide you in your instruction. You have to take into consideration who they are, recognize it, accept it and embrace it.
Group Final Project
Let me just say that in all honesty, working with the group I worked with was absolutely AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! I seriously loved it and it was honestly the best experience had working with a group. Up until this point in my life I have always somewhat hated working in groups because it has never been a group effort in the past groups I have worked in. It is always divide and conquer and meet up in a week- people want to be individual and take credit for everything they do- it has been very hard to truly experience the "group work" mentality and effort. But this time it was so different and I really loved working with everyone in my group. Obviously I have known Maria forever but I didn't know Peter, Mike, Emily or Lindsey prior to working as a group with them. At times it was difficult because someone would get a really great idea and before going forward with it we had to stop and think if it could be applied to all of the content areas involved. For my particular group we had math, social studies, library science, and three literacy specialits with backgrounds in special educatin and elementary education. Being an elementary education major, I have always been forced to look at topics from multiple perspectives because I did not pick a specific discipline, I was liberal arts so I picked three disciplines- math, social studies, and english for my undergrad. And I think naturally, elementary school teachers have to look at things from many different perspectives because they are typically the ones running the classroom and are responsbile for teaching all subject/content areas. Regardless, it was still a learning experience that "pushed" me.
Through working in my group I had to learn how to trust people. Typically in a group I would offer to do the majority of the work because I know I would do it and I would do it well. I had a hard time counting on other people because I would always invision something differently than others and I typically like to do things my way. From working with my group, I learned that you can acutally learn a lot and come up with really great ideas together, and that you can trust people to do their parts and they too will do it well. Of course we had little arguments a long the way in terms of the script and what to add and what to take out, but we were able to come together in attempts of making it the best it could be. We were fortunate enough to have really awesome people in our group, all of whom could be trusted to do good jobs. I learned that it is okay if I'm not in control 100 percent of the time and others have just as valid ideas. I know I would have never come up with the whole lesson my own and that's the beauty of working in a group- you develop amazing lessons. We had a lot of strong minded people in our group so that was a challenge at times because we all brought really great ideas to the table and it was hard to pick and choose which ones to use for the lesson we taught. I wish we had more time to teach, because I grew really connected to my lesson and actually would like to teach it in a real classroom to real high school/middle school ages students. I think that we had a hugh "so what" and that our lesson was so relevant to students today because we touched upong many issues they have dealt with or are dealing with. Intolerance is universal and relevant to the present, past and future. Althought it did take quite a while to agree on this issue and firstly it was more or less the topic of Salem Witch Trials but then we had to think about how that would be relevant to today or tie in to what adolescents are experiencing. Which lead us to the whole issue of intolerance/tolerance. So it acutally worked out quite well. Originally the group was divided between Native Americans and Holocaust and even the Great Depression. I was a bit reluctant to comply early on because like 4 out of the 5 members had agreed to do Native Americans until one spoke up and said she really wasn't in favor and we reevaluated and come up with issues of intolerance after we took a vote. In the end, we were all really excited because it was something that none of us were really familiar with so it was new and interesting. At times, it required a little more research and extra reading to get a deeper understanding of what exactly happened during that time period but it was well worth it because I learned a lot in the whole process and I think it is safe to say that all of the members in the group leanred a lot about each other, themselves and the content presented throughout our lesson. I was more than pleased with the final product. By starting with the history and relating it to today and discussing the various "witch hunts" over time, locally and globally, it really sends a powerdul message as to why intolerance is still present. Why is it? History is constantly repeating itself and we all have the power to change it and yet we don't. Are we funding intolerance or supporting institutions like the government or church that, when looked at with a critical lens, in fact are to some degree involved with intolerant acts? It is striking to think of such a thing. I think all semester we were learning about intolerance as well as evidenced in the viewing of the Hoover Elementary video and even the intolerance on behalf of schools and classroom teachers towards students' home litercies, popular culture, and cultural identities. Sadly even one has probably been intolerant of another person at some point in their lives, I know I am guilty of it. But through crafting that lesson and researching the statistics, it really hit close to home and I actually think (as pathetic as this sounds) that I have learned how to be more tolerant of others. Through making a blog and watching youtube videos from homosexuals points of view, I have seen the issue from their perspective and it makes you look at the situation completely different and I've learned to be more tolerant from doing this project.
If I could change one thing about the final product, if I could change anything, I would make it so that it never ended! I am really going to miss my group members and I am going to miss coming to class because I really had so much fun learning about everything I learned about. Time is always an issue and we unfortunately ran short on time and took a little longer than anticipated to get through the lesson so Mike and Emily were not alloted appropriate time to do what they would have liked to have done. I would change it so that they would have done their parts beacuse they had really powerful activities that really tied the issues of intolerance to present day. Emily's part was done in a sense because every one did break up into small groups and have a discussin about a zine. So at least in small groups we were able to get down to the nitty and gritty of some issues we currently are dealing with.
I am not so much sure if it taught me how to think differently in terms of my content area but it taught me how to work with others to make things better. So I guess that in turn that makes me look at my content differently because I realize that I may not know the best ways to teach things but throught consulting and working with others I can learn.
This was the first time I actually was planning out how to use multimodality throughout the lesson. I have used different modes before but never really thought about it. When planning this lesson we kept going back and asking ourselves the different modes we were using and making sure that we were presenting the information in a variety of ways and that all the modes were working together in a cohesive manner. We delibertly planned out using blogs, websites, books, scripts, movies, youtube videos, zines, newspaper articles, graphics, surveys, political cartoons, pictures, visual images, quotes, etc. I will definitely take the whole idea of multimodality with me in the classroom and I have learned to look at my content area differently because of multimodality.
If I were to teach this lesson inside of my own classroom, I wouldn't change too much except for modifying the information so that it is more appropriate to students and their age/ development. I would probably focus more on respecting everyone and embracing differences and teach them to tolerate others so that intolerance could perhaps fade in the future.
Through working in my group I had to learn how to trust people. Typically in a group I would offer to do the majority of the work because I know I would do it and I would do it well. I had a hard time counting on other people because I would always invision something differently than others and I typically like to do things my way. From working with my group, I learned that you can acutally learn a lot and come up with really great ideas together, and that you can trust people to do their parts and they too will do it well. Of course we had little arguments a long the way in terms of the script and what to add and what to take out, but we were able to come together in attempts of making it the best it could be. We were fortunate enough to have really awesome people in our group, all of whom could be trusted to do good jobs. I learned that it is okay if I'm not in control 100 percent of the time and others have just as valid ideas. I know I would have never come up with the whole lesson my own and that's the beauty of working in a group- you develop amazing lessons. We had a lot of strong minded people in our group so that was a challenge at times because we all brought really great ideas to the table and it was hard to pick and choose which ones to use for the lesson we taught. I wish we had more time to teach, because I grew really connected to my lesson and actually would like to teach it in a real classroom to real high school/middle school ages students. I think that we had a hugh "so what" and that our lesson was so relevant to students today because we touched upong many issues they have dealt with or are dealing with. Intolerance is universal and relevant to the present, past and future. Althought it did take quite a while to agree on this issue and firstly it was more or less the topic of Salem Witch Trials but then we had to think about how that would be relevant to today or tie in to what adolescents are experiencing. Which lead us to the whole issue of intolerance/tolerance. So it acutally worked out quite well. Originally the group was divided between Native Americans and Holocaust and even the Great Depression. I was a bit reluctant to comply early on because like 4 out of the 5 members had agreed to do Native Americans until one spoke up and said she really wasn't in favor and we reevaluated and come up with issues of intolerance after we took a vote. In the end, we were all really excited because it was something that none of us were really familiar with so it was new and interesting. At times, it required a little more research and extra reading to get a deeper understanding of what exactly happened during that time period but it was well worth it because I learned a lot in the whole process and I think it is safe to say that all of the members in the group leanred a lot about each other, themselves and the content presented throughout our lesson. I was more than pleased with the final product. By starting with the history and relating it to today and discussing the various "witch hunts" over time, locally and globally, it really sends a powerdul message as to why intolerance is still present. Why is it? History is constantly repeating itself and we all have the power to change it and yet we don't. Are we funding intolerance or supporting institutions like the government or church that, when looked at with a critical lens, in fact are to some degree involved with intolerant acts? It is striking to think of such a thing. I think all semester we were learning about intolerance as well as evidenced in the viewing of the Hoover Elementary video and even the intolerance on behalf of schools and classroom teachers towards students' home litercies, popular culture, and cultural identities. Sadly even one has probably been intolerant of another person at some point in their lives, I know I am guilty of it. But through crafting that lesson and researching the statistics, it really hit close to home and I actually think (as pathetic as this sounds) that I have learned how to be more tolerant of others. Through making a blog and watching youtube videos from homosexuals points of view, I have seen the issue from their perspective and it makes you look at the situation completely different and I've learned to be more tolerant from doing this project.
If I could change one thing about the final product, if I could change anything, I would make it so that it never ended! I am really going to miss my group members and I am going to miss coming to class because I really had so much fun learning about everything I learned about. Time is always an issue and we unfortunately ran short on time and took a little longer than anticipated to get through the lesson so Mike and Emily were not alloted appropriate time to do what they would have liked to have done. I would change it so that they would have done their parts beacuse they had really powerful activities that really tied the issues of intolerance to present day. Emily's part was done in a sense because every one did break up into small groups and have a discussin about a zine. So at least in small groups we were able to get down to the nitty and gritty of some issues we currently are dealing with.
I am not so much sure if it taught me how to think differently in terms of my content area but it taught me how to work with others to make things better. So I guess that in turn that makes me look at my content differently because I realize that I may not know the best ways to teach things but throught consulting and working with others I can learn.
This was the first time I actually was planning out how to use multimodality throughout the lesson. I have used different modes before but never really thought about it. When planning this lesson we kept going back and asking ourselves the different modes we were using and making sure that we were presenting the information in a variety of ways and that all the modes were working together in a cohesive manner. We delibertly planned out using blogs, websites, books, scripts, movies, youtube videos, zines, newspaper articles, graphics, surveys, political cartoons, pictures, visual images, quotes, etc. I will definitely take the whole idea of multimodality with me in the classroom and I have learned to look at my content area differently because of multimodality.
If I were to teach this lesson inside of my own classroom, I wouldn't change too much except for modifying the information so that it is more appropriate to students and their age/ development. I would probably focus more on respecting everyone and embracing differences and teach them to tolerate others so that intolerance could perhaps fade in the future.
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