Media Literacy Recap

For the Media Literacy Project, Megan and I focused on how relationships are portrayed and constructed through sex and sexuality. We set our lesson up to be part of a larger unit. Each lesson would focus on one aspect of media: news/newspapers, reality TV, music, sitcoms, and commercials/advertisements. The lesson we introduced to the class was on Reality TV.

For the unit, Megan and I created a WebQuest (which is still underproduction). Students would complete analysis tasks for homework that would correspond to the following class day's lesson. The analysis tasks would ask students to view a certain pre-selected aspects of media, then respond to questions in a blog. Their analysis would then help them in lesson projects, as well as the unit's culminating project.

For each class, depending on the media we were focusing on that day, students would work with a technology program to develop a small project (either individually or with a group), using that media and showing how it corresponds/relates/influences their lives. For example, for the lesson on Reality TV, students would be working with iMovie. After reviewing a YouTube clip from homework and discussing it as a class, students would get into groups of three, search for Reality TV related pictures or video clips, and create their own iMovie film. The photos and clips will have to show/explain how they see how relationships in their lives. Groups would then briefly explain why they chose the images they did, and how they think Reality TV may or may not influence their view of relationships based on sex and sexuality.

The mini-projects during the lessons will help students int he unit's culminating project, in which students must use several aspects of media to define, show an understanding, and analyze relationships in their lives as constructed through sex and sexuality. Students will also choose a way to present their projects; the mini-projects during lessons will have allowed students to practice using different programs. After completing the projects, students will present the projects, explaining why they did what they did and integrating important vocabulary learned and used throughout the unit.

Megan and I also created a short iMovie to show with our Media Literacy Project, which is actually out Project Block 4 creation. The movie compared relationships in the media and relationships in "reality."

Just Some Late Night Thoughts...

I actually went back and read one of my first posts today on Camden, NJ. I remember thinking at the beginning of the semester "how can we include the material we are going to learn in this class, in a district like Camden?" I honestly couldn't come up with answers at that point in time. The positive part of Camden, among ever harsh reality their city faces, is that there are many students there who want to learn, want to succeed and better their lives.

A group of us in the AEN program received our student placements for the Fall. I'll be student teaching in Syracuse, which was not a surprise for me since I requested that general vicinity. But realizing that I will be teaching in the inner city at Henninger HS is overwhelming; it doesn't frighten me, but rather makes me apprehensive: I have heard horror stories of Syracuse schools, and I have to remind myself that I need to create my own opinion of them after I participate in the learning environment. But, if these students truly do not want to learn, unlike those in Camden, how do I teach? What do I do? How can I perk their interests? Sometimes there is just more to consider than we can ever know, and we have to have answers to questions that don't even exist yet (someone else said that, I don't remember who. I'm sorry I cannot cite it properly).

Regardless, reality is here. The girls I have spent the past two semesters with will be doing their own thing next semester; no more classes together. The community we built together is changing. Sure, we can keep in contact through emails, blogs, the Colloquium, the phone... but something is different now. The "letting go" is sad, nerve-racking, and exciting. And I know that I will always have, at least, eight other people I can contact and confide in.

Tonight we, those of us going into our Student Teaching, had dinner with a few of our professors: more community. That's what we have been building all along at Cortland. We have the classroom, the study groups, and now, thanks to media literacy and our educators' persistence to integrating blogs, the internet, and the Web in our learning.

Dr. Stearns asked me earlier tonight, at dinner, if I felt I have learned anything in 307. Of course I have. You can't be thrown into material you don't understand and be expected to explain it to others without learning about it yourself. But, besides the programs, I have learned more about myself in 307. Last week we participated in an impromptu "interview" scenario. Everything we had worked on in 307 was put to test-- we just had to choose one aspect and run with it. It was through this that I realized that I have something more to offer, and that I can create lessons not solely focused around a text. I also learned that I have so much else to learn: from my professors, my fellow classmates, and my own students.

In all, part of me wishes this semester wouldn't come to an end, because I know that that's what it could bring to so many areas of my life. On the other hand, it's time to move on, and everything I have learned, studied, produced, and applied from the beginning will now exercised in a school environment-- it's what we, as English Adolescence Education Majors, strive for. Might as well make the best of it and take away from it as much as you can, right?

20 minutes... What a Rush

For our class project today I created a WebQuest that will focus on the construction of teenage life in the media.

The Unit will be called "Teenagers: Fact and Fiction." www.freewebs.com/jbrown14580

So far I have created a main page, which briefly explains the unit, the culminating activity, the blog assignments, the resources, and the media. I also began creating the first media page (television shows).