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The challenge this week gives you two ends of a triangle: you’ve got a class (I’m going back to our 9th grade BR college prep class—not so old that middle school is a distant memory, not so smart that they will be so over it, not so young that we have to pretend nobody has sex or does drugs); you’ve got your media—any and all of the recordings accessible via the syllabus. How might you use this media and what texts would you pair with them—that’s the last leg of the magic triangle?
You’ve got a real opportunity to be pretty creative here. You are welcome to talk about any of the texts we’ve covered or will cover in class. Or you can go with something else you’d want to teach. Or you can go with a canonical text that might well be included in the framework. Or you can do a little of all three. Additionally, if there is other supplemental media—movies, TV, radio, news items, non-fiction, art-work, dance, whatever—you are welcome to use that. As my contribution to the discussion: I have actually paired “Is your Dad Single?” with Girl & 7th grade with actual rising 8th and 9th graders. I asked students to map out the story of “Is Your Dad Single?”—so what starts the story, what is the rising action, what is the climactic moment, the denouement, the “truth about life.” I ask them to do this graphically. Since that piece is really about deciding on who you want to be in your own life, we look at Girl and 7th grade through that lens—how do the various characters in each figure out who they are? That’s a final writing. Along the way, I have them write about their own stories of figuring themselves out, of 7th grade, etc. I also ask them to identify the “rules” of being a boy—so write 7th Grade as a series of “you” statements, but about boys, based on the story. The work requires listening, reading, note-taking. It requires working alone and in groups. It requires that they be able to prove a point about a text using the text as evidence. It gives them space to reflect personally. I really enjoy the entire sequence. We end with a very fun exercise where they make their own maps of their lives—who they are now, where they want to end up, how they are going to get there. They present that to the whole class. I do it with them. They marvel at the idea that a 46 year old could still possibly have a life plan.
26 Comments
Alexandra Krista Dewey
10/24/2017 08:46:32 pm
I’ve decided to pair all three of the media pieces with Carnival at Bray. I choose all these pieces because I feel each person (or character) is relatable to young adult students. I think the main theme of each person’s story expresses the hardships, disappointments, and embarrassments that come with growing up. Every one of us can recall a certain moment in our lives where time stopped, and we felt the weight of the world crashing down around us. It is easy to look back and remember how it felt to be in that moment, and live through those feelings. I would ask my students to do a creative project based on feelings. Back in high school, I took a class called poetry of song and that was where one of my most memorable projects was done. We were asked to pick a song, and turn it into art. We could do so by any means possible. Our English contacted the high school art teacher and asked permission to use any and all items needed to do our projects. We were given free rein to be creative as we wanted. We could paint, draw, sculpt, color ect. I know it isn’t an art class, but for some students, art is very influential. Students will be able to be hands on and creative. They will be able to express themselves in ways words limit them. I would like to have my students split up into small groups and create a project that represents how one of these characters felt during their experience. They could creatively express how Maggie felt when she lost Kevin, or how it felt to be at the Nirvana concert in Rome. They could depict how it feels for a young boy facing his fear of the unknown when his mother cleans his room. Or what it feels like to go to school with a new, goofy haircut. Each group will then present their project along with a short description, to the class. I think this experience will be fun and rewarding for everyone involved and maybe afterwards, I could ask each individual student to make their own personal projects that represent a time they went through. These pieces could even be displayed publicly throughout the school so other students and faculty can understand how different each individual person’s feels as they grow up.
Cristina Almeida
10/25/2017 01:42:43 pm
Sounds like a fun assignment. Having students examine their own experiences and feelings is a great way for students to approach the texts. Their personal experiences and feelings can lead to a wider variety of complex interpretations of the texts. As a result, even students who choose similar texts, themes, and ideas will have different products. The short description you’ve included is a good way to focus students’ attention back to the texts. This description would be especially useful if students identified the same theme present in their work to the corresponding text using direct evidence. By offering students the choice of all three multimedia texts, students have the option to narrow in on an experience that relates more specifically to them.
Gina Mendes
10/25/2017 02:19:31 pm
I love your idea of adding a little art and creativity in the classroom, especially because they are 9th grade students. This will be one of their first impressions of how high school will go for them, and if they are allowed to express themselves in a creative way and exposed to alternate means of learning, maybe they will be more excited to engage not just in your classroom, but in any classroom. I also agree that personal experience and feelings are key when understanding how a person relates to a text (in this case Carnival at Bray) and your assignment of having the students create an image that reflects those emotions would be amazing to see. It is also a very good idea that you have your students working in small groups rather than individually because it can create a conversation among them. For example, if one student sees another swirling red paint on the paper depicting that he/she was angry when reading parts of the book, they could have a conversation about why he/she felt angry and perhaps why the other students had a different reaction to the same part of the book.
Gabrielle Rosson
10/31/2017 03:14:51 pm
I think it is so so so important to include hands on art at every opportunity in a Lit class. I do not feel that one must stick to books and tv/film. Pottery, painting, or song (just to name a few other formats) are great ways to express critical analysis and thought. I love the idea of choosing a song and turning it into an assignment. This puts the student in the driver seat and I think you're going to get a higher rate of student participation because they can express their own unique power of choice. I love it.
Amelia Fuss
10/25/2017 06:32:24 am
First of all, I love the Moth. I love that each of segments given are direct, have a purpose, and aren’t too long. I think they are perfect to show to a 9th grade prep class because I think we all have a moment that is relatable; it might be embarrassing, a lesson, or a self analysis. What I would do with my students is have them watch these Moth segments, I might even consider throwing in some button poetry to show students a poetic format. From there, I would ask them to create their own. I would ask students to talk about, or write a poem about, an experience. By the end, the goal is for the class to know what the point is without saying it (this is an example of teaching metaphor which is something I talk about in my Pecha Kucha). I would have this class specifically perform theirs, but in classes with a distinct numbers of students with IEPs, I would give them the option to record it and send it to me privately. This whole exercise would be a warm up activity for reading Walt Whitman. I am set on reading Whitman in my future classroom and I feel that having students make their own Moth podcasts would help them to connect to Whitman’s Song of Myself. I would not have them read the whole poem, but because it is broken up into sections, I would teach sections individually then bring them all together at the end to show a more comprehensive understanding of the overall poem. I think studying the poem one section at a time would be less stressful for students and by making their own “sections” via Moth/Button format, they would be able to see the small stories that make up their own lives and impact them like sections or small stories in Song of Myself add up to make a while big long poem. I would not teach the entire poem mind you, so the difficulty would be choosing the segments so that students don’t miss out on bigger pictures past what they are studying. I do have confidence they will “get it” though because Whitman writes in a pretty accessibly way and most of the students in this specific class would be able to find help at home if they need it from a parent.
Leah O'Bryan
10/25/2017 04:14:20 pm
I really love this idea. I also appreciate that you dove right into the technology part of the lesson first and had each student reflect on what they listened to and by writing a poem. I feel like you put a lot of things into this lessons and they get a lot of information, and education in one whole thing. I also think that for you to not teach the entire poem is okay, because you can then pick pieces that you feel would fit your students you have before you. It might help them understand it more if you pick what you think they might not struggle with.
Cristina Almeida
10/25/2017 09:17:36 am
I would pair “Maybe” by Jessica Lee Williamson with The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley. Initially the main characters of both stories let their fears and doubts get the best of them; however, they eventually overcome these feelings in order to do what they love and make the most of their lives. The speaker of “Maybe” lets the fear of being humiliated keep the speaker from getting on stage again for another 10 years. The fears and doubts Maggie feels as a result of moving to a new place prevent her from going out and making friends. Because both these stories use vivid imagery to express these feelings, I think it would be best to have students address this theme of overcoming fear through the concise, vivid imagery often found in poetry. Students could create a poem, in the style of their choice, based on an experience where fear could have or did prevent them from doing something they wanted to do. To help students pay careful attention to the use of imagery in their poems, students could pair their poems with some sort of visual or audio aid of their choice such as a collection of photos, a song, sound effects, a drawing, a skit, etc. To ensure students understand the project and the theme of the assignment, students could begin by using evidence from the text to decide what they might do if the project was about pairing one of these stories with a visual or audio aid. For example, if a student enjoys photography, they might make a list of the types of photos they would use to convey the feelings express in The Carnival at Bray.
Laura Gittleman
10/25/2017 09:00:21 pm
Hi Christina! I love how creative you're allowing your students to be with their poems. We've all had experiences where fear kept us from doing things we want to do, so I think that focusing on that is a great idea. Pairing the text with an audio or visual aid is an interesting idea, I wonder how you would approach that, like what you would pair with the text. Maybe you could also play around with the idea of what would have happened if the speaker of "Maybe" had gotten on stage sooner, or what would have happened if Maggie had made more friends in The Carnival at Bray.
Gina Mendes
10/25/2017 02:41:45 pm
After listening to the mix-media for this week I have to say one of my new favorite things is The Moth. In just a short amount of time, the audience can learn valuable life lessons from a speaker who doesn't necessarily a scholar or has a PhD, which makes it very approachable. The fact that it is so approachable is one of the reasons why I would be excited to teach them in my classroom, because students are immediately turned off by something that sounds too wordy or too difficult to understand. Specifically, "Maybe" by Jessica Lee Williamson tackles issues that arise when doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable or is humiliating. This would be a perfect pair for "Carnival at Bray" by Jessie Ann Foley because of Maggie's willingness to finally take her life into her own hands and live for herself. When she decides to stay in Ireland with Eoin, she is liberating herself from her fears, much like Jessica Lee Williamson did when she decided to take on the stage again after two episodes of crying on stage. With "Maybe" I would have my students to take ten minutes to individually write a list of bullet points describing Maggie's decisions she made throughout the novel and then a list of their own instances when they almost did something but decided not to out of fear. This could be their own fear or fear of what other people may think of them. After that is done, the students will then take their list and put the word "maybe" in a column next to it so that they can write about what could have happened to Maggie if fear had no effect on her decisions, and the same for their own instances. In other words, what could be a possible outcome? I would be interested to see whether the students only wrote negative outcomes (because they were afraid to do it) or if some students would recognize a positive outcome that could have occurred had they set their fears aside. The point of this assignment is to explore the common quote "what is the worst that can happen?" when talking about instances where we almost did something but were afraid, but also taking it one step further by determining "what is one thing that could have gone right?" It is this last step that will get students to realize that fear should never be something that holds them back.
Amelia Fuss
10/29/2017 09:41:35 am
Hi Gina, I really love that you chose to pick a specific podcast and apply it to "Carnival at Bray" I think they way you've structured the assignment, to have student apply the podcast to Maggie, would allow them to interact with Maggie. I think you've opened up a platform for analysis on cause and effect especially by asking the questions, "What is one thing that COULD have gone right?" and "What is the worst that can happen?" Nice job!
Leah O'Bryan
10/25/2017 04:10:56 pm
For this assignment, I want my students to read our up coming novel, (which I accidently read early because I mixed up the dates, then became naturally obsessed with how great it was…) I’ll Give You The Sun, by Jandi Nelson. We would read it as a class, also answering questions in a reading journal as we move along. After we finished the book I would then split them into partners and each partner would listen to The Moth. Specifically I want them to listen to “The Secret Letter,” and “Is Your Dad Single?” With this I want the students to find connections with the people they listened to, and the characters in the novel they read. For example (sorry this is a spoiler for those of you who have yet to read the book), but one of the characters comes out as gay to his father, subtly at the end of the book. And in “The Secret Letter” the girl does too. I feel like my students could make connections to each character with what they listened to on the Moth. Then with their partner they will compare certain characters to what they listened to on The Moth and make a list in their notebooks and discuss it together. After writing it, they’ll share their findings with the class. I then want my students to make their own recordings of a story that shows a connection they have with themselves and the characters in this specific novel or in a novel they have read in the past. Whether it be The Carnival At Bray, if they have a step-parent or even moved to a different place or To Kill A Mockingbird, and someone in their family is a lawyer and they have a story to tell about it. I’d have each student record their video on a device with their partners. Each partner would record, vice versa, then email it to me and we would have an entire class dedicated to watching their videos. I’d make sure each video is a minute or two long and we’d try to get through them all at once. I plan to make it fun for them as well, having like a movie day, with snacks and things. They’ll be graded on their connections, as well as their reading journal questions.
Kasey Pelletier
10/25/2017 05:10:19 pm
Though I have not read the book for next week yet, I can totally see how good of a connection you would be able to make between the texts you chose. I also like your activities. I think that having students picking characters from each text and comparing them not only allows them to understand the characters, but also helps them understand how to make connections between different texts. I also like how you want to have your students make their own story that you would have them preform over video. Having them make those personal connections would definitely help them better understand the texts. I like that you are choosing to make the personal story presentation more laid back. Allowing them to record it rather than perform it is a great option and having a movie day is something students would likely really take to.
Amy Keith
10/25/2017 04:12:57 pm
Immediately after listening to “Is Your Dad Single?” I thought about The Carnival at Bray. While The Carnival at Bray would be a challenging read for 9th graders, and for the 9th graders parents to approve of, I don’t think it’s unfair to want them to read it. As a freshman in high school, peer pressure, drinking, drugs, and sex are first introduced to them personally. Is there a better way to warn them about the dangers of it then in a classroom? The notions of changing family dynamics and the different roles one has in a family are portrayed in both pieces. Maggie and Erin share similar stories; both were forced to adjust to a new life with a stepparent and had to rediscover their role in the family. Both pieces depict an atypical family, which is often overlooked in literature. Allowing students to read and hear about a family that isn’t portrayed in an ideal light may spark interest in these students, as the “average” family in society is no longer just a mother, father, and two kids. Reading about families that are slightly chaotic and imperfect would resonate with many classrooms. Given this information, I’d suggest creating an assignment that allows students to discuss family dynamics. I’d allow the students to create their own family tree – depicting whatever family they have. Underneath each person, whether they want to incorporate aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, assign a role to that person and discuss whether or not that role can change. If Maggie from The Carnival at Bray were to make a family tree, her role might be “caretaker” as she often is the maternal figure in her household. This is a personal assignment, but it would be beneficial for the students to see the other types of families in society- not just the idealized version. This activity would be ideal for 9th grade students because it would allow them to connect their own lives to the classroom, as well as allow for some creativity, as they would be able to design their family tree however they desire.
Dan Chahine
10/25/2017 07:32:03 pm
I really liked the connections you brought up and thought they were very interesting. I completely agree that the best place to bring up drugs and sexual activities is in the classroom but it is important to be very careful with teaching that kind of stuff in a classroom because remember, this imagined class you are teaching in is a 9th grade class and the students are still very young. If they get the wrong impression of something that is said or share what they have learned with a parent that doesn't necessarily agree with you teaching that kind of stuff you might have a big problem. I really like the family tree idea as well and think it would be a great way for many students to express something they are interested in a numerous amount of different ways.
Stephanie Doyle
10/27/2017 06:47:47 pm
I think that your ideas are awesome! I really liked how you connected the two pieces together. Thank you for sharing this, I hadn't thought of those two pieces together at all!
Kasey Pelletier
10/25/2017 05:03:05 pm
I think all of the stories told are incredibly interesting and would be valid in a classroom setting. In particular, I would like to have a focus on the stories “The Secret Letter”, "Maybe" and "Is your Dad Single?". I think these two stories were a wonderful combination of humor combined with real life circumstances which would work well in the classroom setting described. In terms of pairings of texts at this level, I would honestly want to pair it with the book “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. While it may be a controversial text, I think it is an important text on coming of age. The book revolves around the main character Melinda who is raped by a boy at her school which causes her to become withdrawn and disconnected from everyone around her. Though rape is a difficult issue to cover, Melinda’s narrative shows her overcoming trauma through speaking of her situation, allowing her to grow and become the outgoing and kind girl she was before the incident, but even stronger. Even though the stories were told in a more light-hearted manner, there were commonalities between all about having a voice and the danger of not using it. In “The Secret Letter” the speaker’s secret of sexual identity keeps her from being comfortable around her family. In “Maybe” the speakers past failures performing keep her from doing so for 29 years. In “Is Your Dad Single?” the speaker’s lack of communication with her family about her problems lead her to drinking and partying. Each piece connects so strongly to voice and I think having students focus on it could promote some great activities. I would want to have students track the piece, taking down notes on mood throughout the piece and at the end do a collage tracking the mood of each piece. I would ask students to then compare the collages and find similarities and differences and make connection to shifts as they go. I think this would encourage students to focus on mood in a textual and visual way, but also critically analyze the shifts and why they occur.
Jess Baccari
10/25/2017 07:03:26 pm
First of all I just want to say that I am a huge fan of using mixed media in the classroom. I think it is a great opportunity to get students to look at things they normally already use, like YouTube, in a different way and for a different purpose. I also think it helps break up the day for them when you can provide material in new ways. After listening to the first three stories and watching the last video I would chose to use “Is Your Dad Single” with The Carnival at Bray. I loved all of the pieces but I think this is the only one I would be able to connect to a text we have already read. I would want to use these two pieces together to highlight the idea of teen rebellion and the notion that maybe the adults in a teen’s life can push them to be rebellious. For example one could argue that Maggie’s Uncle, even after he is gone, pushes her to commit the rebellious act of going to Rome and that Erin’s dad remarrying is what pushed her into her rebellious phase. I would want to present these ideas to the students and ask them if they agree or disagree, and if they thinkt hat either girl is justified in her act. I would then want them to explain to me why they think the girl is or is not justified in her actions. I think this would be able to generate a great conversation among the students and get them to realize that in the end regardless of who or what might have lead to the girls rebelling, ultimately they chose to do what they did. 10/25/2017 07:23:30 pm
I really loved listening to "Is Your Dad Single" and haven't laughed at something this hard in quite a while. It had a great sense of comedy, coming of age, and had this... feel to it allowing the listener to really empathize and understand what the speaker was going through. Because of how easy it was to empathize with "Is Your Dad Single" I decided to compare it with the short story, "7th Grade". Both of these stories are stories that are very easy to relate to and are very funny, realistic, and entertaining (and I feel like it can be very hard for stories to be entertaining and realistic at the same time but these two stories did it perfectly).
Laura Gittleman
10/25/2017 08:50:07 pm
I would pair "The Secret Letter" with Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz because they both deal with the difficulties that come with being LGBT, like figuring out your identity and sharing it with others. Ari didn't exactly come out to his parents like Paola did, but his parents were very understanding and very accepting like hers were. I feel like maybe my students could relate to Ari's search for identity because they're probably starting to figure out their identities too. I would have them listen to "The Secret Letter" before reading Ari and Dante, and have them write a journal entry about a time they hid something about themselves from their parents. They could either share their experiences with me or the class, or just keep them to themselves. The goal would be to get them thinking about their parents and their identities. Then moving into the novel, I'd have my students talk about what makes up their own identities, like their ethnicities, hobbies, goals, and families, and how they affect the way that they think about themselves. All of these things come into play in Ari's identity, so it could be very interesting to see how they relate to him. I'd also talk about Benjamin Alire Sanez's keynote speech from this past year's SLJ Live! event, in which he talked about how he slowly figured out who he was over a long period of time, and how he recently came to terms with his own sexuality, and how that relates to Ari and Dante's story. I would then have my students do a creative project about identity, maybe a video or animoto about who they are and how they came to be who they are, and how they can relate to Ari's journey of finding his own identity. I am worried that maybe my students who identify as LGBT would be uncomfortable talking about these things, especially if they have yet to come out to anyone. Also, what if some of my students aren't accepting of LGBT people? And to be completely honest, I'm a little worried about teaching these stories as a gay person myself because that could get complicated very quickly. How would objectivity come into play? There are a lot of things to take into consideration when teaching these two stories, but I do think it would be worthwhile to teach them both.
Sam Correia
10/27/2017 12:02:04 pm
Hi Laura, I found your response to be incredibly interesting and thought-provoking. I specifically liked your idea about showing Saenz's speech to the class, to have students hear the author's voice and understand the author's own life story. I'm a huge fan of Saenz myself and think his writing is brilliant. I'm glad you brought up your concerns at the end of your post. I also think a lot about what it would be like to teach LGBT texts to a class, and how that dynamic would work, especially because people might not be happy about the content. I'm also worried that, if I am an out gay teacher, I will be accused of choosing these texts because of a personal agenda. But really, I just think it's important that kids get an opportunity to see themselves in the texts that we are reading. In middle school/high school I never remember reading books with LGBT characters, so I never saw myself represented in that way. I'm glad you brought up your concerns because it's something I think a lot about and have asked professors about.
Samantha Correia
10/27/2017 12:33:40 pm
I know a few weeks ago we talked about Romeo and Juliet, but I'd like to talk about it again in the context of this new prompt. Since they are in the 9th grade, they will most likely have to read it, and since it's so popular, it would be great to teach with mixed media because there are so many adaptations. I'm a big fan of podcasts myself, and I usually listen to them on the drive to school or walking between classes. There's a podcast called Modern Love, run by the New York Times, which tells stories of relationships and identity in the modern day, especially with the impact of technology. I would choose a clip from the podcast and have students write about how if they think the definition of love has changed in society over time. Also, I would have them think about the difficulties of a relationship back in Shakespeare's time versus now. I would want them to think about the reasons why people keep reading Romeo and Juliet, hundreds of years after it was written. As for including technology, I would show them different clips from movies that have adapted the Romeo and Juliet love story, such as West Side Story and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. There's even a current pop singer who included the entire prologue in the first song of her album. What does it mean for a story to be immortal, and why do people keep recreating this story that almost everyone knows?
Stephanie Doyle
10/27/2017 06:45:06 pm
Sorry I'm so late this this discussion board its been one heck of a week!
Cayla Marks
10/29/2017 02:06:07 pm
Summary of the Discussion
Kasey Pelletier
10/29/2017 08:36:26 pm
The media segments seemed to be a hit with most every student. In terms of which ones to teach, a few saw the importance in teaching all of them including Alexandra, Amelia and myself. Others chose to focus on a select few, a popular text being “Is Your Dad Single?” chosen by Amy, Jess and Dan. Aside from text choices, there was also the reasons why people took to these texts so much which all seemed to revolve around the relatability of the experiences they showed. Alexandra mentioned the universal feeling of hardships bringing us down, Jess discussed parents causing their children to rebel whereas Laura talked about children trying to find identity. It seems that these would be good fits in classrooms since all of us listening saw how much it would relate to students and could foster connections in the classroom.
Gabrielle Rosson
10/31/2017 03:34:39 pm
The media provided could easily be pared with any of the books we have been reading. I think Carnival would be an easy choice, especially if paired with the Moth series. More than easy (logical even,) what is neat about these narratives is they provide the perfect set up to prep students to write their own narratives. I, personally, like the idea of having kids read the book, then watch the media, then work in groups and alone to script out their own stories. In this sense they can see the common threads or Themes in adolescence. In many ways this could provide some comfort to kids who may feel isolated in their experiences--I mean isn't that the case for most teens? They always feel like they are the ONLY ones to go through hardship? And isn't that at least One reason we expose them to literature--to show them that the human experience is universal (and at the very least to incite compassion for those people and experiences we haven't had or are yet to have?) I think I would also somehow incorporate music as sort of the the third leg as some of my classmates have suggested they would. I think I will always strive to use music because it is one of my personal passions and I know its therapeutic powers. So, for example, I might ask students to write a paper but then also ask them to tie a song into their work, either as part of a quote or as part of a presentation. I would also then ask them why they used the song they did, how it supported their work and/or their take-away. I think over-all the book Carnival when paired with these media pieces provides an excellent opportunity to inspire kids to reflect on themselves and make connections between their world and the world of fiction.
Greg Arthur
11/5/2017 05:26:12 pm
I think in this case, I would pair “Girl” with “The Secret Letter” because both are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum for women’s rights. “Girl” presents the intense societal pressures that girls face when growing up and then “The Secret Letter” presents just how far women have come as well as the LGBTQ community. I think that the way in which to teach this is to first present “Girl”, have students write about it, write down the major points and discuss how this shows a reality all women face. Then transition into “The Secret Letter”, because it is always good to present the bad news before the good news. I feel that these two sources compliment each other nicely and would allow for some harsh themes to be discussed in a classroom setting comfortabley. Leave a Reply. |
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