Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant…Digital Media Project

Video Clip Assignment

Convince Me: Bloodhounds Good or Bad?

After looking at the Breed All About It: Bloodhounds, you and a partner are going to create a powerpoint presentation on whether I should or should not adopt a bloodhound puppy.  You should refer back to the notes I gave you on persuasive essays and Johnathan Swifts’ A Modest Proposal to get ideas on how he uses the elements of persuasion in his argument so that you can make a powerful argument. 

Task #1:

You and your partner are to research Bloodhounds and their history of the breed. I will be checking out the mobile lap top classroom, so that you will have class time to research Bloodhounds.

In your research, you should be gathering information from Primary and Secondary sources. Please refer back to the notes I gave you last week on Primary resources and Secondary resources. You must have at least two of each to make a creditable argument. Please keep track of your research elements on your delicious accounts, so that you can continue to work on this outside of class.  Each pieces of research you use, you must keep a source card for it. A source card is an index card that has your source in MLA format. (See MLA Format Guide) Make note that you need to number your source cards. I will be collecting your source cards, so please keep track of them. Thanks!

Next you are to make note cards. (which are cards that have the information from your source that you plan to use in your script). Make sure that your note card number matches the number on the source card that it came from.  I will also be collecting these cards, so again, please keep track of them.

Task # 2:

Start thinking about your script. Make an outline of your argument. I will be giving you a graphic organizer to help guide your outline, so that you present a clear and effective argument.

I will be collecting your outline, so that I can see that you are on the right track.

After you receive my feedback on your outline, you and your partner will write your script. Again, I will be checking out the lap top classroom for you to work on it in class. Be sure to bring your jump drives, so that in case you don’t finish you can work on it at home.  I will be collecting your rough drafts and giving you feedback a week before your project is due, so that you have time to make necessary changes.  Then you will write your final draft and turn it into me.

Task # 3

You will create your powerpoint presentation. In your presentation, feel free to use images, video, and quotes. Remember you are making an argument so in order for me to see your side you need to show me what your point of view is. I should not see your script in your powerpoint. Please refer back to the notes I gave you on effective presentations.  You may put bullet points on your slides if that helps you and your partner stay on track with your presentation. Again, this does not mean read from your slides; it means elaborate on what each bullet point is addressing.

Timeline:

March 24: Source Cards are due

March 30: Note Cards are due

April 7: Outline is due

April 13: Rough Draft is due

April 20: Final Draft due.

April 27 & 28: Presentations

Your group will draw out of a hat on April 20th to see what order you are presenting.

Resources:

zamzar.com This is a helpful website for converting video into a file that you can save onto your computer or jump drive.

delicious.com This is a helpful tool in saving and organizing your research.

noodletools.com This site will help for MLA Formating and siting your sources.

youtube.com This site is a great resource to find additional videos about your topic.

wordpress.com This is a great site to find professional blogs that can help with your argument.

Galileo This can be found on the school website. This is a database to find online journals and articles.

Rubric: Powerpoint Presentation

30% Content: You use images, video, quotes, etc… effectively.

30% Creativity: You use video, quotes, images, and the set up of your slides to best support your arugment.

30% Clarity: You clearly state what you are for and use evidence to support your argument.

10% Presentation: You did not read directly from your slides. You and your partner have a clear understanding of what you are arguing and engaged your audience.

Rubric Script:

30% Content You include the elements of a peruasive essay. You make a valid argument using research.

30% Creativity  You include examples/ stories to back up your argument.

30% Clairity You make a clear and effective argument using research and stories.

10% Mechanics You use MLA Format effectively and had the minimum requirement for resources including primary and secondary resources.

Peer Review 25%

Total: 225 pts

 What I want the Students to learn:

In this assignment, I am directing it to a 12th grade British Literature Classroom.  I want them to create a persuasive essay using Johnathan Swifts’ A Modes Proposal as a reference for a good persuasive argument.  I used this video clip as a guide for them to start thinking about certain aspects of persuasion. I want them to use media inside a research assignment, so that they can have practice using the media.  I would like for them to gather facts and stories from primary and secondary sources, so that one, they know the difference between a primary source and a secondary source, and two, it shows me that they understand to make a valid argument you need research to support your argument.

I want them to have plenty of practice using MLA Format and citing their sources. Also, I know that most senior English classes in the metro-Atlanta area do Senior Project which requires students to present a topic using, research, a product, and presentation with powerpoint, movie maker, or some other form of media. This assignment would help them feel prepared for the Senior Boards. 

Questions as a Teacher:

Do you remember last week when we read Johnathan Swifts’ A Modest Proposal?

What aspects does he use to support his argument?

Does he use rhetoric? Does he use current issues?

Does he use personal narrative?

What about his proposal makes his argument powerful?

Examples of Good Persuasive Arguments:

Martin Luther Kings “I have a Dream Speech”, and his letter to the Birmingham Jail.

Barrack O’bama’s campaign speeches.

Examples of Hypotheticals:

If you wanted a raise in your allowance and your parents are against it, how would you go about convincing them you deserve, need, or have to have a raise? What evidence would you use to support it?

Problems I might encounter:

I might run into challenges like their wont be enough class time to cover this assignment at the end of the year because of Senior Project and all that it entails. I also might run into not being able to check out the lap top classroom for the days that I need it. I might not even have that available, so I would have to think of another way students could research and present their arguments. I might not be able to pull up YouTube in the classroom because the school system will have blocked the site, so I will have to be resourceful and get the clip from my home computer and convert it to a computer file, save it on my jump drive, and bring it into class. I need to take into account that not all students will have computers at home or internet, and that some students may not be able to afford a jump drive. I just need to keep in mind alternatives to this project because technology is always changing and students may not be able to access all of these resources.

Georgia Performance Standards (That go with this assignment):

ELABLRL1 The student demonstrates comprehension by identifying evidence (i.e., examples of diction, imagery, point of view, figurative language, symbolism, plot events, main ideas, and characteristics) in a variety of texts representative of different genres (i.e., poetry, prose [short story, novel, essay, editorial, biography], and drama) and using this evidence as the basis for interpretation.

ELABLRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of British and/or Commonwealth literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding. 

 

ELABLRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

ELABLRL4 The student employs a variety of writing genres to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of significant ideas in selected literary works. The student composes essays, narratives, poems, or technical documents.

ELABLRL5 The student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it correctly in reading and writing.

 

 

 

Are you spreading Meme’s?

Have you ever told someone something and then by the end of the day that one thing you said has spread all over school or work, but almost always is something completely different that what you orginally said? A meme is just like a rumor in the sense that it spreads like wild fire and pokes fun at someone or idea using technology to do the spreading. For instance, John Fitzgerald from Atlanta, GA was apart of match.com now has a meme dedicated to him based off a email he responded to with a girl who “winked” at him on this dating site.  If you go to his page, you find a section called merchandise that he is promoting off this meme that was created for him. These pieces of merchandise are the memes. This photo is a shirt that you can purchase on his website, so in this case, the internet is not the only thing spreading this meme around. Meme’s can be spread by word of mouth just like a rumor.  However, not all memes are meant to poke fun at someone or idea but made simply for humor. If you check out sites like Lolcats or faildogs these are memes that are used to be playful and for fun.  

Memes are important in education because they are a way of connecting information that is out there now and barging in on us whether we want them to or not. The more information that you, as a teacher, bring to the classroom the more you can get your students interested, focused, and aware of what you are wanting them to take away from the lesson. For instance, you can use memes to talk about issues in Shakespeare or some other form of literature or history. Memes maybe like a virus to the human mind, but just as Richard Brodie said they are an epidemic that is affecting us now and growing more and more efficient at their job as the years progress. So why not embrace them for what they are and use them for the greater good?

School Teachers are just cogs in a machine

  More and more this metaphor for the roles of teachers, administrators, parents, and students is proving true. Education today is like its new form of technology. It is constantly changing and evolving to “change” or “improve” the efficiency and knowledge of the upcoming generations. I feel like implementing excessive standardize testing is hindering teachers, administrators, parents, and students to have a formulaic strategy to teaching and learning. Students don’t feel the need to go out and figure out information when they know their teachers are going to fill in all the gaps in order for the teacher to have her students do well on standardize testing. Teachers are teaching for the test and not to shape and guide students to become life long learners. The administration is focused on how much funding the school will get for the following year which is based off how well the students do on the standardize testing. Parents are so emerged in how high of a grade or score their student makes because that says something about their child’s worth in a fast paced and ever changing society that is focused around new and evolving technology.  Therefore school teachers have no other choice but to join the rat race of gaining more money and teach for a test if they are going to be evaluated based off how well a student performs. In Georgia, govenor Sonny Perdue is trying to pass a law stating that teachers pay will be based off of how well their students perform on standardize tests. This is only hindering the real learning that should be taking place in the classroom and reinforces the statement that teachers are like a cog in a machine.

It is getting harder for teachers to keep their raw and passionate drive to teach like a first year teacher because once new teachers are thrown into this hierarchical power hungry business called “free” education they begin to lose that sense of purpose. Standardize Testing and the thurst of more money in education is driving our houses of public knowledge to a halt. Parents want to blame the teachers, teachers want to blame the administration, the administration wants to blame the government, and the cycle will continue if we as future educators don’t step in to do the job we are being trained for. This job isn’t to change the way this system operates or get rid of standardize testing because lets be honest the system will continue to be disfuctional and the testing will never go away, so lets learn to work around it and improve the learning for our students. This generation of teachers are here to work through any struggle that we are thrown and jump through all the hoops to keep our job, but only to keep doing what we love to do, and that is to make a difference and facilitate real learning. 

 We are not alone. There are some teachers out there fighting to make a difference. These days our society is so focused on how much money you make and how well you succeed in this evolving business society that they look down to those who are called or compelled to teach, as if our profession is “the easy way out,” or that we aren’t “qualifed” to do anything else. I believe what Taylor Mali says about what teachers make. Teaching, I believe, is a noble and rewarding career, and like many other professions, this job is not about the money, but the hope to make a difference. For me, that is enough.

Self/Peer Evaluation for Wikipedia Project

This project has stretched my technology skills, and I am proud to say that I have accomplished posting an article to wikipedia.  I researched how writing assessments are used in school systems across the United States and how feather circles, or writing circles, contribute to the success of these writing assessments. I learned different ways to research, like social bookmarking, using advanced search on google, and even searching through blog posts and organizations online.  I learned how to use html text when my group posted the article to wikipedia. I learned how to site my sources with in the article and make a reference list. Also, I learned how to embed links inside the text of the article on wikipedia. I completely underestimated this project from the beginning. I did not think learning how to use wikipedia would be as difficult as it was, but after I learned how to write the article and site my sources, I feel that I want to contribute more beyond this project. I think that it is cool that anyone can contribute bits and pieces of our global history and more to one site. It is a place that we can all connect and relate to.

I feel that our group divided up and collaborated well together. We did have difficulty all getting together at the same time to work on the project, but when we subdivided into two groups and researched in pairs and wrote our part of the article in pairs and then got together to collaboratively post our information online, I feel that it was a collaborative effort even though we did split up the project some. Everyone had a job. I was the coordinator of the group meaning I emailed and updated everyone to how the project was coming along, and I also made the pages on our wikispace account. I also wrote the Progress Report for the group but we discussed what to put in the progress report in a group meeting. I worked with Kristie Kannaley on researching writing assessments in the classroom and what feather circles were, and we wrote our pre-entry and final entry posts together. Krisite and I also posted the final product to wikipedia. Haocheng Liao and Laurel Goldberg researched how feather circles are used in the classroom and different types of feather circles. They also worked together to write their pre-entry and post entry posts. Haocheng was in charge of doing the screenshots for the project, and Laurel was in charge of doing the process summary for the group.

Social Bookmarking Response to Chapter 6

I really like the idea of social bookmarking. I think this is a wonderful tool to use as an individual, student, teacher, or any other profession. Social Bookmarking is a great tool to use with organizing, saving, and sharing research on any given topic. For instance, in my writing class I have to do a multi-genre research paper, I have a great opportunity to organize the research I find on the web and make tags so that I know what each link is. Also, I can share this link with other bookmarkers who need the same information. One site is diigo.com , and it is a great site for this. You can not only search other tags and find information, but once you tag information you need or want, you can find out others who have saved the same information and can subscribe to their RSS feeds. Social Bookmarking is taking education to a whole new level of learning.

In the classroom, I would use social bookmarking to organize information about subjects that my students are learning in the class. I would have my students create their own diigo account or Google Reader account so that they can be in charge of what they tag and subscribe to, but I will still have access to their sites and can still monitor what they are doing. What is so fantastic about this is that I can set all the information to private, or I can share the information. But for a classroom sake and for my job’s sake, I would have all the students set their tags to private so that way they have control over who is sharing their information. Social Networking is also a great way for you to give good sites to look at if your students are doing research papers. They can go to the site and click on the tag and go to a load of good sites with annotations from the author of the tags and notes they may have on the site.

Social Bookmarking is a great tool to use in the professional arena.  It allows you to share good articles, research, news, updates, and so much more with your collegues. It allows you to connect with others in the profession who share the same interests as you, and opens the door for collaborating together. I think that this is such a good source for educators because it motivates teachers to follow up on what is going on with education outside their own school, it allows educators to collaborate with one another, it allows educators to share good articles and research about a particular topic in education, and it allows educators to stay updated with what is current as far as curriculum and technology. On top of all of that, it allows teachers another avenue for support.

I am so excited about using social bookmarking not only in my teaching career and with my students, but I am also excited using it in my personal life and while I am still a student.  Also, if you are hesitant to use public social bookmarking sites, there are others that are private and specifically meant for education.

Crossing the Line Social Networking Sites in the Classroom

Social Networking in the professional arena has been the latest topic of controversy especially in the field of education. There have been several reports around the country of many teachers losing their jobs because of photos of them posted on Facebook or Myspace. As a future educator, I want to expand on this topic a little. I have grown up in the technology era and I have been apart of social networking sites since I was old enough to use a computer, and I think that some of the fear of technology simply comes from never using it. Now I am not saying that having a picture of you and your best friend doing shots on a friday night at a bar is appropriate for you to blast across your facebook page because, lets be honest, the last message you want to send to your students is that this is ok. It is always about maintaining the fine line of personal and professionism online.

The greatest thing about social networking sites is that you can connect with others. For instance, if you are online, and lets say you do friend your students, a student IMs you because they have a question about the homework, you are in a great position to help them. It is crucial that you keep that professionalism at all times while being online and communicating not just with your students but also your collegues. Now if you are just too weary about walking that fine line but you still would like to collaborate with others and use the social networking sites as a tool for teaching, then you have many available options that allow you to be in a community of educators which provides wonderful support. One of these sites other than facebook, myspace, and twitter is a site called Ning. Now you Educators listen up! This site is dedicated to educators alone. Meaning that this site is a meeting place of many educators using the site to collaborate, give advice, suggestion on curriculum etc… It is a purely professional social networking site. I really encourage those who want to become apart of a community of educators to go to this site and take a look at what it has to offer.

One thing to keep in mind about social networking with your students is that you may run across information that you don’t want to know. For instance, lets say you are friends with a student on facebook and you get an email from him saying that he is out sick the day you have an exam and you agree to let that student make it up when they come back to school. Later on that day, you happen to come across on your newsfeed pictures that the student posted on his page of him skipping school with his friend. Now do you talk to him/her about that? How would you grade his test knowing he/she wasn’t sick? These are things to consider about allowing your students to friend you on any social networking site.

I plan on incorporating many forms of technology in my classroom. I may not use Facebook or Myspace, but I plan on having a wikispace account to have a virtual classroom. This site is a good one to use to online collaborate with students and parents. These sites are easily accessed and are public sites. You can create a widget chat room that allows you to IM with your students and parents. This is a good site to set a forum of discussion about a class lesson or book. I would love to use Good Reads which can be used to discuss books, and its a great way to see what kinds of things your students are interested in reading.  Twitter is a good source to use to help students create small writing. For instance, you can ask them to post what they liked about a particular lesson, chapter, character, etc… by posting a comment on Twitter that has to be 140 characters or less. This teaches them how to use their words wisely making sure they get a detailed and informative comment across.

William Cullen Bryant – Topic for the Digital Media Project

I want to create an analysis of Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant. The reason I am chosing this poem is because this is a poem that I know 11th grade students have to read, and it is a poem that I struggled to understand when I had to learn it. Once I grasped the meaning behind the symbolism I thought what a beautiful way to talk about death.  I also wanted to create a project that I could potentially use in my classroom.

I first want to look at some background information about the author, and give them some historical information about the time period his work was written. After that, I would launch into the analysis of the poem. I want to use images, along with voice over that would help students see different segments of the text so that they will grasp the complex meaning behind the symbolism.

I want to take and pick apart segment by segment of the poem to give multiple examples of what the author could be saying in that particular segment (everyone gathers different meanings from the same text) of the poem and how that segment relates to the overall concept of death.

I think that this project will allow me to further my own interpretation of the poem and help me to guide my students through the process of analyzing poetry.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins has opened my eyes to a world that could vary easily be in the near future. It carries the theme of other popular novels such as 1984, Farenheight 451, and Little Brother. It shows the harsh reality of living in a world that is overpowered by the “capital” or governemnt, and how one individual can change the complete course of the future by defying what  that institution stands for.

If I were to teach this book in my classroom, I would take a hands-on approach. I would split the class into groups, randomly, and then, I would give each group different situations that they must overcome to save their group. I would give restrictions on how they must save their group, but I would really be looking for  the group(s) who decided to throw away the set rules and opted to save the class instead. This would be a great way to get the students thinking critically about the text, and not only about the text, but their moral and behavioral response to the situation. I would then create some discussion questions that I would have the groups analze and present to the class so that the entire class can discuss things like poverty,  the idea of “too” much government, artifical love, sacrifice, and survival.

I think this is an awesome book to bring into the classroom. It would open up some great discussions that otherwise would not be brought up in a classroom. This book would be great with 9-10th grade students because the curriculum is more flexible with a themed semester. I can not wait to bring this into my classroom even if I never get to teach it, I will recommend it to my students and always keep a few copies available for my students to check out.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

When I was reading the first few pages of this book, I initially thought “great its about technology.” I am more of the young adult romance sort of a girl, and I am horrible getting around day to day with any sort of technology. I have to say though this book is amazing, and I am not just saying that because I want my teacher to be really impressed that I loved the book but because it truly is a great book. The first few pages is all it takes and the next thing you know you will be reading all night.

I love how the author used a terrorist attack to infold in this story about teenage rebellion. It really draws in the reader because one, the issues are/could be current, and two, the reader is getting blamed for something they did not do which everyone at some point, can relate too. I learned so much about technology that it amazes me and scares me at the same time.

I was not aware before that people can so easily hack into your system and retrieve vital information from you without you even knowing, and on top of that, even if you knew someone was stealing your information, there is little you can do to find out who it is. I had no idea about encrypting text and that the government could have a camera on you at any given moment and you would have no notion that you were being watched.

For the English Teachers out there, this is a great source to generate discussion about technology in your classrooms. The book delves into the question about how to use technology in the classroom and how much should students be allowed to do with technology and the internet as far as the classroom goes. It also generates topics about this misuse of technology and is technology a good or bad tool for our society to have. Also, in what ways do see technology in our future, is helping humanity or hindering humanity?

I really love this book because I felt engaged in the book. I actually had questions that I could discuss with someone else about the use of technology and where it fits in my classroom. I feel that students will be interested in the story line as well as learning about how to use technology.