I’m not sure exactly where I stand on our role as educators
in the creation process. As an English teacher, I’m responsible to teach my
students how to create effective pieces of writing. However, I believe that
allowing students to create in ways besides writing can help the writing
process, it’s all a matter of the amount of time I have. I admire Mr. Peterson,
from the Hobbs reading, for taking the time to teach students how to make
videos on meaningful, subject-related topics. However, I don’t know if I’d want
to invest the class time that he did in my own classroom for such a project. If
students already know how to make a video and want to for a project that’s
great! But I don’t think I’d want to take the time to teach them. I think my
(for now) final thought on the matter is that yes—I do want to assign my
students project that challenge them to be creative. However, as an English
teacher it’s not my job to teach my students how to create big-scale media.
As far as the Seeing a Writing pieces go, I believe that
looking at photos are a great way to start discussions. I see myself using
photographs as part of my daily writing prompts. I could also see myself
analyzing them if I can find a way to connect them to the literature we’re
studying. For example, if we’re reading a WWII book, I could put the picture of
the marines raising the flag and we could have a discussion about the effect of
the photograph, how it relates to photos and images the characters in our book
might have seen, etc.
I also think that studying photos can be a good way to
develop critical thinking skills. Analyzing a photo can be very similar to
analyzing a piece of writing. Especially in an AP class, I could see myself
assigning students to analyze a photo or painting and write an AP-type essay
about it. This would be something that could shake-up the curriculum and give
students a break from just reading all day. It could also help some students
understand what thinking skills they should be using when analyzing writing.
The last thing I wanted to mention was one of issues Hobbs
raises about creating with students: challenging adult authority. This has been
a very interesting topic for me of late because I’m writing a research paper
about controversial YA literature. I think it’s important for students to
explore and learn about difficult topics. However, the choice about that ultimately
lies with the parent. I’m wondering what I would do if my students started
creating something that could possibly be controversial. I wouldn’t want to get
in trouble for letting them create it, but I see the value in them exploring
issues that they genuinely care about and are important to them. I think that
if I were in a situation like this, I would want to have a discussion with the student,
letting them know that they need to do the project on something else, but
explaining the reasons for this. I think it needs to be an honest conversation.
Then, I might possibly contact the student’s parents and let them know that the
student was exploring the issue. These are just my initial thoughts on the matter—I’m
not sure if this is exactly what I’d do. Does anyone else have any other
thoughts on the matter?
Lindsey, I really appreciated your honesty in pointing out the scruples with the idea of mounting the full scale production project. I felt the same way as I read the text. I saw how it was a good idea, but I too wondered how would I ever get that time? I think within a theatre classroom it might be more manageable than in the English classroom, but you'd have to spend a good chunk of time on it in order to get quality results, and there are many other learning activities that could be done in that timeframe. I think there's a time and a place for things like that, and perhaps it's a good think to remember if we're ever stuck on how to teach a topic.
ReplyDeleteLikewise I was concerned about how Hobbs brought up that challenge of students creating "inappropriate" material, because she brought up the challenge but didn't give suggestions on how to deal with it. Some of my initial thoughts on that were having student interviews before and after the project where they could pitch their ideas to you before they create the piece, and then after they've written the story or play, etc you can have a discussion with them on what their piece means to them, what they hope the readers get out of it, and perhaps what their inspiration was.
As far as the Seeing and Writing stuff, I thought the concept of trying to capture memorable moments is worthwhile. In this process though, I do feel like some wise censorship is good. It was good to hear that in the Hobbs book too, that we are allowed to censor our students' work by law. In regards to this, I really loved how the teacher handled the ethical situation where the kids didn't know if they could fake the shot. I loved how he brought it to the class and turned it into a discussion, rather than just saying to the group a straight-up "yes or no." I think that's the best thing to do when you don't know what to do. I'm starting to figure that out. It's probably one of my biggest fears about teaching is that I'll get into a situation where I won't know what to do, or I won't be as versed in the pop-culture of the students, so I won't know how to relate to them, etc. But I love that answer, and I keep seeing it over and over again: just be honest. If you're honest about things the kids are more likely to trust you to be up front with them about the issues. It's when you go around pretending you know everything that they pick out the hypocrisy and you lose your respect.