“So what is your paper about?” I ask the student
writer next to me, gripping two freshly sharpened pencils in my left hand.
He starts to tell me, and I’m listening carefully until
his words trail off suddenly. He meets my gaze with a sheepish grin. Instinctively,
the student’s fingers reach out for the pages of his paper and he searches its
contents in order to remind himself of what he’s forgetting.
This is a bad sign—something that I’ve seen so many
times already here at my job in the Writing Center. It’s surprising how
frequently students stop in for help with their assignments yet cannot even
recall what they’ve written. But I know how to finish out this tutorial because
I have experience from when it has happened before.
After he finishes informing me about his topic, I turn
the paper over and begin asking him some open-ended questions. My objective now
is to get him to start really considering his opinion on his subject so that we
can write a thesis together that he will never forget. As he tentatively answers
my inquiries, I take notes on our discussion on the back of the paper.
For some reason, the pressure of formality in academic
writing often causes students to forget they have a voice. However, Hobbs states,
“through blogging, students discover their voices in ways that support academic
achievement” (50). She spends an entire chapter of her book illustrating how an
innovative approach to academic writing and media helps students develop a
position, defend a point of view, gain confidence, and ultimately strengthen
communication skills (48).
At my work, tutors engage writers in conversations
about their writing. The goal is to have descriptive
dialogues with the students rather than prescriptive
lecturing. I do this by asking open-ended questions just as Hobbs suggests in
her chapter about critical questions. In fact, my boss consistently reminds us never
to ask a question we already know the answer to. These would be the type of closed
questions Hobbs warns teachers against on page 54.
As a teacher, I don’t want to stifle my students with
fears of formal rules and restrictions to the point that they abandon their own
voices and struggle to remember their topics. Instead, I think we can excite
our students by utilizing applicable media in our instruction and assignments.
Possibly the greatest benefit of incorporating media
and technology into our teaching is that we can foster students’ voices by
prompting them to analyze and evaluate texts relevant to them—current events, music
videos, and visual art like that currently on display in the Heroes and
Monsters exhibit at the MOA. Not only will students be enthusiastic about the
contemporary subject material, but they will also be intrigued when we tell
them that there is no longer one right
answer. Analysis opens the door for a multiplicity of impressions and
opinions, so long as our students are learning to develop positions and defend
their points of view. We can encourage all of this by guiding them to seek
answers to critical questions, like the examples Hobbs provides.
When I was drawn to various pieces of art at the MOA
exhibit—Self-Portrait as St. Teresa, Snowy, and Untitled (Pink Robot), to name a few—I forced myself to practice
critical analysis and go beyond the usual, unsupported thumbs-up “I like this”
that Facebook has ingrained in me. With some deliberation, I found myself
analyzing specific portions of the artwork or questioning the author’s message.
I developed an idea for a lesson based upon the sample
discussion of TIME magazine photos of
Dr. Martin Luther King from chapter 4 of Hobbs’ book and the pictures of
students’ personal spaces posted on Flickr from Seeing & Writing. After showing these four student images from
the Flickr portfolio to my class, I would ask students to come to the next
class period with their own photo of their “space.”
When we meet for class again, I would collect the
students’ images and shuffle them, dealing them out to new recipients. Giving
the students some time to view and analyze their peers’ pictures, I would ask
them to answer questions modified from the ones Hobbs poses, in my own version
of a media literacy remote control:
- Rewind: Who produced this image and when? How does its prior context affect its message?
- Fast Forward: How might future audiences interpret this message? How does it impact viewers?
- Pause: What details grab your attention, cause you to pause, and look more carefully?
- Stop: What about the image makes you stop and ask questions?
- Record: What’s valuable and should be saved for remembering later?
After some time, we would begin a class discussion
about the images and the students’ impressions. I would ask many follow-up,
critical questions, encouraging students to elaborate and provide evidence for
their answers. As a class, we will respond to the images together and hear from
the original authors about the choices they made. If interpretations vary from
student to student, we can talk about why that is. Ultimately, the idea is to
lean on Hobbs’ counsel that “sharing interpretations leads to the development
of new ideas” (65). At the end of class, students can write short reflections
about the new ideas they have about media, sparked by the class discussion and their
own critical questions.
Though this lesson isn’t directly related to theatre
or English, I believe it’s important for students to practice 21st-century
skills. It could even be tailored to depicting the “spaces” of dramatic
characters or designing photo images that capture the moods and messages of a play’s
setting.
Ultimately, my intention is to get students to “invest
something of themselves” (63) into their academic work, instead of feeling
bogged down by their previous impressions of what academic writing or
assignments have to look like. I’ll accomplish this by composing critical
questions that drive my students to feel passionate about their viewpoints and
reasoning.
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