Prie

I liked the activity towards the end of the reading, about how to incorporate drama after reading a novel. The article gave the example of using this activity when the novel is finished and the ending is open to interpretation, the class would select volunteers to go up and pretend to be the characters in the novel, and then the class discusses how they should act and what should happen. I think this would also be good in groups, you can stick with the theme of creating an epilogue, but each group could create their own. To take it s step further, the volunteers are not allowed to speak, other group members must narrate what is going on, and speak for the volunteers.

Kist

I really liked the Facebook lesson from the beginning of the chapter. What i thought was really great about it was that when the teachers commented, they didn't just say things like "good point", they played devils advocate. And what was really cool was that since these questions weren't being asked in class, so it gave the students more time to think of a response, or to do a little more research (since they were already on the internet) and can get more information on their own. I really liked that the teacher exposed them to extremist opinions as well, since when extremists of any kind come up in class its almost like a discussion at a safe distant, where as when they are commenting on your page, it closes the gap.

The one thing that i wasn't too sure of was the hybrid course. I think that would work with college students, but i didn't quite grasp how it would work in a high school setting. Do the students just not go to class? Was it in the morning so they can just come in late? I took college courses in high school, where the prof came to our classroom twice a week, so i was able to come in for second period on monday, wednesday, and friday, so that is the only way i can think of to make the Hybrid Course work.

Toddler Beauty Pageants

Today in my comp and rhetoric class, i watched a presentation on how beauty pageants are sexualizing young girls. This conclusion was drawn from the TLC television show Toddlers & Tiaras, and the costumes that mothers choose to dress their daughters in. Young girls can compete starting from a few months of age, where they are judged on beauty, costumes, and performance. Some of the things that these little girls go through to get ready for a pageant, that they do every weekend, i didn't go through to go to prom. They get false teeth made, spray tans, their eye brows waxed, make up, and hair extensions. One mother dressed her daughter up as the main characters from Pretty Woman, who is a prostitute. After establishing what these mothers put their little girls through, we had to ask why. Why does a little girl need to strut on stage as a premature sex symbol? What motives do the mother's have for doing this? Just google Toddlers & Tiaras and go through the images, and ask yourself these questions and see what answers, if any, that you can come up with.

Transcendentalism

In my American Lit class we are currently looking at the work of Emerson, with his ideas of Transcendentalism. It is very hard to describe exactly what transcendentalism is, but I'm going to share a few quotes from Emerson's works and I hope you're able to take your own meaning from them, and that you enjoy them as much as I do. :)

“Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright;

he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint

or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the

blowing rose. The roses under my window make no

references to former roses or to better ones; they are for

                what they are; they exist with God to-day” (Emerson)

           "Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are 

            unanswerable. We must trust the perfection in the creation 

            so far, as to believe that what ever curiosity the order of 

            things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can 

            satisfy."

Podcast Search

During the time given in class to explore podcasts, I have to admit that all of the podcasts I looked at were about books, and that they all seemed to have the same feel to them. They were almost like radio talk shows, just with out callers calling in to say their peace or change the subject. All of the podcasts I listened to had two hosts, who would talk about books, normally chapter by chapter. I found a great one on the Hunger Games, where these two people for the past couple years have read and made podcasts for every chapter in all four Hunger Games books. I read the Hunger Games series, and they were mentioning things that I either forgot, or missed all together. In the couple minutes that I listened to them I was able to hear their point of view, and compare it to what I remember feeling or thinking while reading. For example (spoiler alert) at the end of the last novel, Katniss is in seclusion and trying to figure out how to kill herself. These hosts pitied her, where as I remember being completely annoyed with her. They were able to show me a different perscpective on something I have already read. I think that is the value of podcasts, as opposed to blogs or papers, because you can take words written on paper and interpret them in your own way, as opposed to listening to the tone of someones voice, or the words they emphasize, or the way they studder when they try to figure out exactly what they are trying to say. It makes it much more personal, and I'm sure my personal podcast is going to have a lot of studdering too, so that made me feel a little better.

Kadjer Ch5

I really liked this chapter! I thought the comparisons between what would have happened if the students were simply writing compared to when they used Voicethread and created their own images was really beneficial. Despite her class being hesitant at first, they really got into not only their work, but the wrk of their other classmates as well. This was reinforced on page 76, at the bottom, where it discusses how this activity developed their classroom community. She did this by, after creating and composing their own work, the class had to draw three people at random to give feed back to. Not letting them pick who they were going to give feedback to was a good way to get them to listen to people's work that they might not have done on their own. For the students who are not comfortable sharing their work in front of the class, the spotlight was on their work, and not so much them.
When I think of students using technology or computers in the classroom, I think of them as working alone. This activity did both encourage personal development and identity, as well as team work. One student kept going back to his Voicethread to look for more comments left by his peers, which is something that would not have happened if they just handed in a paper. I felt this activity took students out of their comfort zone (with using a device they have never experienced before and sharing with people who they might be nervous to share their work with) but it didn't put anyone so far out of their comfort zone that they would shut down from the activity. This was one activity that had me completely convinced from start to finish.

"Guido"

For my Comp and Rhet class, I have to do an Individual Analysis to show how rhetoric has an affect on everything around us. I decided I wanted to do mine on the word "Guido".The Jersey Shore cast calls themselves “Guidos” and “Guidettes”, and being from Eastern Pa, I have the luxury of taking day trips to the Jersey Shore in the summer, and have never heard of a “Guido” or “Guidette” – “Guidette” is the femal counter part to the “Guido” -until this show came out. Since the show came out, it seems like thousands of "Guidos" and "Guidettes" have popped out of the woodwork, so I decided to see where this term came from, and what it actually means.

Originally, the term “Guido” was referred to lower class or working Italian Americans. Over time this became a derogatory term for all Italian Americans. It became a synonym for words like “Guappo”, “Dago”, and “Guinea”.Recently, “Guido” has steered away from disrespecting a person’s roots, and has started describing a person who carries himself or herself in a certain way. Sources date this change in meaning back in the 1970-1980s range, but no one is certain of when it happened. Coincidentally enough, the entire Jersey Shore cast was born in the 1980’s, so this could very possibly be the first generation of “Guidos” that reflects a particular lifestyle. The term actually lost all of its connections to the Italian heritage. A few member of the Jersey Shore cast, who call themselves “Guidos” or “Guidettes”, are not even Italian, which could be the ultimate proof that the term is no longer a reflection of Italian immigrants.
  

  This lifestyle has been endorsed and defined by the Jersey Shore cast in front of millions of viewers. It is believed that the new meaning of “Guido” is a person who carries themselves in an over macho manner. This macho manner does not exclude the women either; they make it perfectly clear that they are "tough" or "bitches".It is apparent that this term has had a complete change in meaning. From being a synonym to words like “Guappo”, whose intent it was to offend, to being endorsed and encouraged by a cast of people on a “reality” television show. The funny thing is that since the show, the term has created a new negative meaning for itself. People make fun of "Guidos" because of the Jersey Shore cast. So maybe it's safe to say the word has evolved in meaning, but not in reputation.

 

weblogg-ed.com

This blog was written from the perspective of an educator, and a parent, which I found to be very interesting. The post inparticular that I read (and all of the comments that followed), was titled And What Do YOU Mean By Learning?. The first part talks about how this man's daughter, Tess, joined her school's track team, and the coach is making her do the high jump, and she is terrible at it but she wants to be better. Tess wants to high jump, and failing at it is apart of her learning process because she is so driven to get it right. She is used to playing team sports, but the high jump is different because she can't rely on her team to make her jump higher. Her sucess is strictly dependent on her.

The second part of this blog is about school and things he has seen in his classroom. Like Tess trying to high jump, a student's success is directly effected by how hard they try, and that is an extension of how interested they are, or how much they want to learn about a subject. This blog then goes into asking how we can find out what our students are passionate about so they are more driven to learn. It discusses that college is not for everyone, and I have to agree. Niether of my parent went to college, because it wasn't for them, but we can (thankfully) live comfortably. If more students are able to find something they're passionate about at a younger age, would they be able to take classes that high school be more meaningful to them? Would my parents have liked school better and found a major in a University somewhere that was for them? My father is a retried cop, who just passed high school, but passed the police academy exams and eventually the Sergants exams just fine.

This blog asked other educators how we can make school more personalized and meaningful so our students want to be there, and they want to learn. One educator suggested that this answer lies with our k-8 teachers, who should be able to unvail student passions at an earlier age, that way when high school comes around the classes they are taking plays directly into their interests and futures so they dont have to experiment with classes to see what they like with only 4 years until they graduate into the real world, or continue on experimenting with 4 more years of (pricey) schooling. When I came to Slippery Rock for orientation I was told that the average SRU student changes majors 3 times. Would we be able to lessen this number if teaching was more personalized in grade school?

Marilyn Monroe?

Today in my Comp and Rhet class, a classmate did a presentation on the Marilyn Monroe quotes that seem to be blowing up on social networking sites. Most of these quotes have a picture of her as the background and the quote normally speaks on the behalf of women. Well, today this student revealed to us that during her research she found that Marilyn Monroe didn't say half of the quotes that some of these internet icons are giving her credit for. None of the above quotes (click on the links) are hers. One of "her" heavily used quotes, " Well behaved women rarely make history", was actually said by a Harvard Professor, someone just decided it would be more influential if Marilyn's name was tacked on to the end.

In class, when we were showed real Marilyn quotes, the class did ask how the presenter knew which were real, and which were fake. She said that the real quote have video or sound documentation of her speaking them, where as most of the others do not, and if they do they can be traced back to other people. Here is a real Marilyn Monroe quote, which i think is pretty ironic.

“Please don’t make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one… I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity… If fame goes by, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.”

Are we making Marilyn look like a joke by tacking her name on to things other people have said? If she was alive, would she agree with them, or are we insulting her point of view?

"Tall" Question.

The text discussion in Kist's chapter 3 from page 50 leading up to the questions on page 51 are about plagiarism, copy rights, and what "fair use" is.  The reason teachers limit new media applications is because of the fear of plagiarism. One of the questions asks if we feel that using texts that others have written on the web belong to everyone and that everyone should be able to use it to create their own hybrid text. The question asked if we agree or disagree. Well I think I both agree and disagree. It depends on what your using this information for, because technically showing a youtube clip is taking someone else's work to give our lessons more context, so that would be one way you are taking something that is on the web, because everyone owns it. So agreeing with the statement that everyone can alter and use the information on the web raises the problem of credibility, simply because everyone can take this information and alter it or change it, so how credible is it? This is usually why teacher limit what their students can use on the internet for their research, but why can't it be good for discussion? If this is how our students communicate and learn outside of the class room, why can't it help them learn inside the classroom?

Now for the disagreeing part. If students are handing in research or something graded, then yes, they should cite or give reference to where their ideas generated from because they didn't create the information. But they did create the thoughts that someone else's work generated, so if they can show where their thinking was when they first read the article or information, and the procession to how they have come to their own conclusion or thoughts, I think that is the learning process. They are learning information, and developing their own ideas so they're also learning about themselves. The point of the web is to share ideas, thoughts and information with one another, and our students are already doing that on their own time. I think if we take these skills they seem to be born with, along with the help of guide lines, and put them into the classroom they will be able to excel and respect the original thoughts and copy rights of other creators.

YOLO vs Carpe Diem

In my Comp and Rhetoric class today, we watched a student put on a presentation about YOLO. The question was raise, "Has YOLO replaced Carpe Diem?" Carpe Diem, which is usually known to mean "cease the day", is usually a positive saying encouraging people to do something meaningful today, because tomorrow is never promised. We discussed that YOLO, meaning "You only live once", could be the carpe diem of our generation. However,  actor Jack Black tweeted, "YOLO is the 'Carpe Diem' for stupid people." The more we discussed the more we started to see Jack Black's side. We discussed in class that YOLO is normally a justification for doing something stupid, which is actually the complete opposite meaning of Carpe Diem. I thought that was very interesting, and if your not sure how you feel about YOLO, take a glance at your Facebook newsfeed, or the Twitter hashtag for YOLO and make your own decision. I think I'm with Jack Black on this one.

Extending the Conversation

I found this article really interesting, and enlightening. The article said that it is believed that all of these advances in technology are actually changing the way we think. It obvious that it's changing how we look for or use information, but can it actually alter the way our brains process information? I took a while to think about this, and I think I agree. Like we've discussed in class, when were on the internet whether were looking for information or just browsing, nothing we do is perfectly linear. There are always so many links and options for information literally flashing in front of us. I know that when I'm casually on Facebook and I see something that interests me, I can create a new tab (so I don't loose my spot down my newsfeed, how sad) and then get to that when I'm ready. My thoughts don't have to be linear when I'm on the internet, because I have ways of saving where I am, and then coming back when  I'm ready.. so does this mean I think in "tabs"? Are my thoughts as un-linear as my internet searches? We've discussed how the generation after ours is great at multitasking because they can use their phones, computers, Ipods, and watch tv all at the same time, which in order to follow those things all at once your thinking and thought process couldn't be linear. If it was you would have to finish your texting conversations before you went on Facebook, then listen to your Ipod, and then tune into your show. But somehow these kids are able to give each item their undivided attention, at the same time. Maybe students find school boring, simply because their minds are so capable of a lot of information and action all at once. The idea of multimodal literacies would most definitely be a benefit to them!

Why Tweens Hate School

I loved this article, I thought the statistics it provided were great, and astounding. The diagram 1.1 was really interesting and showed the rapid progression of technology that I experienced over the course of my lifetime. Alvin Toffler's Wave Theory was interesting too, because after seeing how quickly we have progressed in the last 10 years it does seem to only take months at a time for some new fad to take off. However, after finishing it I find myself having mixed feelings about my own opinion on how much technology is too much, and if it all has a purpose in our classrooms.

The pretend lesson the author created with avatar's was incredible. I think students would be really into doing something like that, learning wouldn't even feel like learning, and most students have access to the internet at home so it wouldn't be a problem. I understand that incorporating technology into our classrooms will better hold the attention of our students, and as the article said, they have no problem keeping up or getting distracted because it was almost as if they were born to multitask, but are we encouraging something negative?

One father said that in order to talk to his daughter he had to text her, that he had to go "into her world to get to her". I think that is beyond ridiculous! When she needs to get a job, her employer is not going to go into her world to get her. How is she going to learn to work with other people? Why would we encourage this type of seclusion?! It's frowned upon in jails for prisoners, but we think it's okay for our children because they're sharing pictures of what they're doing every ten minutes with the world? What about the health affects this is going to have on their generation? I know this has nothing to do with learning, but we learn so we can go farther and make the most of life, but what if were not healthy enough to take full advantage of this knowledge? Maybe it's a stretch, but were cutting gym classes, and my senior year of high school I had to write a paper for gym! I feel like through all of this we lose what life is about, getting up and doing something, and instead we get up and post about it.. or take a picture of it. We don't talk to people, we just put words on people's screens. Kind of like right now, I don't know if anyone feels the same, or feels the complete opposite unless they post a comment about it.

I do believe that bringing more technology would be beneficial to students, and it would help them want to learn what ever they are being taught. I think it would be more relatable and they would resist it less. I just don't think we would be teaching anything more then what's in the lesson. No people skills, work skills, or life skills. Just school skills, and for some of us, school is just 18 out of 100 years of living.      

Something Educational?

Being a future educator of English, I have to read a lot of Shakespeare. I just finished the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet for the second time in my life, only to find out it's not even a tragedy. Sure its tragic, that both Romeo and Juliet die, but technically this play is a comedy. Literary dramas have different "modes", which is defined by the characteristics of the characters and the storyline. A tragedy is when a character has some sort of flaw, that ultimately leads to their own demise. They need to start high, and eventually fall (into death). Where as in a comedy, the plot needs to transition from chaos to clarity. (Spoiler alert if you haven't read it) In Romeo and Juliet the opening scene is a fight in the streets because of Romeo and Juliet's families, which is clearly chaotic. The last scene is Romeo and Juliet's funerals, where the families decide to put their differences a side after losing their children, which then restores order. So there ya have it, The Comedy of Romeo and Juliet.

Semali Readings

 The Semali reading this week was very insightful, one part in particular that I liked was on page 11. About half way down the page Semali is telling us about the Swiss Linguists, Ferninand de Saussure and the studies he conducted. I am a big believer and supporter of the learning pyramid, so the work he did really hit home with me. He believed that analyzing signs was determined by two things. The first being the actual word or image, and the second being the corresponding thought that the sign/image/word triggers. This directly plays back into the learning pyramid, being that the more stimulus an idea is introduced with, the more likely a person is to remember it. he believed that this Transmediation are "systems of representation of meaning".

This allows us to give meaning to the world by creating a chain of meaningful and equivalent comparisons between people, objects, events, and ideas. He believed that the relationship between things and concepts lie at the heart of production. Generating these ideas in more then one way is easier for students to grasp as their own.

Hellllo,
My names Lynzie, I'm 20 years old and I'm a student at Slippery Rock University. I major in Secondary Education, specifically in English. :)