I begin almost every course that I teach with a brief media unit on 21st century skills and media literacy. Because much of what students are doing today is online, I like to think that we are doing our best to mold quality digital citizens.
Here are two presentations I share with my students near the beginning of each semester: Digital Citizenship and Smart Research, complete with an embedded assignment.
These presentations ask and attempt to answer two fundamental questions: (1) In our wired world, can our students protect themselves while positively contributing to the information highway? And (2), with millions of websites at their fingertips, can our students effectively evaluate websites?
In the past, I’ve offered my opinion on the novels and the poems that may be the most important to encounter before attending a university. Well, after Friday’s workshop, where I was treated with the following YouTube video, I got thinking…
… This far removed from the Eighties, are today’s students going to have a familiarity with the movies frequently alluded to by teachers and university professors? So, while this is not a list of the greatest movies ever made, nor is it a list of my favourites, here (with a focus on the 1980s) is a list of movies that students should watch in order to understand the cinematic allusions sure to grace any good university lecture. For the record, here are my Top 100 Movies to Watch Before University; what are yours?
(1939) Gone With the Wind
(1941) Citizen Kane
(1942) Casablanca
(1946) It’s a Wonderful Life
(1959) Ben-Hur
(1960) Psycho
(1961) Breakfast at Tiffany’s
(1962) To Kill a Mockingbird
(1964) My Fair Lady
(1964) Mary Poppins
(1965) The Sound of Music
(1967) The Graduate
(1968) 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1972) The Godfather
(1974) Chinatown
(1974) Blazing Saddles
(1975) Jaws
(1975) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(1976) Rocky
(1977) Slap Shot
(1978) Grease
(1978) Superman
(1979) Apocalypse Now
(1980) Blues Brothers
(1981) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981) Chariots of Fire
(1981) Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
(1982) E.T.
(1982) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982) The Man from Snowy River
(1982) Blade Runner
(1982) The Dark Crystal
(1982) Tron
(1983) Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
(1984) The Karate Kid
(1984) Ghost Busters
(1984) Police Academy
(1985) The Goonies
(1985) Ladyhawke
(1985) The Jewel of the Nile
(1985) Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
(1985) St. Elmo’s Fire
(1985) The Breakfast Club
(1985) Back to the Future
(1986) Ferris Beuller’s Day Off
(1986) Pretty in Pink
(1986) Stand by Me
(1986) Top Gun
(1986) Aliens
(1986) Crocodile Dundee
(1987) Wall Street
(1987) Dirty Dancing
(1987) Planes, Trains & Automobiles
(1987) Spaceballs
(1987) Some Kind of Wonderful
(1987) James Bond: The Living Daylights
(1987) The Princess Bride
(1987) Robocop
(1987) The Untouchables
(1987) Good Morning Vietnam
(1988) Bull Durham
(1989) Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
(1989) Dead Poet’s Society
(1989) Batman
(1989) National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
(1989) Steel Magnolias
(1989) Major League
(1989) Lethal Weapon 2
(1989) When Harry Met Sally
(1989) Field of Dreams
(1990) Goodfellas
(1990) Ghost
(1990) Edward Scissorhands
(1990) Pretty Woman
(1990) Total Recall
(1991) What About Bob?
(1991) Silence of the Lambs
(1991) Terminator 2: Judgment Day
(1992) Wayne’s World
(1992) A Few Good Men
(1992) Reservoir Dogs
(1993) Jurassic Park
(1993) Groundhog Day
(1993) Schindler’s List
(1994) Forrest Gump
(1994) Shawshank Redemption
(1994) The Lion King
(1994) Pulp Fiction
(1995) Pride & Prejudice (A&E)
(1995) Braveheart
(1995) Toy Story
(1995) The Usual Suspects
(1995) Heat
(1996) Jerry Mcguire
(1997) Titanic
(1997) Good Will Hunting
(1998) Saving Private Ryan
(1999) The Matrix
(1999) The Sixth Sense
(2001) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
On Friday I attended an excellent conference at our Board office: Wired for Success. I find that sessions like those energize me, giving me new ideas to explore but, more importantly, space to reflect on my own education process in the classroom.
The day began with this popular YouTube video:
Lately I’ve been thinking about the use of technology in the classroom (surprise!) and that big Media Studies strand in our provincial curriculum documents. (If the Ontario curriculum is unfamiliar to you, I’ll just quickly summarize: we have four major curriculum strands that are to be incorporated into all English courses: Writing, Oral Communication, Reading & Literature, and Media Studies.) It’s striking, isn’t it? Media Studies on par with Reading and Writing.
I know that when I first saw the new curriculum with Media Studies identified as such a major strand, I was surprised at the decision to do it that way. To my mind, the English classroom is about oral communication, reading, and writing, and “media” just encompasses the many non-traditional vehicles for engaging in those practices. Oral communication? We could build learning around a speech in front of a class, or around a podcast. Reading? There are my favourite novels to work with, and there are movies that operate with a grammar and syntax of their own. Writing? Students could practice with a short story, an essay or a blog.
But a colleague pointed out to me the wisdom of separating Media Studies from the other strands: it isn’t easily ignored this way. We teachers can tend to find something that works and we’re comfortable with, and keep using it. Why not? So that fantastic novel unit that we developed a year ago gets trotted out again this year, with a few updates … and then next year … and so on. It is extremely difficult to find the time or inclination to re-work our teaching approaches from the ground up. It’s unnerving, uncomfortable, and even scary. Oh, and it takes time, something we lack when school is in session.
A new strand in the curriculum document, however, can give some of us that push we need to re-think things. Just asking ourselves how we are meeting the expectations of the four strands makes us reconsider our approach and do more than just tweak our unit plans. Ignore an entire strand, however, and be prepared to answer to parents, administration, and even colleagues.
So I was excited to be a part of this conference at our Board. And while the presentations were superior and challenging in many ways, I did have one concern: balance. As I participated in the sessions, I began to get the impression that instead of Grade 11 English we were hoping to offer “Moodle 101″; or instead of ENG 4C it was to be “Wikispaces for Beginners.”
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve used wikis in my English classrooms for the last three years, blogs for the past four, and websites before that. I believe that these tools are important and need to be used as platforms for learning. I think that what I was struggling with was the hype around the technology itself without a genuine discussion of how that technology supports different types of learning. I fully intend to use different technology and media in the classroom, but always with the goal of improving my students’ skills in reading, writing, and oral communication.
Next semester, I’m going to test out a Ning with one of my courses and a Moodle with another. Ultimately, however, my students’ learning will be evidenced by their essays on Jane Eyre, their dramatic presentations of King Lear, and their analysis of gender stereotyping in advertising.
My wife recently complained that Canadian Literature has really become like the Emperor’s New Clothes — we expect a book to be brilliant and then overlook the fact that many of these novels fail to tell a story at all. In contemporary literature, it appears fashionable to completely disregard the plot; authors seem caught up in a play of words that present a series of images which us readers are then expected to string together. These authors are more tricksters than guides. We’re expected to scratch our heads at the story and simply applaud the author’s erudite phrases; we’re expected to lead ourselves down the garden path.
Where is the Robertson Davies or Mordecai Richler of today?
Well, for the record, here are my Top 5 Canadian authors that I happen to think are still doing an admirable job of telling our stories:
The Grade 12 students have been busily working on their King Learcollaborative essays and I’m anticipating some good holiday reading once they’re all handed in by Friday.
Throughout the unit, students were asked to publish two blog posts per week on the class blog portal. Students came up with questions that they had about the play, attempted to answer their own questions, and commented on their classmates’ blog posts. These blog posts, comments, and replies, are now the starting point for their collaborative essays.
For the King Lear collaborative essay, I asked the students to first think of the topic that they were most interested in writing about, and to think about their own opinion and ideas regarding that topic. Then, students went to the class blog portal and noted all of the relevant comments from their peers.
Once the students have stated their topic and their own opinion, and they’ve listed their peers’ key ideas and their own key ideas, then students are ready to arrange their essay around their reasons, their defence of those reasons, and rebuttals to their critics.
Some of the topics they’ve come up with include:
Who is the hero of “King Lear”?
Why did Cordelia refuse to give her father the answer he was looking for?
After being banished by Lear, why does Kent return?
When does Lear lose his sanity?
Did Lear give up his kingdom too early?
I’m excited to read these collaborative essays; they’ve really originated with the students and spring from the dialogue that they’ve been having on the class blog portal. The collaborative essay assignment requires the students to think for themselves and to be themselves; it requires students to put their oar in the water and join the 400-year old conversation that has revolved around the Bard.
How do we teach students to write? We teach them to think. We teach them to develop content. We help them understand ideas like elaboration and explication. We provide them with opportunities to stretch their minds and flex their intellectual muscles. We give them opportunities to pump out words and ideas without fear of judgement. We teach them how to think critically and make sense of their musings and meanderings. We show them how to tailor and edit and rethink and resee and rearrange. We empower them to be creators.
This King Lear collaborative essay assignment is so much more interesting for the class than the 5-paragraph essay format; it is free of the shackles of the 5-paragraph essay format that has been suffocating any potential talent. A collaborative essay assignment is… real.
Our high school library has been increasing the number of graphic novels on its shelves and purchased Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns just in time for my King Lear unit. As with The Watchmen, I find a lot of appropriate parallels to Shakespeare’s masterpiece, not the least of which is an aging figurehead unable to accept retirement, a power-struggle for the kingdom, and a lot of gratuitous violence.
While my students are creating multi-media presentations for their assigned King Lear scene, it helps to show them example pages from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
Alan Moore and Frank Miller have repeatedly proven to be ahead of their time; it seems incredible to me that their work was published in the mid-80s — the last great decade. The power and the fear, the hope and the despair, the tragedy and the comedy — it belongs in a Shakespeare unit, and it never disappoints the students.
This unit is designed to introduce Grade 12 students to critical analysis and media literacy. Relying heavily on material from the Centre for Media Literacy, students work with five key media literacy questions to analyze a range of texts, from advertisements through full movies. Students are expected to maintain their own reflective blogs as a component of their work.
Unit lesson plans [PDF] provide detailed steps to covering each of the unit topics, relating them to the corresponding expectations and teaching strategies.
Reflective Blogging (10 marks)
Students begin blogging, publishing at least one reflective post and two comments on classmates’ blogs. Students evaluate their learning using the blogging self-evaluation rubric.
Media Text Analysis (10 marks)
Students use the five key media literacy questions to analyze an advertisement. Learning is assessed using the media text analysis evaluation rubric.
News Analysis (10 marks)
Students use an expanded analysis framework to discuss, in writing, a 30- to 60-minute news broadcast. Learning is assessed using the news analysis evaluation rubric.
Evaluating Online Resources (10 marks)
Students must find five credible online sources for a given topic. (Global warming is the topic in the attached handout; I have also used an author as a topic option.) Students are not able to progress in course activities until they have demonstrated competence in this. An evaluation rubric is available for this assignment.
Comic Strip Analysis (10 marks)
Students select a comic strip of at least five frames and analyze it in terms of camera techniques and storytelling. Learning is assessed using the comic analysis evaluation rubric.
Movie Analysis
While watching a movie in class, students complete the movie analysis handout [PDF]. This is not marked directly; however, students may bring their completed handouts to the unit test.
The 21st Century Literacy assignment summary [PDF] includes detailed instructions for students to complete each assignment.
I am a part of the technology committee at our school, and today we are delivering a series of presentations related to technology use in the classroom. I was selected to present on the use of wikis in education. If you wish, you can download my digital collaboration presentation.
Now, in my fifth year of teaching, I think that I’ve finally settled on a lesson plan template that I am happy with. Every year, based on what I’ve seen colleagues use, and based on my own comments in the notes column, I’ve made slight changes to the format of my lesson plans.
Kept in my course binders, I cover my lesson plans with hand-written notes by the end of each lesson and need to adjust plans accordingly the next time I have the opportunity to teach a similar unit.
This year, in order to keep straight all of the necessary curriculum, I needed a more detailed sidebar. I hadn’t, for example, tracked all of the reading strategies that I wanted to cover, nor had I tracked the topics that the school board was championing.
If you would like to see an example of a developed lesson, see the lesson plans from my Grade 12 Media unit, or from my King Lear unit. Though, just between you and me, they’re always evolving. Should I get the opportunity to return to King Lear in 2010, I have little doubt that my lesson plans will look radically different.
With the Stratford Festival’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it was a great year to teach this unit. Interweaving the text of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the graphic novel Bone and the fantasty novel Ysabel, the lessons reinforce previously learned reading strategies. The main text, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is approached primarily as an oral and dramatic text, and students are regularly enacting parts of the script.
Unit lesson plans [PDF] provide detailed steps to covering each of the unit topics, relating them to the corresponding expectations and teaching strategies.
Assignments
Multi-Media Presentation (40 marks)
Students develop and deliver a presentation to educate younger students about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, including a visual aid, a brief discussion, and a dramatic scene using the original text OR an audio recording of a scene scripted into a different genre. Students are evaluated using the theatre education activity rubric.
ThinkBook Written Review (15 marks)
Students answer one of three options, commenting on their reading experience of Ysabel.
Bone Dialogue and Dramatic Script (10 marks)
Given images from Jeff Smith’s Bone, students imagine possible dialogue for the characters, then transform the dialogue into a proper dramatic script.
Passage Memorization (10 marks)
After repeated practice together as a class, students memorize and recite a passage from 2.1 (Fairy’s lines 30-40; or Puck’s lines 42-58; or Oberon’s lines 253-263).
I begin almost every course that I teach with a brief media unit on 21st century skills and media literacy. Because much of what students are doing today is online, I like to think that we are doing our best to mold quality digital citizens.
These presentations ask and attempt to answer two fundamental questions: (1) In our wired world, can our students protect themselves while positively contributing to the information highway? And (2), with millions of websites at their fingertips, can our students effectively evaluate websites?
The Grade 12 students have been busily working on their King Lear 
Our high school library has been increasing the number of graphic novels on its shelves and purchased Frank Miller’s 
Level: ENG4U
With the Stratford Festival’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it was a great year to teach this unit. Interweaving the text of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the graphic novel Bone and the fantasty novel Ysabel, the lessons reinforce previously learned reading strategies. The main text, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is approached primarily as an oral and dramatic text, and students are regularly enacting parts of the script.