Media

Brainstorming for this media group project has been great. There are limitless options for teaching students about media utilizing media. I had a really good idea about a way for students to write stories and learn computer programming at the same time with a program called Alice. This is the description of the program on the website Alice.org:

“Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.”

I have explored the program a little myself to see if it would be good for my daughters to use, and it looked cool. As an introduction to computer programming, it works well to keep kids engaged and utilizes their imagination because they get to make a story come to life.
The problem arose when I tried to show it to my group members and the class computer wouldn’t let me download it. So our lame classroom foiled my great idea. Oh well, we still had a plethora of ideas, and had a great time working them out together.

Lets all make flip books out of our Media Education texts!

My daughter Frida is a freshman in high school. In the first half of this semester, she took an elective class which taught them how to write, film and edit a short movie. For the second half of the semester, her class is learning about Photoshop and how to manipulate images. I imagine the next semester will encompass some other sort of media based elective. For tenth-graders, they have another elective class that studies different film genres: they watch movies, learn about their history and write papers about them. What I want to know is why are we learning about "electives"? Is the purpose for us to simply incorporate some of this into our lessons as English teachers? I find that Buckingham's text could easily be called "Teaching Popular Culture," because that is what he talks about the majority of the time.


Something that disturbs me is how his studies are based in England, which is a pretty different culture than ours. Buckingham talks about the school system there- with their strengths and weaknesses regarding media education- but their system is way different than ours. He also refers to their political parties, which are different from ours as well. Why couldn't we study an author who is familiar with our own culture? I see how I could be opposed in this viewpoint, after all, our class is called "Multigenre Literacy in a Global Context." But I feel that this portion of the class should focus on us as Americans (which I know is anything but homogeneous), looking at the whole world which we can access in a media context, and analyzing it from that perspective.

When I read that last sentence, I think it sounds very wrong.

Maybe I am wrong.

But if we are going to view the world in a global context, a book written by an Englishman isn't going to open up that perspective. We should be studying a compilation of essays by writers of different cultures if that is the case.

the virgins

Last week I went for a hike near Las Virgenes Canyon. I had a water bottle, camera, apple, and my mythology book in my backpack. I hiked for about an hour and then found a quiet spot to read. The story I chose was from "The Female Divine" chapter, titled "Callisto and Arcas," which is from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Well, was that a disturbing story, or what?! I was so unassuming when I started the story; just sitting alone, relaxed, ready to read a story of a powerful goddess. But all I got was a tale of rape. Lame and depressing. Callisto was raped by Jove and then banished by Diana. This story sucks, because as a hunter, Callisto was hunted by Jove, and then she was turned into a bear by jealous Juno and she was still hunted by man. The hunter becoming the hunted, how ironic.

Then I realized I was hiking around "Las Virgenes" (the virgins) which I found to be funny. So after that emotional journey, I learned something about mythology and constellations and my hike wasn't ruined after all.



This video contains a condensed version of the story. It seems someone posted it to promote some Third Eye Blind album, so just ignore the ending.

But I suggest you read "Callisto and Arcas" in the myth book. It is tragic.

If only I would think before I speak

I kinda want to take back something I said in the last class. When Professor Wexler asked us to come up with a modern day myth, I said that the movie Avatar could be one. But after thinking about it, I think Avatar is too modern. There is no history to it. It isn't something we have grown up with, it hasn't become part of our culture. Sure, it has some lessons or morals, but it is a story at this point, and not necessarily a myth.
So if I had to choose another mythological figure in our culture, I suppose Madonna could be considered mythological. She represents different values than other mythological women of the past, she reflects some values that our society holds. For example, female empowerment and sexual freedom. She is referenced and remade in other aspects of popular culture. I just watched an episode of Glee that kind of touched on her mythological, larger than life nature.
I feel a little better now.

That whole poetry writing experience wasn't too bad after all. I didn't force myself to write a Sonnet, which would have been too contrived and lame. I also didn't take the easy way out and write 2 Haiku's. I am proud of what I wrote, and that it was relevant to my experience. It actually felt pretty good reciting "The Excremental Qualities of Poetry" in front of the the class too, which surprised me. And it really made me smile using potty humor in my poem. I hope my students will surprise themselves with poetry one day as well.

I truly enjoyed reading and listening to everyone else's poems. I feel that although our class may be quiet alot of the time, there is still alot of depth to everyone. Introverts unite!

So for this week, we are studying mythology.I haven't come close to finishing the reading, but I am still learning alot about the female divine. For example, in the past I had heard of a concert tour called "Lillith Fair" that I heard celebrates women. Now as a result of this assignment, I actually know what (actually who) it is named after.

The myth about her is that she was Adam's (the one who was with Eve) first wife who was "coeval and coequal with him." She became upset with him when he wanted her to lie underneath him for sex. She had once recieved magical powers by tricking a god, and he gave her wings so she could fly from Eden. She is said to have appeared in the desert to travellers and tricked people by tickling their feet and then strangling them to death.
Why isn't she in THE Bible?
Why was she not part of that mythology?
Overall, these new, female dieties are fascinating to me.

Freeing a verse

The Excremental Qualities of Poetry

I sit down
Knowing that something
Must
Come
Out.

I wait
And I wait,
I doodle and scratch my head.

Finally,
Some thing
Comes out.
It really isn’t much.

The form appears
To be familiar.

It is not pretty.
(not like roses)
But
It sure smells like it.
(definitely, not like roses)

I wonder what
The Captain
Would think of it.

I can say that my experience has been
Less than
Satisfying.

Yet, I do love falling deep into it.

Nicole + Poetry = bff

I almost titled this blog, "those who can't do, teach."

Sure, I am a poet. I write ecstatic love poems about my boyfriend. I have written about the excruciating pain of love lost. Sometimes loneliness and sadness creep into those few lines I have written. But truly, I know my poetry is crap. It only means something to me, and possibly to someone who might know me and understand where I was coming from. I do not want to share it with anyone (ESPECIALLY English majors) because they will not care and will smell it for what it is.
I am wondering about the purpose of this assignment as well. Is it to help us, as prospective teachers, to see how hard it will be to get our students to write a poem? Is it to have a greater understanding of the elements of poetry by utilizing them? Now sure about purpose, but I still think analyzing poetry is harder than the act of creating it. One short poem down, one long one to go.