Originally published in 2012
As thinking, reading in the 21st century is different from that of past centuries, constantly linked in a network of forms of physical and digital media more and more visible. So, in this context of the abundance of the media, what does the modern reader of the 21st century look like?
There is an art and science in the conception of the media.
Media (singular AVERAGE) refers to the intentional communication of a thought or an idea. In this way, tweets and novels are both media, as well as interactive poems and chronologies, websites and news, paintings and graffiti, speeches and YouTube videos.
The differences between these media reside in their objective and its audience, their duration and intensity, tone and structure, as well as countless other obvious and less obvious components which can be cleverly manipulated in terms of design. One of the most visible transitions to a “21st century” reading and writing program (or, as we consider, Authentic curriculum) implies an evolution of the perspective of the media.
The media are, and have always been at the heart of a reading writing program. Moby Dick,, The route not taken,, To kill a mocking birdetc. These are often called “touch stone” texts which can act as anchors for so many things. An initial basic recommendation would then imply the way in which teachers select these media which end up the scene in so many lessons and units.
This is important to clarify: the media is the star here, and the objective of an educator is to support students in the treatment of these media: identify, analyze, assess, revise, reuse, etc. (We will jump, for the moment, the potential for learners to control the media they consume.) Beyond this basic recommendation, such as something, I do not know how to be intentional in the choice of powerful, relevant and “fertile” media, there must first be a change of paradigm necessary in the way we consider the term media.
Moby Dick, although neither dead nor unrelevant, lives in a new context. As a text, it is timeless and has a place in a reading / writing / literature program. But in new forms, with new support systems and new circumstances.
Media and term
When computers entered the dominant current (when Radio Shack sold Tandy computers for $ 8,500), the term “multimedia” has surfaced. Unlike the mere mediation of a text novel only, now text, sound, images and video could be combined and handled new ways. Somewhere along the line, however, reading / writing / literature simply stopped to take advantage of these classic texts, but apparently become belonging to them. (What happened to the idea of literature, composition or even separate logic classes – not necessarily complete triumvirate, but in this direction?)
Fahrenheit 451 class readings have moved to reading the circles of literature The donorBook reports have melted in PowerPoint presentations or even web quests, but the central core was still a written text of generations – even centuries ago – in a form by people from a very different time from that that learners use information today. This does not mean that these media are helpless, but simply offbeatAnd must therefore be exploited new ways while looking for relevance with an innocent audience disconnected from its forms, its structures and its media “models”.
The modification of media forms is a by-product of the progression of rapid technology, and this is certainly the case in the past 25 years. Over the past 5 years, the emergence of social media has added an additional wrinkle (and countless teaching possibilities) to the mixture, but with these transitions and this constant evolution, red herring implies here the deceptive concept of technology. We will take a look at changing multimedia forms, in particular the phenomenon of social media in a separate room, but for the moment consider that technology is a tool that allows new forms of media to evolve, to challenge our collective creativity and to push the limits of the exchange of ideas.
However, it’s just that – a tool. Although it is tempting to become in love with the glamor of the tool itself, it is cognitive and creative work and design that really require our attention as educators. If humanity was moving away from technology tomorrow, to maintain authenticity In learning, we should adapt our study program, our teaching strategies, etc. to eliminate technology; Rather than teaching technology then we teach with technology.
That is to say that educators use technology because those we want to educate use it, which brings us to the idea of the diagram.
Media as a diagram
There are incredibly interesting philosophical treaties and Kant’s cognitive psychology analyzes in Piaget which deal with the concept of diagram. An ambiguous term (sometimes frustrating) (which Marzano briefly addresses in “Art and science of teaching” (p. 59-60), plan refers to a cognitive native framework to give meaning to ideas; In other words, roughly, existing “stuff in our heads” help us give meaning to new things. (A tangent concept is that of previous knowledge.) relationshipboat.
In this way, a square helps us to understand a rectangle, Cat in the hat Provide a kind of early framework to help us understand Everything that rises must converge. This constructivist line of thought reveals that, at least to a certain extent, learners are continuously based on existing ideas through the above -mentioned observation -> the relative process, even when ideas and concepts may seem divergent (verbs and allegory).
So what’s to do with the media and ELA? In simple terms, we have taken behind the curve in terms of which we consider the media and, on a larger scale, how we consider the purpose of the English language arts.
In Develop minds: a resource book for teaching thought Published by Art Costa, Barry Beyer contributes:
“Because the reflection skills are closely attached (in the mind of the learner) to the context or the content in which they are encountered for the first time, their application is not easily transferred to the other, in particular contexts or remote content.” (398-399)
Beyer continues by discussing “continuous” and “direct transfer” practices. Here, Beyer tries to underline first transfer As an educational reality, then finally start to lay the foundations of the students so that they can do it themselves. Although this is an integral part of any learning, formal and informal, it relates to our media concept in the English language arts in that we often ask students to “walk too far” in this “transfer”.
Why not “live” in their native media? If we can resist for a moment to make it a generational argument where we deflect the texts and mobile phones and glorify the novels, but rather in “meet them where they are”, rethink and reappoint the roles so that students do not have to radically reconnect the information they learn in daily school to make it relevant for their personal life. Adonating that a student learns mathematics so that he can “balance his checkbook” is a vacant argument.
Moby Dick’s themes on introspection, intellectual struggle and religious doubt are all relevant if we can give them a chance. Thus, we can consider Moby Dick a single image in a rich tapestry, rather than a single image and a single lens. In this way, teachers can use the interdependence of all media forms to their advantage – a form to enlighten another,
Structure. Theme. Bias. Syntax. Diction. Author position. Supporting evidence – All universal components of media design.
And we must do it not simply because teachers can then use these forms to encourage students to learn what we want them to do, but because we really teach what matters. “Teaching what matters” by Silver, Strong and Perini remains what should be considered as a seminal and prerivation work on all the cartography of curriculum and educational design programs.
In other words, we can help students identify media forms and structures, public and goal concepts, the development of theses and theses, the choice of language, tone and mood – all classical literary principles – but rethink our way in which we use the concept of media to get there.
Conclusion
The 21st century reading / writing / literature teacher does not blindly adopt technology, nor does not reject Shakespeare, but rather seeks regularly authenticity In all education issues, starting with the study program.
They seek to take advantage of a creative way – by the old and new fusion in a new way, thanks to the learning based on the project and the problems, or a certain number of other approaches – not simply “engaging” the learners, which is insufficient, but it is rather immersed in learners in intellectually rigorous and interesting intellectually, where the relevance is immediately visible, the transfer is persistent, and the students distant various information worldwide.
Moby Dick is therefore not so much dead as the impatient research of an audience with the learner of the 21st century, and it is our charge as educators – technology, a new emphasis placed on the diagram and a new objective for intellectual, cultural and media diversity – to adapt it in a creative way. If this happens, the school will cease to become a “school”, a sterile field of thought and formal content, and will become a flexible system that will help learners to become media-that is to say, that is to say, that is to say, curious and literacy users of information.
Something that seems to be forgotten in the content against skills, the 21st century educational argument against the nucleus or “classic” is the learner and their native context. The role of the game and the idea of ”informal learning” are absolutely crucial powerful and underused concepts when we seek to innovate what is, at best, the mediocre industry of reading and writing public education.
Image attribution Flickr users Fllickerbrad, Davidniksonvscanon and OpalsonBlackdotcom
