Viewing+&+Representing

toc Viewing & Representing

**Using Media in the Classroom:**
Studies have shown that 40% of 7th graders have decided that putting forth the effort to read is not worth it. This is shown in the number of students who are labeled as struggling readers or show little interest in school. Teachers are now discovering that they can utilize viewing and representing as media literacy. By bringing media into the classrooms, teachers can reach those students who seem uninterested in the written word. "Media analysis activities help create instructional contexts that engage and motivate reluctant readers, enabling them to build comprehension strategies that bring the complex process of meaning-making more directly under their full control. Films, Web sites, television programs, magazines, news papers, and even music are simply other forms of texts that communicate and carry meaning to readers." These skills have even been included by the state of Texas as necessary to use in the classrooms. "Media literacy advocates encourage students, teachers, and the larger society to envision literacy not only as helping preserve and pass on our cultural and literary heritage, but as an essential tool to enrich all the uses of the increasing diversity of messages that are now a part of contemporary life in an information-rich and technology-saturated society." When teachers use film and media in the classroom, it is important for them to do so in ways that promote active, critical thinking, which is a skill that readers must possess.

There are several lesson plans online that include media into the classrooms. This one in particular discusses how students are already immersed in media and utilize intermediality skills daily. Lessons such as this one help students explore literacy skills in multiple modes of media. Another way to use media to help students learn cricital thinking skills is to have them analyze television from television advertisements, drama shows, and situational comedies. Start with advertisements, and first only have students list what they see before they begin an evaluation process. Students will notice more when first to stay on the beginning stage, and thus they will have better evaluations. When a teacher asks students to crical anaylze television shows, students become more responsible viewers of television and are well-equipped to decipher and decide about the programs they watch and what those programs are trying to say.
 * Broadly defined, //intermediality// is the ability to "critically read and write with and across varied symbol systems."
 * Students are part of the youth media culture-like it or not-and are already literate communicators who spend more time engaging with mass media outside classrooms than they spend in schools.
 * Just as we teach students to be aware of author purpose and text structure in reading, we must also help them identify such organizational structures in viewing and representing ideas through popular and electronic media.
 * If educators fail to acknowledge the meaning-making capabilities of extracurricular media messages and information, any attempts to increase literacy learning will be rendered incomplete.

Using Media to Help ELLs
Film can help English Language Learners to more fully understand a printed text because it allows students to see and hear the material rather than just read it. In a lesson plan about earthquakes, one teacher, used printed articles with academic information about earthquakes and then showed a film with the information presented visually. The ELL students were then required to use both in their writing. The students said, " When asked to complete questionnaires on the use of film, ESL students’ responses are overwhelminglypositive. They say that the films make the work clearer and help them to understand the texts better. They say that if a concept is unclear when they first read about it, seeing the film enables them to visualize it." Clearly, we should be ready and willing to use films with all English language learners.

Media in the IRA Standards:
According to the IRA/NCTE Standards for Language Arts, the purpose of these standards is to prepare students for the literary demands of today and tomorrow. Media plays a big role in preparing students for life outside of the classroom. We can see this reflected in most of the 10 standards, but especially in #1 and #8: 1.Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of them- selves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works. 8.Students use a variety of technological and informational resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge. Linda D. Labbo and Karen Place support Edutopia’s claim that the introduction of technology is only going to become helpful to students literacy futures if it is made “routine and transparent and when [it] supports curricular goals” (Edutopia, 2008). Labbo and Place regard four main goals of using technology in classrooms: “active engagement [with the technology], participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts” (Labbo). Two ways that Labbo and Place advocate for intertwining the curriculum and technology are Virtual Field Trips and WebQuests (A WebQuest is a way of allowing the students to search the web for a particular topic and create their own synthesis of their findings). The virtual field trips could also be a way of utilizing observational logs within the classroom, according to Labbo and Place. The authors also warn against one unintended outcome of the integration of technology: the students not be aware of the affects of sampling and copying information within giving appropriate citations. The authors also suggest using technology as a way of creating a lens through which a student can create an autobiography within the context of a chosen specific technology (for example, a student could write his or her autobiography as though they were a character in their favorite videogame, thus intertwining the two – both his or her life with the genre)!

Jeff Wilhelm states, “My main argument has centered on the idea that “literacy”—in its highest form—has always meant the capacity to use a culture’s most powerful tools to communicate and receive meanings” (Wilhelm 44). Wilhem discusses the merits and possible downfalls of technology. He writes, “First off, a “technology” is simply an extension of human capacities. A pencil is a technology. So is paper. So is a book. To extend our human capacities, there must be real capacities to extend” (Wilhem 44). Wilhelm urges educators not to lose sight that technologies are things that allow people to express themselves, and he urges educators not to forget the human aspects that are utilized through technologies. Wilhelm urges educators to not lose sight of the connections between students and the necessity of using technology as a way of bridging understandings of materials and concepts between students. Wilhelm seems to be wary of technology and to urge educators to not only use it, but in using technology to remember to probe it for its costs and benefits to literacy.

Nancy Shanklin writes an editorial piece for new teachers. She writes that new teachers should make technological goals for themselves to gradually check their own progression with technology. Also, Shanklin advises that new teachers should survey their personal technologies and analyze what other technologies they could obtain to help their students. Shanklin advises (in light of new national talks of technology literacy standards) that teachers should have students turn in comments and questions about the ways in which they used technology to create a particular project. She says that this commentary will allow you insight into their technological processes. Shanklin advises not going haphazardly into a search for ideas in the internet, but instead planning an attack for specific searches at the beginning of a lesson plan. She advises being organized when approaching research on the internet. Shanklin concludes the article by praising the possible benefits of technology, but also reminding teachers to consider the technologies that are available to your students and attempting to seek solutions such as public libraries and utilizing school resources.

**Teaching Students to Read the World**
Kelly Gallagher points out that "Frankly, ten years from now I would rather my students be able to critically 'read' their local school board candidates than to be able to discuss Golding's use of symbolism in //The Lord of the Flies//." It is important to teach students how to read the world because most of their lives, they will be influenced advertisers, politicians, and others who will use words or statistics to persuade your view. When students read the newspaper in the classroom, it prepares them to read the newspaper with a critical eye when they are no longer a part of the school system. English teachers need to not only teach students the academic pursuit of English, but also teach kids how to read their world by looking at newspapers and advertisements and the wording or pictures they use.