Oh my goodness, I’m embarrassed that this is late, since I specifically wrote about the blog due date in my midterm response.
Oh well, here goes. I was really inspired by the “Drop the I-word” video and I think that could be a great mentor text for my students. One thing that we really work on in sophomore language arts is non-narrative writing. My students tend to write narrative pieces easily, but they struggle with organizing and composing more expository and persuasive pieces because there isn’t necessarily a distinct beginning, middle, and end. While watching this video, I started thinking about how digital storytelling can be a great way to explore and practice non-narrative writing.
Of course, the “I word” video was professionally done and I wouldn’t expect my students to produce a piece that sophisticated, but I think there’s a lot to learn from the placement of photographs, artifacts, and videos. Students could examine the use of statistics and anecdotes and talk about their effectiveness.
As a viewer/consumer, there were some elements of this video that I didn’t really care for. I thought the music was distracting and the “hate machine” animation was kind of stupid—it oversimplified a complex issue. However, I thought it was paced well and it was informative, persuasive, and not so overly pedantic. The video clips and newspaper headlines were effective in creating a context for understanding the prevalence of the word.
In some ways, I think this video would be hard to use as a mentor text; I worry that the content would be divisive and prevent students from really examining the techniques used by the authors. But I also think that the highly charged content would be good because it would elicit strong responses and could attest to the power of digital storytelling. I think students would be inspired to create their own about issues that are important to them. I think they would be way more into this that a traditional research paper or in-front-of –the-class presentation.
Naomi,
ReplyDeleteI thought your response was to the point and also gave a great summary of how you could or could not use the video with your students. Even the parts of the video that you didn't "care for" could be discussed whole group before you mention your stance. Asking the students questions about what they thought of a certain elements and why. Being able to voice their own thoughts might help them shape their ideas for personal digital stories. I enjoyed watching your video selection, but like you, some parts were great and others ... not so much.
I am interested to see how it goes if you decide to use it with your students!