Chapter 2
“Trading Cards to Comic Strips” Xu
The following are excellent examples of how modern day teachers have used popular cultural text in the primary grades.
In Vignette 2.1 Anna, the teacher introduced “nouns” by using popular text that first grade children were familiar with and could respond to immediately with their own connections.
Since I do not watch much T.V., I would need to present a video or movie to the classroom; then use that as a guide for further enhancement of motivation of using “nouns” students might recognize from that.
Jean, another teacher used the children’s interest in super heroes in the past and modern day to whet the interest in learning more about “super heroes” by reading, watching T.V., games, and videos. This class found out that heroes weren’t just men and large but could be small and female. Jean used heroes as a spring board to discuss character traits, also.
The next popular cultural text mentioned was Sherry’s Unit of Musical Bands. While she worked with five third grade students, she surveyed them and found their interest to be Latino and Rap music. The group selected two songs in that genre and amid excitement and anticipation. Sherry’s teachings evolved in the following manner.
Read the lyrics.
Learn about the artists.
Learn to dance La Cumbia
Compare and contrast music using the Venn Diagram
Wrote a paragraph of the comparison
Wrote thank you letters to the dance instructors.
I felt this teacher had a great comfort level in delving into this particular approach using modern music and even to learning a new dance. She is amazing. It very much fit into the standards and benchmarks, also.
My experience with the Venn diagram was in comparing and contrasting the two stories about Helen Keller and Louis Braille. This was an excellent exercise to use in recalling events in the stories.
April, another third grade teacher, used contextual clues to teach a Unit on Scooby-Doo. He was chosen as she and her students were familiar with him as a character on T.V. Her first activity was a compare and contrast of Scooby-Doo and Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas using the Venn Diagram. Her next activity has the children writing the ending to “Scooby-Doo and the Weird Water Park” story after only watching a short portion of it. For this project they wrote, edited, and did a final draft on the computer. The third portion included an in-depth study of the character traits of the previous story. Finally, last of all, the class wrote their favorite recipes from home. It was noted that Scooby-Doo had a snack recipe section available at it’s web site. The student then compiled a cook book of these special recipes.
All of these teacher’s integrated popular cultural texts in several interesting ways into their classroom, thereby motivating the children to be more interested and to do better work.
Ida M. Rounds
Friday, February 8, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Web Site Review - www.Refdesk.com
www.Refdesk.com
I was specifically looking for information on Mountain Men and the Solar System for fourth grade. Then when I looked at the Web Site www.Refdesk.com, I found that I had discovered a gold mine which I was delighted with. Overall, the site looked like a reference section of the library.
There were dictionaries, encyclopedia’s, thesauruses, word of the day, National and State newspapers, an Astronomy picture of the day and archives for this, plus maps, World Atlas, the Kelly Blue Book, and many other reference sites too numerous to mention. Especially, helpful were the four search engine listed with a search space by each. They were Google, MSN, Yahoo, and Wikipidia. Other search engines were available at the click of a button.
At the Wikipidia site, I found a very large text readable article about Jim Bridger as well as pictures of the man.
Then I was pleased at the huge amount of material available at the Astronomy and Space Information site also. There were close-up pictures of outer space from the Hubble telescope. Then, too, there was a solar eclipse painting from the 1700’s that was displayed for the children. Space games were available as well as other games for children.
All in all I recommend this site to be added to your favorites lists.
I was specifically looking for information on Mountain Men and the Solar System for fourth grade. Then when I looked at the Web Site www.Refdesk.com, I found that I had discovered a gold mine which I was delighted with. Overall, the site looked like a reference section of the library.
There were dictionaries, encyclopedia’s, thesauruses, word of the day, National and State newspapers, an Astronomy picture of the day and archives for this, plus maps, World Atlas, the Kelly Blue Book, and many other reference sites too numerous to mention. Especially, helpful were the four search engine listed with a search space by each. They were Google, MSN, Yahoo, and Wikipidia. Other search engines were available at the click of a button.
At the Wikipidia site, I found a very large text readable article about Jim Bridger as well as pictures of the man.
Then I was pleased at the huge amount of material available at the Astronomy and Space Information site also. There were close-up pictures of outer space from the Hubble telescope. Then, too, there was a solar eclipse painting from the 1700’s that was displayed for the children. Space games were available as well as other games for children.
All in all I recommend this site to be added to your favorites lists.
Navigating the Internet with Efficiency and a Critical Eye, Chapter 2
EDCI 5760
New Literacies For New Times
“Teaching with the Internet K-12:
New Literacies for New Times”
Leu, Leu, and Coiro, c 2004
Now is has been shown that “learning how to use the internet becomes a literacy issue, not a technology issue,” 2004, Leu. Children are learning the use of internet technology while researching and writing their reports. This way it comes naturally to them in the excitement of viewing new sites and gathering more information. A criteria can be set up to use three different web sites to find their information. Then as pictures are needed the students are shown examples of how to copy, enlarge, and print photos. Our class had an outline to use to help the student’s search for specific information. They were to take notes to fill in their outline.
Then once all the notes are gathered, the next step is organizing or synthesizing the notes into a well written story. At this point, they can write it on paper and write the story directly onto the computer.
A few years back when I substituted in a fourth grade classroom, they literally did a cut and paste but with using paper only for that process. Now it is much easier to do editing with the computer.
Another idea mentioned in this chapter was a Classroom Web site. This would be difficult to attempt at our school because so few students have computers in their homes. I do know that computers are available at the County Library but there is always a line of people waiting to use them. This has been my experience when my computer has had some down time and been taken in for repair.
Reading this text has given me a new perspective on new literacies for new times.
New Literacies For New Times
“Teaching with the Internet K-12:
New Literacies for New Times”
Leu, Leu, and Coiro, c 2004
Now is has been shown that “learning how to use the internet becomes a literacy issue, not a technology issue,” 2004, Leu. Children are learning the use of internet technology while researching and writing their reports. This way it comes naturally to them in the excitement of viewing new sites and gathering more information. A criteria can be set up to use three different web sites to find their information. Then as pictures are needed the students are shown examples of how to copy, enlarge, and print photos. Our class had an outline to use to help the student’s search for specific information. They were to take notes to fill in their outline.
Then once all the notes are gathered, the next step is organizing or synthesizing the notes into a well written story. At this point, they can write it on paper and write the story directly onto the computer.
A few years back when I substituted in a fourth grade classroom, they literally did a cut and paste but with using paper only for that process. Now it is much easier to do editing with the computer.
Another idea mentioned in this chapter was a Classroom Web site. This would be difficult to attempt at our school because so few students have computers in their homes. I do know that computers are available at the County Library but there is always a line of people waiting to use them. This has been my experience when my computer has had some down time and been taken in for repair.
Reading this text has given me a new perspective on new literacies for new times.
New Literacies Studies and Popular Culture Texts, Chapter 1
EDCI 5760
"Trading Cards to Comic Strips"
XU, Perkins, & Zuninch, c.2005
One main idea listed in this Chapter was a study of Alvermann’s and colleagues of four ideas of ways teacher’s present New Literacy Studies. Some of the teachers ban new literacies altogether. Some teachers have students critically analyze it but do not allow the student to enjoy doing this. Other teachers allow the children to enjoy the new literacies in class but have no special directions regarding using it. While I think it probably would be best if the teachers would follow that last suggestion of the group. That suggestion was to allow student to enjoy and share their knowledge but also to critically analyze it with special directions being given to help them do this.
I have seen these new literacies taught in these various ways in the classroom. There are banning of writing about Yo Gi Oh’s when it has been used too much. Also, I have seen the encouraging children to not draw violent pictures about the games that they have encountered. Other teachers have taught about advertisements, the good and bad involved in this. Some children have had free rein to surf the net to find information for their reports. Other children have been directed to specific sites to find their information.
Our school is unique and some teachers feel uncomfortable having children surf the net because of a horrific incident that occurred at our school in its past history. It will take a long time to overcome that incident and for trust to be built in the internet system services again.
That is why I believe it is important to make known to the teachers all of the SAFE web sites that are available.
"Trading Cards to Comic Strips"
XU, Perkins, & Zuninch, c.2005
One main idea listed in this Chapter was a study of Alvermann’s and colleagues of four ideas of ways teacher’s present New Literacy Studies. Some of the teachers ban new literacies altogether. Some teachers have students critically analyze it but do not allow the student to enjoy doing this. Other teachers allow the children to enjoy the new literacies in class but have no special directions regarding using it. While I think it probably would be best if the teachers would follow that last suggestion of the group. That suggestion was to allow student to enjoy and share their knowledge but also to critically analyze it with special directions being given to help them do this.
I have seen these new literacies taught in these various ways in the classroom. There are banning of writing about Yo Gi Oh’s when it has been used too much. Also, I have seen the encouraging children to not draw violent pictures about the games that they have encountered. Other teachers have taught about advertisements, the good and bad involved in this. Some children have had free rein to surf the net to find information for their reports. Other children have been directed to specific sites to find their information.
Our school is unique and some teachers feel uncomfortable having children surf the net because of a horrific incident that occurred at our school in its past history. It will take a long time to overcome that incident and for trust to be built in the internet system services again.
That is why I believe it is important to make known to the teachers all of the SAFE web sites that are available.
New Literacies for New Times, Chapter 1
EDCI 5760
“Teaching with the Internet K-12:
New Literacies for New Times and Teachers”
Leu, Leu, and Coiro, c 2004
Now is has been shown that “learning how to use the internet becomes a literacy issue, not a technology issue,” 2004, Leu. Children are learning the use of internet technology while researching and writing their reports. This way it comes naturally to them in the excitement of viewing new sites and gathering more information. A criteria can be set up to use three different web sites to find their information. Then as pictures are needed the students are shown examples of how to copy, enlarge, and print photos. Our class had an outline to use to help the student’s search for specific information. They were to take notes to fill in their outline.
Then once all the notes are gathered, the next step is organizing or synthesizing the notes into a well written story. At this point, they can write it on paper and write the story directly onto the computer.
A few years back when I substituted in a fourth grade classroom, they literally did a cut and paste but with using paper only for that process. Now it is much easier to do editing with the computer.
Another idea mentioned in this chapter was a Classroom Web site. This would be difficult to attempt at our school because so few students have computers in their homes. I do know that computers are available at the County Library but there is always a line of people waiting to use them. This has been my experience when my computer has had some down time and been taken in for repair.
Reading this text has given me a new perspective on new literacies for new times.
“Teaching with the Internet K-12:
New Literacies for New Times and Teachers”
Leu, Leu, and Coiro, c 2004
Now is has been shown that “learning how to use the internet becomes a literacy issue, not a technology issue,” 2004, Leu. Children are learning the use of internet technology while researching and writing their reports. This way it comes naturally to them in the excitement of viewing new sites and gathering more information. A criteria can be set up to use three different web sites to find their information. Then as pictures are needed the students are shown examples of how to copy, enlarge, and print photos. Our class had an outline to use to help the student’s search for specific information. They were to take notes to fill in their outline.
Then once all the notes are gathered, the next step is organizing or synthesizing the notes into a well written story. At this point, they can write it on paper and write the story directly onto the computer.
A few years back when I substituted in a fourth grade classroom, they literally did a cut and paste but with using paper only for that process. Now it is much easier to do editing with the computer.
Another idea mentioned in this chapter was a Classroom Web site. This would be difficult to attempt at our school because so few students have computers in their homes. I do know that computers are available at the County Library but there is always a line of people waiting to use them. This has been my experience when my computer has had some down time and been taken in for repair.
Reading this text has given me a new perspective on new literacies for new times.
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