This week in Miller’s Multimodal Composing in Classrooms, they set out to debunk myths that are common in the talked about field.  My favorite myth, myth number 2: All students are “digital natives,” and teachers as “digital immigrants” are strangers who live by very different “mindsets,” made myself reflect on my own experience in this class over the semester.  While I do believe that being a “digital native” does have something to do with the time period in which that person is born. I personally believe however that a person’s socioeconomic background and location in which they call home has more of an effect.   Using myself as an example, I was born in the correct time frame to be labeled as a digital native, but I know many people that are much older and more computer savvy than myself.  Many of these older people that I know grew up in heavy populated cities such as Pittsburgh and Cleveland.  I believe that since these people live in cities where technology is forced upon them every day, that they eventually adapt so well with its use, that it  becomes second nature to them just as easily as a young person who choices to surf on the internet daily. 

Something that I agreed with very strongly in Sara Kajder’s Adolescents and Digital Literacies, is that when an educator is seeking help with using a digital tool in the classroom, they should never be afraid to learn from their students.  Technology is only technology if the object in question was not around when the person was born.  In this regard, our students will be much more knowledgeable with digital tools then we will ever because they do not have to learn to use them since to them, it will be second nature. We must remember that we will continue to learn until the day that we die.  It would behoove us to not fight this fact, but to embrace it so that the classroom can work as a single functioning unit to achieve the level of success desired.           

Some educators see drama as a waste of time since students often do not take anything away from the experience except remembering that they had a good time.  When used correctly however drama in the classroom has many beneficial side effects.  It develops and improves reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills.  Students have to learn to scan texts for details that will lead to a greater understanding of the character or situation that they are reading about. Drama aids students in the ability to think both decisively and analytically about subjects.  They learn to read texts through not only their own, but from another’s perspective. Drama strengthens student’s abilities to follow directions, think individually, and learns about the strengths in groups.  Acting is seldom done alone, and often requires a small group to do.  When students are in groups they learn to not only to follow, but to lead.  Students do this by pulling together everyone’s thoughts and ideas to take full advantage of their numbers.  Drama gives students the chance to learn about other religions, cultures, and societies.  When students decide to act out somebody, they are becoming somebody else.  This person may be a different gender, religion, race, or have a different socioeconomic standing than the student.  The student by becoming someone other than themselves has a chance to have a different perspective on the world. Finally it helps students to develop creativity skills.  By doing this, students help to enrich their own lives as well as everyone around them.    

Upon reading the assigned reading The Unfolding Drama, I found myself agreeing with much of what the author was describing.  From my own high school experience I remember Drama in the English classroom as simply being fun; and most often being used as filler.  My classmates and I would never really put much though into the interpreting part of the assignment but all the efforts into how we were going to entertain our peers with movements, props, and tone.  Then after that it was time to decide who would draw the short straw and be forced to go to the front of the room and act it out.   From the reading I do believe that Drama does have a place in the in an ELC, but educators much be careful on how they plan on using it.  Using drama in the classroom to analysis characters in a novel, which is suggested by the author, is an excellent idea.  There is no greater way to truly understand a characters motives, fears, desires, and to interpret their actions than by becoming that character for a short time.  As the author suggests also I believe that drama should never solely be used by itself, but to enhance the subject material being used to obtain a better understand to truly learn the things being talked about.          

After last week’s class about graphic novels, I found myself wanting to one day incorporate them into to my future classroom.  While it was said in class that there is not much information out there on graphic novels for the classroom; after searching a little bit I was able to find a website called The Graphic Classroom.  The website contains a very large list on Graphic novels broken up into age appropriate categories.  Not only is there a list, but you can click on the novels in the list and receive information on the text such as the number of pages, genre, plot overview, and comments on the novels.  There is also links to over websites which lead to sites about using graphic novels in the classroom.  I think that you should really check out this website if graphic novels at any level seem beneficial to you.     

From this week’s assigned reading I gathered a few things that seem to be a trend for students of the 21^st century.  In Elizabeth Edmondson’s Wiki Literature Circles, I read that students tend to be group oriented.  “When you are part of a group, you tend to not want to let your group down,” the author says.  From personal experience I know that there is strength in being part of a group in the classroom.  When faced with tasks you are unfamiliar with or not up to par with, a person who is proficient at the task is able to take the leadership role for that day.   You also have multiple minds thinking about the same topic, batting ideas back and forth.  Edmondson also suggests that students prefer fast pace game based learning with frequent rewards.  This could be because like Jennifer Dail says in her article The Hunger Games and little Brother Come to life on Voice Thread, that teens are immersed in reality games shows which are in essence a game.  Graphic as we have learned the entire semester are important to students who have grown up in a visual world; where a picture is worth a thousand words.  Something that I found extremely fascinating though in William J. Broz’s, The Green Knight Should Be Green: Graphic Response to Literature is that the visual elements do not always have to be just on paper.  The story about the student bringing in a tanned deer skin depicting the character True Son’s village from Conrad Richter’s The Light in the Forest is a perfect example of this.    

This week’s readings were about the Graphic novel.  While I have friends who have increasingly added Graphic novels to their must read list, I have only read one graphic novel which is mentioned in the text, titled Maus.  In my personal experience, while a graphic novel has pictures like a child’s story, the plot, images, motifs, and symbols are far from an elementary rating.  I believe that the graphic novel with become a contestant thing seen in the classroom because of its popularity.  All too often I see teachers trying to force things on students that have no relevance to the student’s life.  Students who have grown up in the visual age that they have need the graphic novel.  Why should we as future educators fight this?  One of our goals as English educators should be to encourage our students to read more.  The graphic novel is a positive thing, it helps students who have trouble reading to visualize the story that they are reading, and it helps readers who already love to read to expand their horizon by opening them up to new forms of writing.  I personally believe that a teacher should engage as many senses of their students in the classroom as possible and graphic novels help to do that.  

In regards to the film project that we did in Non Print media on Monday, I really did see value in it.  Not only is there a creation and creativity aspect which is essential in a language arts setting, but there are things that students must pay close attention too when they are creating their film.  The story board part of the project was extremely necessary for the successful completion of the project.  A teacher can even simply have their students story board a story and not have them video it, but the actual video portion of the project is the icing on the cake if you will.  If I was ever going to implement this project into my own lesson plans however, there are some things that I would change or have concerns of.  The first is that I would be reluctant to turn my students loose in the school and allow them to run through the school unaccompanied, at least during actual school hours.  In my own high school which was very small; allowing students to try to find filming locations would have been extremely difficult since much of the building was in consent use. The year after I graduated the school actually turned one of the gyms into several classrooms by putting up moveable walls to separate the classes.  As you can imagine the walls were not very sound proof so classes would often be disrupted by each other.  Because of this experience of mine, I would lean towards having this as a take home project, and simply give them a large deadline.  If I was to give the student’s time to film in class however, I would make it mandatory to bring in props for the videos.  Much of our time was spent looking for suitable props to use in our own video.  That is how I would make their time in class as productive as possible.