How does the medium and/or point of view change the message?Karen WalterETAP 638 Media LiteracySummer 2012

FrameworkThis is a unit that integrates media literacy into English Language Arts

The setting is two tenth grade suburban classes of about 25 students at the regents level of mixed ability

Middle of the school year

Estimated time is approximately two and half weeks, or twelve 45 minute class units

Media Literacy Standards

Students access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms (Jolls)

Students investigate language, representation, audience and production (Buckingham) of media by asking:

Who sent the message? What techniques does it use to attract and persuade? How might it be understood by other audiences? What values, lifestyles, or points of view are represented? Why was the message sent? (Jolls)

Students engage with popular media to deepen their understanding of a topic (Scheibe and Rogow)

Students compare the ways different media present information (Scheibe and Rogow)

Students use media production to practice writing skills (Scheibe and Rogow)

ELA Core Reading Standards

Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g. parallel plots) and manipulate time (e.g. pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, surprise.

Analyze the representation of a subject or key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment

ELA Core Writing Standards

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well chosen details, and well structured event sequence.

Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events and/or characters.

Write routinely over extended time frames for a range of tasks, purposes and audiences.

Prior KnowledgeSince the beginning of the school year, the class has been learning about form (or medium) and content. Specifically, students have been learning and using technical language to analyze photographic and moving picture media with the goal of applying these same analysis skills to improve their reading and writing of print text, which still stands at the core of the ELA curriculum.

Students have observed, analyzed and discussed thirty-second ads, music videos, film trailers, sculptures and photographs, and they have collaborated and compared their findings. At this point, students recognize and readily converse about genres of film, framing shots, camera angles, lighting, editing techniques and camera movement.

Prior Knowledge Continued

Students have also been using the NAMLE key questions sheet when examining diverse media, including traditional text media. Because we’ve made them a classroom practice, they expect and anticipate me asking these questions.

Students are ready to look more closely at the effect changing the medium and/or point of view can have on how information is conveyed, remembered and understood.

Students are familiar with the the digital tool Pixton from past projects.

Students are habituated to the practice of free and loop writing and they have just read two short personal narratives.

ObjectivesStudents explore their lives and the world through reading and writing, and respond emotionally and intellectually to media.

Students read an excerpt of The Photographer and determine its point of view and mode of expression.

Students use Venn diagrams to compare and discuss the representation of Afghanistan in The Photographer to a New York Times news video report, a newspaper article and a short video made by Doctors Without Borders.

Students analyze the use of film techniques in The Photographer using the “Film Treatment” graphic organizer.

Objectives Continued

Students engage in writing as a process

Students write a personal narrative, purposefully choosing point of view

During the process of drafting, students translate a compelling scene in their narrative into a Pixton graphic panel

Students use their graphic depiction to enhance visual and aural details in their prose text

Students reflect in writing on 1) the the development of their piece of writing, 2) on the differences between the graphic and written mediums, 3) on whether and/or how their impressions of Afghanistan changed.

AssessmentStudents will maintain a unit portfolio that will become part of their larger yearlong portfolio

Assessment is ongoing and carried out by peers and teacher during the writing and composing process. It is rubric based, and students have rubrics and understand criteria from the get go.

Students’ Pixton scenes will be assessed according to a rubric co-developed by students and teacher – draft one will be peer, draft two peer and teacher assessed. The final draft will be assessed by the teacher.

Students written narrative will be assessed according to a rubric – draft one and two by peers and teacher, and the final draft by the teacher.

Reflections are ongoing, but a final wrap up reflection is required and teacher assessed according to a reflection rubric students have been working with all year.

Differentiation

Throughout this unit, mastery learning is emphasized. I provide students with scaffolding by way of lesson sequencing, with graphic organizers that help students to focus on and organize information, through pre- and follow up discussions, by providing models for student work, through process writing and composing, with rubrics that make criteria transparent and known to students before they begin to work, with plenty of peer and teacher feedback based on those rubrics, and by devoting class-time to student talk, thinking and composing.

Materials and Technology

Pen and paper

Computer lab – Access to word processing and Pixton

Map of Afghanistan to display in classroom

Excerpt of The Photographer by Guibert, Lefevre and Lemercier (pp. 1-31)

Classroom Audio-video equipment to access news articles and video:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/afghanistan/index.htmlhttp://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=6246&cat=video

Day 1

Anticipatory Set, Objectives and Purpose:Project photo-images of Afghanistan and asks students to freewrite what comes to mind. Short whole class discussion Ask students to keep all of their writing in the project portfolio to use again laterIntroduce the unit, explaining objectives and assessments. Students understand they will critically “read” media, and they will write a personal narrative and graphic narrative, with a critical focus on the effect of point of view and the medium

Day 1 - Continued

Introduce the graphic novel The Photographer and read its Introduction aloud.

In groups students explore the graphic text to determine who made it, for what purpose, what forces were behind its publishing, etc. using NAMLE sheet as guide.

Class discussion

If time, students begin to read the text in class.

For homework, students read to page 17, using sticky notes to annotate.

Day 2Start class with subjective discussion to the prompt “What’d you think? What annotations did you make?”

Ask students to describe the text. How would they describe it to someone who hadn’t read it?

Students break into groups of five to summarize a scene, analyzing its point of view, its use of film conventions, how it represents time, whether it promotes certain values. (They use a graphic organizer.)

Groups report back to the whole class, followed by discussion.

Next, students stay in groups to describe and examine components of the text -- the scripts in the yellow boxes, the white captions, the photographs, the graphic modification of photos, the drawings – how these work together, the effect they have on the reader, and whether they are comparable to other media.

• Whole class debriefing and discussion

• If time, students begin reading pp. 18-31. Students continue reading and sticky note annotations for homework.

Day 3• Start class with discussion, asks students what happened in the text, what they

think will happen, and if they would like to continue reading it.

• Students break into pairs and use three Venn diagrams to compare an excerpt from a New York Times article on Afghanistan, a three minute video news report and a five minute video made by Doctors Without Borders to The Photographer. Ask students to consider the different mediums and the different points of view and modes of narration (expository, fly on the wall, interactive, reflexive).

• Students discuss their Venn diagrams and write a summary of their findings.

• Whole class discussion follows on the findings and the advantages and disadvantages of various points of view and media.

• Explain to students that we will begin to write a personal narrative tomorrow and to let their minds begin to think about a time in which they entered a new and strange situation with new people as Didier Lefevre does in The Photographer.

• Post two models of the narrative piece written by previous students. Make sure students understand these as models and that their own pieces can be different.

Day 4• Students “loop write” for five minutes to the prompt:

“Remember a time when you entered a new situation, started something new, where you met new people, maybe even a new place”

• Ask for volunteers to share one liners

• Students continue loop writing to the prompt:“Sketch in any moments, events and people that seem connected”

• Ask for volunteers to share one liners

• Continue loop writing to the prompt:“Sketch a verbal exchange or dialogue associated with this memory”

Day 4 Continued• Ask students what point of view they used in their

writing and why?

• Ask students to take the event and write it from a different point of view – perhaps from the point of view of a parent or friend, or an omniscient narrator – or to change the mode from narrative to expository or to interactive – in which you as the writer are aware of and speaking to the reader.

• Students discuss in pairs how the piece changed and which point of view or mode they prefer to write the story in.

• For homework students write a first draft of their narrative.

Day 5

• Students peer review drafts marking a rubric to note qualities present and missing in the work, and using the “ladder of feedback” to ask clarifying questions, to value the work’s strengths and to raise concerns and make suggestions.

• Students read comments and ask questions, conference with teacher

• The class moves to the computer lab, where students continue to work on their narratives

Day 6• Explain to students that we are going to experiment

with translating a scene from our narratives into a graphic narrative like The Photographer using Pixton.

• Use The Photographer to review with students the way the scenes are built and how they are effective.

• Develop with the class a simple rubric for the Pixtons.

• Students use The Photographer, their narratives and the “Film Treatment” organizer to plot out panels. The Film treatments asks students to think about each panel in terms of what the audience will see, what they will hear (dialogue), and what the producer wants the audience to feel.

Day 7-8• Class meets both days in computer lab to work on

Pixtons

• At start of day 8 peers review work completed on previous day, applying Pixton rubric and ladder of feedback.

• At end of day 8 students complete their scene and reflect in writing on the following questions: How does the Pixton differ from your written narrative?Are there qualities in your Pixton that you can incorporate or translate into your writing?In what ways can you enhance visual and aural details in your written text?Describe the changes you are going to make to your written narrative.

Day 9-10

• On day 9, class meets in computer lab where students continue working on their written narratives, obtain a second round of peer feedback and conference with teacher

• On day 10, collect all drafts and feedbacks of narratives, as well as all Pixtons to provide one last round of teacher feedback before final revision/edit. Use rubrics to provide students specific criteria based feedback – no surprises.

Day 11• Class meets in computer lab. Return students’

work and spend the day conferencing while students write final reflections.

• Students reflect on the unit using the writing and work they’ve compiled in their unit portfolio and the rubric for reflection. Things to consider are how their piece of writing changed or developed. What impressions The Photographer had on them, what they valued and will take away from the unit, what about the unit or the way they approached it could improve, how what they did or learned relates to other texts, classes, learning, interests, or the bigger picture, and whether their thinking about Afghanistan has changed since their first in class free writing activity.

Day 12

• Final drafts and Pixtons due. Read, exhibit and celebrate them!

• Students volunteer to read excerpts from narratives and show Pixton scenes.

• Discussion of impressions and reflections.

• Publish narrative and Pixtons on class website (with permission of students).

RationaleThis unit approaches media literacy with a preparation approach, rather than a defensive, or protective approach. It prepares students to read and compose media critically with an understanding of its structures and its purposes. Production, language, representation, and audience are all addressed in one way or another as we examine a range of media including traditional print, video and a mixed media graphic narrative.

Providing students with graphic organizers to analyze media, focuses their attention and enables them to view media rigorously and consciously. Student-centered discussions evolve out of the analysis, and students dialogue with one another to construct meaning and understanding with and from the media texts.

Rationale Continued

In addition to the dialogic nature of discussions and the analytic and informal writing that feeds them, there is a dialogic relationship between the media analyzed, the graphic novel The Photographer, and the personal narrative texts I ask students to produce. Discussions of the building blocks, the point of view, and the mode of communication of The Photographer feed students’ own production of their visual and print texts. The Photographer becomes a model and a way to think about media. In this way, students learn through media and about media.

Rationale Continued

Finally, The Photographer offers students a unique window into Afghanistan, a place that tends to be treated very stereotypically and viewed geopolitically in the news. Students consider that point of view and mode of exposition can matter in how we represent people and places, causing them to seem alien, remote and expendable or sympathetic, interesting and human.