Media is the message

“Stepping into the 21st century with critical media literacy”

Scenario One: Twenty students are seated in desks that are lined in five rows and pointed at a white board. A teacher stands behind a podium and lectures about a text from the Western canon while students, using pens, fill in blanks on Xeroxed worksheets. They are studying for a multiple-choice test with an essay component.

Scenario Two: Twenty students are divided into five groups of four around a bank of computers. Each group has access to the Internet and software for audio, video, graphic, and still photography editing. Together, they are creating a ten-minute documentary, drawing from themes across a variety of texts and genres comprising high and low culture. Their products will be posted on a classroom blog for celebration.

Linking technology to instruction is just one way that teachers can incorporate new literacies in the classroom. Public schools rarely integrate semiotic knowledge into pedagogies around literacy and student engagement. Yet, literacy is tied inextricably to personal, relational experiences formed through multi-modal text experiences. Interconnections among language, literacy, and culture are becoming stronger. Literacy by achievement test is a narrow window to assess students’ learning. In an era of emerging technology and media and varied cultural practices, is reading and knowledge of Western print texts the sole, accurate, and appropriate gauge of students’ literacies? Can defining literacy in new ways enhance equity in education? Would students be more engaged and critical learners in a classroom where media and popular culture texts are constant components of instruction and dialogue?

Media education as reform

Media literacy is an expanded conceptualization of literacy. It is a process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating, and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres, and forms. Additionally, drawing from Freire’s (1992) model of critical pedagogy, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, critical media literacy is inquiry-based instruction that encourages students to ask questions and dialogue with a teacher about what they watch, see, and read. Freire (1992) refers to “critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action” (p. 52) as essential to engaged learning, because students respond in authentic ways when involved in inquiry. Freire argues that “dialogue is indispensable to the act of cognition that unveils reality” (p. 71) and is companion to problem posing.

Critical media literacy education provides tools to help students analyze messages in media texts and to understand how structural features -- such as media ownership and political powers --- influence messages. Conversations with students demythologize the media world while encouraging students to solve as well as to pose problems. Critical media literacy also aims to enable students to be skillful creators and producers of media messages, both to facilitate understanding as to the strengths and limitations of each medium, as well as to create independent media.

“There’s always something decentred about the medium of culture, about language, textuality, and signification, which always escapes and evades the attempt to link it, directly and immediately, with other structures,” argues Hall (2003, p. 105), in Decoding and Encoding. By transforming media consumption into an active process, students gain critical distance from the pervasive texts of their lives in order to acknowledge their reasons for enjoyment, the potential for persuasion through symbolic representations, and media’s ability to re-create the world in fictional and non-fictional ways.

How do you incorporate critical media literacy into the classroom? Do you see media literacy education as separate from the remainder of the curriculum? Are you comfortable leaving behind the teacher-as-authority role and becoming a co-learner in what Freire (1992) calls praxis?

Leave a comment and share in the conversation.

Studying Melville's Billy Budd and students' reactions to justice and morality

I teach in “Taylor,” a northeastern suburban community approximately 40 miles southwest of the state capital with a population of 29,500. Its citizens are, on the whole, white, European-American, and upper-middle class. I’m conducting a study with a segment of my classes. The population comprises three rosters, or 66 tracked (Oakes, 2005) English subject area high school senior honors students. In the tradition of qualitative research (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003), I will function as a teacher-researcher, which allows me to collect data that emerges from critical literacy pedagogy.

I am required to incorporate mandated texts into instruction. Tracked classes are different due to number and complexity of text assignments. The study population’s required texts include Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Potek’s The Chosen, Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Albee’s American Dream and The Zoo Story, Shakespeare’s Othello, Zeale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Wilder’s Our Town, and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Ghosts; and, Melville’s Billy Budd. At Taylor High School (THS), tracking appears to be individualistic when it is, according to Oakes (2005), founded on an “intergenerational transfer of social, economic, and political status” (p. 248).

Because tracking academic ability-based but, rather, linked to family privilege, traditional whole-class instruction at THS does not meet the needs of all learners. Alternative approaches are necessary. Instruction that requires metacognitive awareness, social justice responsiveness, questioning through critical lenses, and dialogic interactions invites new meanings to the study population. Known as critical literacy, this praxis extends beyond decoding print texts and creates literate consumers who approach and discuss various meanings of the text with others. Keene and Zimmermann (1997) state literacy and life learning require that we as readers “reorganize and create our own explanations for what we are learning, our own definitions of our lives at any particular juncture” (p. 183). Critical literacy praxis grounded within postmodern theory allows a variety of learners to decode and encode an archaic text like Melville’s Billy Budd.

Set in the late eighteenth century aboard an English warship, the novella focuses on a young, handsome, and innocent sailor who, eventually, is executed. As the final text of Melville’s life, Billy Budd has aroused much interest on the author’s views on justice, morality, and religion. Readings of Billy Budd often describe an allegory of good versus evil; an examination of nature and innocence; or, analysis of Christianity in opposition to an emerging industrialized society. A non-traditional reading of Billy Budd, however, can offer insights into why leaders fail to choose justice in times of crisis.

In the novella, Captain Vere presides over a court martial. He interprets maritime rule of law in the most severe manner possible and condemns Billy to hang. In doing so, Vere deliberately distorts applicable substantive and procedural law. Billy Budd is relevant to today’s society. During times of crisis, leaders make sacrifices in the name of security, ones that future generations often question. After September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration curtailed civil liberties in many ways. Similarly, Herman Melville's Billy Budd chronicles sacrifice in the name of security and is fodder for contemporary thought about rebellion, patriotism, loyalty, camaraderie, and modern definitions of morality.

Aims, objectives, or rationale of the project
I am interested how students respond to explicit socio-cultural instruction during a curriculum-mandated study of Melville’s Billy Budd. High school students in 2007-2008 have a unique opportunity to reflect on the times in which they live. Heightened security measures, pervasive media stories of terrorism, and a looming Presidential election present many prospects to critique American society and culture.

This study will analyze students’ discourses in a final research poster presentation in which they incorporate textual and academic sources to critically analyze Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. Fairclough (2003) argues that texts are elements of social events and “bring about changes” (p. 8). Will students recapitulate and create arguments through literary and historical lenses? Or will they create personal meanings and draw linkages to today’s world through socio-cultural constructs?

Results achieved or progress done work in this previously
Preliminary pilot data foreshadow three themes that are consistent with literature on critical literacy classrooms. Each theme accounts for a degree to which students exhibit anxiety or flow in academic performance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). While the following occurrences have led to my current research questions, my study will, in all likelihood, reveal additional themes or replace the ones I have observed so far.

“Welcome to my world” group: First, a group of students acquires the ability to identify and evaluate assumptions embedded in text messages. They thrive in an academic climate where literacies of power (Macedo, 2006) are deconstructed. Their real, literate lives are finally celebrated in an academic forum.

“Academic standing is all” group: Second, a group of students acquiesces to what one student, Jerrie, called my “political” approach to instruction. They comply so as to maintain Grade Point Average (GPA) and class rank. This group is or is not influenced to make personal meaning through critical literacy praxis.

“I’ve got the power” group: Third, a group of students rebels against critical literacy praxis. This group embraces the dominant codes of society that has enculturated them. Perhaps this group possesses family values that conflict with Marxist ideology (Chandler, 2002). Or, because critical literacy praxis requires students to demonstrate new and higher levels of thinkings, this group experiences and expresses angst.

Procedures to be followed
1. Receive Human Subjects in Research approval
2. Collect Student Release and Student Assent Forms
3. Create sequential and scaffolding instruction
a. Background for reading: Social, cultural, historical, literary
b. Allusions in text, research and collaboration
c. Syntax versus semantics explicit instruction
d. Study guide questions for class discussions
e. Six academic, peer-reviewed journal articles
f. Socratic Seminar
g. Research poster presentations
4. Conduct qualitative research
a. Teacher journal
b. Audio recordings
c. Artifact analysis
5. Analyse data and draw conclusions

Most teachers do not conduct research as means for advancing educational reform.
Teachers typically approach Melville’s Billy Budd through a New Criticism approach in which close reading and attention to texts are sole means to garner implicit author messages. Teachers who adhere to a New Criticism approach reject criticism based on extra-textual sources. Vocabulary instruction, narrative identifications, quizzes on names/ dates/ places, five paragraph essays, and author research are the norm.

My research study regarding Melville’s Billy Budd is not merely a comment on traditional instruction. It is a rejection of cultural transmission approach to pedagogy (Hirsch, 1987). I contend that an ethnocentric presentation of Western civilization creates an Us versus Them binary in which European-Americans students feel superior and non-European Americans feel inferior. More importantly, though, as Linn (1996) argues, “the Great White Story” also means “misogyny and slavery.” He states that postmodern theory informs us “it is also related to who has the money and power” (p. 136).

As I remind students that Billy Budd was one of thousands of impressed sailors, I also relate stories about how today many inner city students, no matter how hard working and intellectually talented, fight impoverishment, racial stereotyping, and fewer opportunities for dominant majority successes. I broaden out to connect “prejudice, race, gender, the media’s presentation of the Other, color symbolism” (Linn, 1996, p. 137), their own discourses, definitions of physical appearance, and dominant societal structures to Melville’s text. Responding to contextual relationships among levels of texts (Fiske, 1987) is constant.

Value of the project
A great deal is known about how students develop decoding and encoding skills. Literacy progress is indicated in most classrooms by drill sheets, workbook pages, skills instruction, teacher-directed questioning, and ability group discussions (Keene & Zimmermann, 1997; Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 1994; Turner, Parkes, & Meyer, 1996). Most instruction focuses on low-level facts and skills; stresses an ability to follow rules and procedures; emphasizes discipline; and, shares information through seat-work (Oakes, 2005).

In contrast, little is known about how students aged seventeen and eighteen react to critical literacy praxis within postmodern theory or how student-created messages reflect dominant ideologies. As Spiro, et al (1994) note, a dearth of research indicates how students move “from retrieval of intact, rigid, precompiled knowledge structures to assembly of knowledge from different conceptual and precedent case sources” (p. 611).

This project is of great value for a variety of reasons. First, it will offer new information of significance to students, educational policy, and reform. Second, the study will become one chapter of my dissertation. Third, acknowledgment of my teacher-research by the University Graduate Research Grant Committee may foster respect, additional materials, and opportunities for increased awareness from THS administration and faculty. Fourth, and most importantly, students will be awakened to their “white privilege” (McIntosh, 1997) and to their capability as agents of social change in the global community.

Resources

Bogdan, & Biklen. (2003). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theories and methods. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Chandler. (2002). Semiotics: The basics. New York: Routledge.
Csikszentmihalyi. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Fairclough. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. New York, NY: Routledge.
Fiske. (1987). Television culture. New York, NY: Routledge.
Hirsch. (1987). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. New York, NY.
Keene, & Zimmermann. (1997). Mosaic of thought: Teaching comprehension in a reader's workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Linn. (1996). A teacher's introduction to postmodernism. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Macedo. (2006). Literacies of power. Boulder, CO: Perseus Books.
McIntosh. (1997). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. In Beyond heroes and holidays: A practical guide for K-12 anti-racist, multicultural education and staff (pp. 77 - 80). Washington, D.C.: Teaching for Change.
Oakes. (2005). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson. (1994). Cognitive flexibility theory: Advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In R. Ruddell, M. Ruddell & H. Singer (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Turner, Parkes, & Meyer. (1996). The role of optimal challenge in students' literacy engagement. Reading Research Quarterly, 126-135.

Teaching to instill thinking structures

“I hope to bring an air of authenticity,” Anne Marie begins. She is 64 years old, petite, slightly arthritic, dressed in tasteful patterned tunic jacket over black pants. “This is a reading strategy that works with our students at my high school.”

She describes why we, as thirteen English teachers (three of us are not present, having been required to attend a required Beginning Teachers’ workshop in a different location), are good readers. We visualize; we watch verb tense switches for time flashbacks; we note tags on dialogue to see tensions between speakers. She asks us to teach to the students who can’t even ask a question, as, for them, “Reading is invisible.”

“Real reading is re-reading,” Anne Marie says as her theme to model her workshop topic: The Socratic Seminar. And while some of us refresh our memories about this device to teach close reading and others are exposed to it for the first time, we listen to each other’s thoughts. It was a refreshing time: colleagues in dialogue, using a public sphere to exchange ideas about pedagogy.

At one point in the discussion, we listed “Strategies we use to develop close reading.” It is as follows: ask each other questions to clarify, to allow people to share, and to redefine meaning; Paraphrase; Sentence structure analysis; Access prior knowledge; Denotation versus connotation; Relations between words; Visualize; Create personal responses; Relations between words; Interpret; Place in personal context; Syntax and semantics (mine); Context; Repetition; Define terms; Ideal versus reality: conceptions of the world; Analogize; Synthesize in one sentence; Take another point of view and explain it; Author’s intention; Whose voice is omitted? Power at play.

So much of this is, as Anne Marie suggested, part of who we are as teachers.

After the afternoon break, we, in small group,s are assigned to identify “metaphors of playwrights.” Each group comes up with similar ideas. It's starting to feel a bit too much now like the traditional classroom: content plus content equals learning.

The lack of transition to higher level study at our professional development allowed me time to reflect. And I came back to a constant theme of mine: I’m concerned that we as teachers don’t extend often enough into conversations about teaching students to think.

For me, there is no systematic, linear unveiling of literary techniques. Rather, the students’ own language and questions allow me to lead them toward meaning making. I am a vehicle for Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development, in which young people fill in gaps of knowledge with adult mediation. My primary influence lies in the cognitive domain: I help students synthesize their own experiences, identify assumptions, trace inferential clues, and reflect on their own thinking. The latter component is particularly important within a critical literacy framework, as reflecting on assumptions, stereotypes, and other embedded notions before, during, and after alternative literacy events helps students to process their feelings and experiences (Wade, 1997).

Thinking about thinking is important for students to make meaning in a symbol-saturated contemporary world. So, how do you instill in your students a way to make meaning through thinking in your classroom? Share your thoughts and we’ll develop a dialogue.

In the meantime, be well, happy, and hope-filled. I’ll “talk” to you next week,

Carolyn


Vygotsky. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wade. (1997). Service. In R. Wade (Ed.), Community service learning: A guide to including service in the public school curriculum (pp. 66). Albany, NY: State University of New York.

Teacher-to-Teacher Debut

Welcome, teachers across the United States and the world.

As a teacher-researcher, I narrate and interpret students’ reactions to my critical literacy classroom. Literacy is the ability to read, write, communicate, and comprehend. Students have access to a wide array of literacy-based activities ranging from traditional school-based literacies to the literacies they use to make sense of their daily lives.

Yet literacy skills recognized in American public schools do not resemble literacy in the real world. American public schools do not offer students instruction or provide tools necessary to help them read, analyze, and critique embedded messages in the extensive variety of texts they “read” everyday.

I'd like to create a dialogue with you and other teachers around the world about literacy for today's students: what it is, the obligations of public schools to create literate learners, current research about multiple literacies and multimodality, and your own classroom experiences in which you have tried to extend a cultural transmission approach so asa to enhance literacy structures in students.

I'll post weekly about ideas that arise from my own classroom observations and data collection. In the meantime, allow me to share with you some comments from Amy Tan, the opening ceremonies' keynote speaker last weekend at the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention in New York City.

She suggested that reading creates a certain magical reaction:

“When it happens, you feel you have gone to a different place… It is the highest moment. I can’t predict it: it just happens. Whenever you’re a write or a reader, you’ve had it. You’ve had these high moments. You found a connection between your life and this writing.”

What moment can you recall in which a text brought you to a "different place?" Was it a film, an audio story aired on radio, a poem that you memorized, a primary source digital document, an original song you wrote? Post your moment of connectedness between your life and a text.

Welcome.