Day #1: Mixed Success

Becuase I got in kind of late last night, I slept in this morning.  After getting up, I headed on over to the Hilton Chicago.  The shuttle bus seemed to take 30 minutes to get us there, but we finally did arrive.  The first thing I did (after registering) was stroll around the exhibit areas.  I noticed that they were selling $3 copies of American Born Chinese and the new graphic novel of Anne Frank.  Pretty cool!  I already have these, yes, but the price was certainly right.  Maybe I will give them away as gifts.  Anyway, they get me thinking about the possibility of teaching the Comics as Lit course sometime.  Online, perhaps?

After my exhibition visit, I still managed to go to two sessions:  one that was pretty helpful and one that was not.  Let's start with the helpful one....

I read in the program that NCTE was having something called a "New Media Gallery" at this convention.  I thought this sounded pretty cool.  When I walked in the room, though, I just discovered a bunch of leftover handouts on different tables, and I was told by the only person in the room that the "New Media Gallery" was simply a fancy name for the "new media" strand of sessions that were taking place in that room all day.  Hmmph.  Disgruntled, I went down to a grab-and-go lunch place to grab a bite to eat before the session started.  $10 for a ham sandwich and a 4 oz. Diet Coke.  Ouch.

The session (beginning at 2:30) was called "Media Circles: Cooperative Learning for Media-Savvy Teachers."  The basic purpose of the session (held by a mother-and-son team, oddly enough--she a middle school teacher and he a college instructor) was to show that the "literature circle" principle often used in high school classrooms could be used with new media texts as well.  First we viewed a film clip.  Then we viewed it again with a sheet in front of us--each of us sitting at a table had a different role to play with a different colored piece of paper.  Mine was a blue sheet titled "Wordsmith"--I had to look for words that I ostensibly didn't know (or at least ones that'd be confusing to a student).  Then all of us with blue sheets got together and compared responses.  This way, collectively, we filled out larger lists.  Then we reported back to our original group, where each of us shared something she or he noticed about the film.  The categories included "Economist" (commenting on the economy of the time shown), "Fashion" (what people wore), and "Time Catcher" (noting things about the setting).  We repeated this exercise again, but this time with a website.  We were told to look a different webpages in front of us (laminated, for each of us at the table to examine). Again, we each had different roles--"Framer" (what was included?  what was excluded?), "Demographer" (who's the audience), "Archeologist" (what needs to be uncovered--that was my role), and "Corrector" (what needs correcting).  We all shared what we noticed/did not notice.

My conclusions from this activity--I think it might work particularly well for analyzing a small piece of text.  But I'm wondering if it would work as well with whole novels, or whole movies.  I'm not sure.  Perhaps I will try it in my Short Novels course next term.  Other interesting tidbits from this session:

• They talked about how YouTube is being censored in middle schools.  Curious.  It's weird that I don't often think of these things, being a college instructor.
• "Assume that a student's attention span is his or her age + 1 minute."  Hmmm.  Believable!
• For the new media circles, have the groups do a "group evaluation" form if they can't stay on task.

The second and final session I went to on Friday was called "Progressive Literacy Practice for K-12 and College Classrooms."  I was sort of hoping that it would deal with new media and/or digital technology, but no such luck.  Still, I learned some interesting things that I think should/could be applied and considered when thinking about teaching English in general and with new media in particular.

Jennifer Meresman from Harold Washington College summarized her talk with three interesting points:

• It's a breakthrough for developmental students to recognize when they're stuck.
• Struggle and challenge is a normal part of college reading.
• Students will come up with their own strategies towards reading that work for them.

I think it's hard for students--developmental or not--to realize that they are not perfect and need growth in their literacy skills.  That's why I think the first two points are particularly interesting.  Students want A's so badly that they don't give themselves time or space to make mistakes, and when they do, they either beat themselves up or blame their teacher.  This is one reason why I like teaching with portfolios.  Portfolios reflect objectives achieved, the end product of a long process of learning.

Jason Evans and Sarena Lee-Schott of Prairie State College then presented (I wonder if they remember me interviewing at Prairie State back in 2004--I doubt it!!).  Evans talked about an interesting comma lesson that I think is worth noting.  He'd give his students a passage with no commas, ask them (as a group) to fill them in, and then ask them why they chose the places for the commas that they did.  From this he'd get them to construct on their own "the rules" of comma use.  Interesting approach--I might try this.  I also liked Lee-Schott's point about preferencing the term "underprepared" over "developmental."  I think "underprepared" is probably more accurate, but "developmental" sounds a bit less....well, harsh.  Can you imagine students saying, "Oh, I'm taking Underprepared English 101"?  Don't think so.  Still, for academic circles---perhaps among teachers--"underprepared" is a bit better to use.  She pointed out these are students who've had reading comprehension problems, who've made their lack of reading/writing skills part of their basic identities, and their low socioeconomic status contributes to their "underpreparedness" as well.

Had a tasty dinner at the motel restaurant (Lockwood)....half a roast-chicken, sweet potato with pecans and marshmallows, crab salad, and a maple cheesecake.  Yummmmmmm.

I hope to go to 4 sessions tomorrow.  We shall see.

Later.