Multimodal Blogging Text Set

For those of you used to my blog's normal tone and brevity, I'll offer a word of caution. That tone ends with this sentence, and this is lengthy post describing a set of texts to teach A Thing. This text set was developed with the purpose of introducing students to a daily writing activity that will be ongoing for the entire semester in a 9^th grade English Language Arts classroom In Milwaukee. Students will receive a writing prompt each day and have time to make a blog post in response to the prompt in class as well as a prompt to photograph something in their lives for the following day's prompt. The texts here will be used to shed some light on the benefits of writing a blog, show students how effective image use in conjunction with short writings can be, and present students with blogs that can be used as models for their own multimodal blogs.

Culturally relevant text

Miller, Anna, et al. “Your Guide to Milwaukee's Street Art.” Milwaukee Magazine, 16 Jan. 2018, https://www.milwaukeemag.com/guide-milwaukees-street-art/

This culturally relevant text showcases a wide variety of street art that has been created by local artists all around Milwaukee. Each photograph of art is accompanied by a short description of the artist(s) and the artwork at each location.

Complexity:

StoryToolz gives this text an average rating of 10.7 for quantitative complexity. I agree with this rating and don’t think this would be overly challenging for a 9^th grade student to consume. Qualitatively, I would say this text is only slightly to moderately complex. The photographs are used only as support for the written text and give images to the descriptions of the artwork, the language used is very straight-forward and conversational while using very little vocabulary that will be challenging, and the writing relies mostly on geographic knowledge of the city that most high school students will be familiar with.

Some vocabulary for this text includes reclusive, bienvenidos, prominently, breadth, proverbial, and haven.

Task and reader complexity:

As the first text to go along with the semester long assignment of keeping a multimodal blog, this task is only slightly complex. This text will be the first introduction of using images and short passages together to form a coherent message. This will also be used to motivate students’ interest by connecting the idea of creating blogs that express the world around them as they see it. The text builds on cultural assets of the students because they’re all likely to have experienced the art around the city, even if only by accident. It also builds on their cultural assets because the format is similar to Instagram/Facebook posts with an image and then a short description, so they’ll be quite familiar with the format. Finally, it will build on their cultural assets because it’s a text expressing some of the beauty around the city that they all live in. The accessibility of this task is high, because students will only be required to take a photo of something in their lives and add an explanation of the photo using this text as a model.

Print-based text

Sullivan, Andrew. “Why I Blog.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 19 Feb. 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/

This print-based text situates blogs in the modern world among other types of media production and communication. It’s designed almost like a persuasive essay to encourage others to blog while describing the benefits to the individual producing the blog and the society that consumes blogs.

Complexity:

StoryToolz rates this blog’s average quantitative complexity at an 11.8 grade level. I don’t disagree entirely with this measurement, because the sentence structure isn’t overly complex, and the vocabulary is only occasionally demanding. Qualitatively I would say the text is mostly very complex. Some of the connections to other forms of media are implicit making the text structure very complex and the knowledge demands sometimes on specific related knowledge like the idea of something being postmodern. However, the purpose is easy to recognize and, again, the sentence structure isn’t overly complex.

Vocabulary words for this text may include postmodern, transitory, scant, posthumously, circumspection, and superficial.

Task and reader complexity:

The task associated with this text and the reader will be slightly complex. This text will be included as part of the ongoing introduction to blogs and will be used to motivate students to get involved with their blogging assignments. Because it will be a new subject that they may not have dealt with before, it will have some unfamiliar vocabulary and there won’t be a ton of connection to background knowledge outside of a general familiarity with news and other media. The task associated with this reading will be to create a blog post that explains why they are blogging. This may be more or less accessible to students based on their motivation level regarding their blogs, but the text will give them plenty of knowledge to build a rationale for blogging.

Multimodal text

 “A New Exhibition Looks at Our Complex Relationship with Animals.” Feature Shoot, 14 Oct. 2019, https://www.featureshoot.com/2019/10/a-new-exhibition-looks-at-our-complex-relationship-with-animals/

This is a multimodal text that is explaining an exhibition that took place at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. The exhibition is about the positive and negative realities that animals face because they share the planet with humans.

Complexity:

StoryToolz tells us that the quantitative complexity of this text ranges between an average of 8.8 and 13^th grade level, depending on the section. Some of the captions on the photos are easy to follow because they’re accompanied by the photograph and aren’t exceptionally wordy, while some of the other information can be a little more demanding. This difference explains the varied level of complexity, which I agree with. Qualitatively, the text structure is very complex. Although the knowledge demands and meaning are only slightly to moderately complex, the text structure is at least very complex because of the contrast between some of the pictures that extend the meaning of the written text and the language features border on very and moderately complex because of sentence complexity and vocabulary.

Some vocabulary from this text may include rambunctious, solemn, euthanized, sanctuary, anesthesia, sow (noun), and cyanotype.

Task and reader complexity:

This text will be used to begin the conversation about how impactful images can be on a narrative. Though it may not build on urban students’ cultural assets (because of the extensive reference to farm animals and the rodeo) it will build well on the students’ background knowledge established by earlier readings and assignments to take pictures at home to use as writing prompts in class. The task with this text will be accessible as the students will be asked to photograph something in their lives that could be used to call attention to some injustice, either tangible or perceived, and explain what that injustice is.

Other Texts

Culturally relevant - catdiggedydog, Written by. “A Day in the Life of a High School Blogger.” Catherine Zhang, 2 May 2014, https://catherinezhang.me/2014/05/01/life-high-school-blogger/ 

Print-based - Bullas, Jeff, et al. “9 Reasons Why A Blog Is Important for Your Career and Life.” Jeffbullas's Blog, University of Phoenix, 8 July 2019, https://www.jeffbullas.com/sponsored/9-reasons-why-a-blog-is-important-career-life/

Multimodal - Eldon, Dan, and Kathy Eldon. The Journey Is the Destination: the Journals of Dan Eldon. Chronicle Books, 2017.

Should We Trust Students to Take Charge of Their Learning? The Answer May Surprise You!

From my brief time working with adolescents in my field work (and a few interviews conducted with some students), I’ve started to get an understanding of “teen literacies” that aren’t all that different from my literacies when I was in high school. Some of the biggest takeaways from being around students and interviewing some of them are the importance of choice (which is a huge surprise only if you’re not paying attention), how a school workload influences students’ abilities and willingness to take part in reading and writing for pleasure, and of course how varied teens are when it comes to their literacies.

Without contest, the biggest insight gained from both interviewing students and just talking with students in general is how important the aspect of choice is when completing things. I know that I also grappled with the notion of reading as an adolescent because so often the only thing that I was reading were things that were assigned to me in classes where I felt less than autonomous.

Because of that (and honestly even before these interviews, because I’ve been paying attention) one of the things that I plan to implement into my teaching is choice. Even if it’s a choice from a list of things, it’s still better than no choice at all. These choices don’t stop at what a student reads in class, though. The students I interviewed all said that they didn’t write much for fun, and the ones that had a strong opinion on the matter said that if they could make a writing assignment that they wanted to do they would enjoy it more. The suggestions for composition always trended toward other forms of academic writing, so I’m sure that bringing multimodal production as an option of a “writing” method into class would certainly get some student buy-in.

Another factor is the school workload. Of course, there are assignments that need to be assigned to evaluate where students are in their learning, but I remember being in school and being assigned things that I had to constantly wonder what purpose they served. I suppose that leads me to something that I might consider trying. Instead of having a “read this by then” approach, maybe I could get away with assigning just a certain amount of reading from some variety of text. Of course, this sort of relates to choice, but I’d also like to keep the workload as small as it needs to be so I can instead encourage students to really engage in texts (both consuming and creating) that bring them joy to foster that healthy long term relationship with literature.

A third thing that I would love to incorporate into my classroom is a vast classroom library because of the varied interests of teens. Naturally there’s the issue of cost and making sure that all the texts are things that aren’t going to get huge backlash from students, but I’m sure with the help of sites like donor’s choose and with a little time an excellent library for a classroom can be pieced together. This is, again, just an extension of choice. It seems like allowing students to choose what they read, when they read, what they write, and how they write might be the best approach to getting students engaged with literature. It’s almost like we should let the students run (or, maybe, lead) their own learning. I wonder if anyone’s written anything on that yet that would support my hypothesis (:O).