Jago Ch 5- How Poems Work

❡ I'll be the first to admit that poetry is not my forte.   In high school I never had to really deconstruct poetry as others may have had to. Becoming a Literature teacher, poetry is what scares me the most.  I am a little apprehensive that I may not be able to answer my students' questions when I do teach poetry. With all of that said, this chapter gives great advice for how to teach poetry. 

❡ The first line of this chapter is 100% true. "STUDENTS NEED POETRY" (JAGO 75). Because I wasn't exposed to poetry as much as I should have, I believe that is a factor as why I don't care for poetry as much as classic literature and young adult literature.  I like the idea of using song lyrics and hip hop songs to accommodate to students to get them interested in poetry.  This also shows students that they are involved in using poetry daily when they listen to music. 

❡ Jago's "Thinking Aloud" section is a great way to introduce tough poetry in a class.  I like how Jago demonstrates this method first to her class with the first couple of lines because it shows students what she is wanting them to do (modeling) and also it can bring some ease to students by seeing the teacher demonstrate the think aloud process.  The pairs of students who do the think aloud can learn from each other.  I like how Jago has a class discussion over the harder terms, or phrases that are no longer common.  

❡ The questions and analogies Jago brings into the discussion of Wordsworth's "The World is Too Much With Us" helps students relate to the poem and get involved.  I like the question about cell phones causing the world to be too much with you.  This relates to most students in the class, and students can start relating to the poem.  

❡ For difficult poems I like how Jago uses the sensory sheet go help students place certain words and characteristics into a category.  Asking questions of why a certain word, phrase, or object had that sensory image with it can help answer questions about the poem.  I also like how Jago ends with the reading of the poem because it leaves students with the words one last time in their minds.  The poem won't seem as difficult that last time read.

❡ I remember my 8th grade English teacher reading "The Raven" to the class and being extremely exuberant about the poem.  Each year students would talk about his reading of "The Raven" and the reading became a tradition for his English classes.  I liked reading the background of Poe's reasons for written the poem.  "The Raven" has always been an impact to me when it comes to poetry.  It may be the way my 8th grade teacher read it, but it was effective.  I want to be able to do that with poetry like my 8th grade teacher did to keep students talking.  Knowing the background of a poem can also make the reading more personal. 

Film Fest Experience

✖ I experienced my first film festival on March 21. I was a little overwhelmed at first, but slowly got use to the experience. A group of the INLA majors met up and headed to Cleveland early to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. The atmosphere in Tower City was intense. There were shops set up in the mall so people could sell their things. This sort of reminded me of a flea market type set up. We saw the Festival Logo all over the mall. When the group of us finished lunch got to the box office, we were a half hour early to get our tickets to Bomber, but apparently that was not long enough. We had to get stand by tickets, but the movie was so popular that it filled up. The nice men working the lines let us sneak into Toe to Toe. The group of us had no idea what the movie was going to be about, but I believe we all enjoyed the film. I never realized how intense people are about the film fest and people go to it every year. A couple beside me in line said that they come up for the festival every year and it has become a tradition for the couple. It was a neat experience that I really enjoyed.I wouldn't mind doing it again.

I ♡ Novels

♡ This article was extremely fascinating because I am a text-a-holic, but I never thought a novel could a novel through a text.  As I look through my text messages, I could see how they could read as a poem, creating my own type of novel.  I think this could be a fun way to get students interested in poetry.  This article inspired me to use text messages and text codes to help teach poetry and get students interested in poetry.  If students saw that their regular everyday habits could be transformed into a poem maybe they would enjoy poetry more.  The text novels also reminded me of Twitter.  Texting uses a smaller number of characters and could be like a Twitter post.  Both methods could teach students how to write a short story or poem in their own creative way. 

♡ I find the novels that Mone and Yoshi wrote to be inspiring for young girls especially who are dealing with relationship issues.  Yoshi's story "Deep Love" sold a hundred thousand copies.  I found this astonishing since it started off as a text.  Banana Yoshimoto says, "Youth have their own kind of suffering, and I think that the cellphone novels became an outlet for their suffering" (Goodyear 65).  I think Yoshimoto was writing saying that that this new phenomena became and outlet for the youth, especially since youth can relate to texting and the stories told by the texting authors.  

Jago Ch 4- How Stories Work

➺ This chapter was full of different ideas of how to teach literary elements.  Jago brings up a good point that if a student doesn't understand something he or she has read, they automatically say they hate the book.  Jago "tries to teach students how to navigate difficult texts" (Jago 60). If teachers help students with a text, then fewer students will be prone to saying that they hate the book.

 ➺ The elements of literature section explains the different elements in a text.  I liked how Jago broke up the who, what where and so what to the different elements of the text.  I think students get confused at times of what to look for or what the text wants readers to get from it, and this is a great way to question students about the different elements. I agree with Jago when she says, "readers need answers to these questions in order to plot their position in a story" (Jago 61).  If students can't comprehend these questions then of course they are going to hate the text and find it boring.  This is where teachers come in to help guide students in the right direction. 

➺ In the "Story Structures" section Jago brings up Freytag's Pyramid.  I remember filling these out in high school and it being a great tool to keep the events of a story in order.  Although this was a great tool, I feel it got tedious at times.  Reading Jago's suggestion of how she uses Freytag's Pyramid is something I would like to try in my future classroom.  I like the idea of charting the events as they are read so that students who were absent are able to see what they missed. Students are able to complete the pyramid when they finish a text so that they can see what happened from beginning to end. I think this would work well with difficult texts to help students comprehend what they read.

 ➺ In the "Literary Devices" section Jago suggests using literary term frequently to get students familiar with these words is better practice than giving them a quiz and having them identify the definition.  I agree with Jago because students can just memorize the information for a test and forget the material if it is not continuously taught. Jago suggests that knowing these terms help students become more articulate. If teachers continuously teach these elements and have students use these words in their reading, then students will remember these literary terms for many years, not just for the one test.  

March Concert

As many of you know, I go to a concert a month.  I didn't get to update on my February concert because it got canceled due to the snow. I did get to see a march concert though. I am a country girl at heart. I don't just love the music, but I would rather be outside in the fields or on a motorcycle than shopping. I have always been that way, so I had the privilege of seeing new country sensation Justin Moore. He was at the Dusty Armadillo on March 13 and played for 2 hours!!! He played all of the songs on his self titled album along with some old school stuff like The Eagles' "Life in the Fastlane." I love The Eagles a lot and "Life in the Fastlane" is one of my favorite songs of thiers.  This song was one of Dale Earnhardt's tribute songs. I was so glad he played it.  Justin's song "Small Town USA" made it's way to No.1 on October 26 and he hasn't been in the business all that long! Although I am not personally from a small town, my second home is in Galion, Ohio which is so small it takes 10 minutes to go through..but I wouldn't have it any other way. I was so proud to see him and I hope to see him again.  

Small Town USA

Like There's No Tomorrow

Backwoods

and incase you don't know what Life in the Fastlane is....Click here

Here are some links of his songs:

Film Review of Toe to Toe- Costanzo Pg 299

✖ Toe to Toe is about two girls, Jessie and Tasha, who live two separate worlds. Jessie is a rich white girl and Tasha is a poor black girl. Tasha is a scholarship student trying to make her way to Princeton and Jessie is a free spirit whose life is heading for a fall. Both girls are on the Lacrosse team and become competitors. Click here to see the trailer to Toe to Toe.

✖ Personal Issues: What struck my responsive chords the most was Jessie’s behaviors. Because Jessie’s mother is absent all of the time, Jessie gets addicted to sex, drugs, and alcohol. I felt almost uncomfortable during some of the sex scenes because Jessie lives off of attention and affection from anyone who will give it to her. The director has the actress, Louisa Krause in a lot of sexual scenes and I responded to these actions because it is sad that some people rebel or release their feelings like Jessie does when striving for attention. This movie reminds me of another Film Fest movie Thirteen. Click here for the trailer. I think I responded and felt uncomfortable towards Jessie’s actions because it was believable. In today’s society kids act just as Jessie does, even when they aren’t striving for attention. I also responded to Tasha who is trying to be different than most blacks in her neighborhood and her family to make the best for herself. Because I am going into education, my inner teacher came out and wanted to take Tasha under my wing to help her dreams come true. I think other viewers may have felt the same way I did because the sex scenes were graphic and could make anyone uncomfortable, but also because the movie was believable that people can respond to the characters because they seemed real.

✖ Technique: I think the music fit the movie because of the characters. There was hip-hop music, contemporary, and Islam music to relate to the characters. I liked a specific camera shot of Tasha when she was lying in the grass after being attacked. The camera was looking down on Tasha and I felt this was very effective. The dialogue between the characters seemed to fit them because it was age appropriate. The teen actors spoke as if they were teens and not adults, and I thought this was also effective. I didn’t really notice any special effects because this was more of a dramatic movie that takes place at a school. During a party scene the characters seemed to move slower for effect (which could account as a special effect). I wasn’t too crazy about all of the scene changes. During the beginning I felt the movie jumped around a little too much. Sometimes the dialogue seemed delayed, or awkward for the characters to say. Although the language was age appropriate, sometimes the wording was awkward.

✖ Acting: The main roles were Jessie played by Louisa Krause and Tasha played by Sonequa Martin. I thought Louisa was a great actress bringing her character’s emotions into the film. As a viewer I really felt her passion and what she was going through. Sonequa was also a good actress. She was a believable character. I believe the two actresses worked well together and had great chemistry. The other characters were believable and none of the acting seemed poor or not believable. The actors were typecast because actors identified with their role. Not once did I feel like the actors were under acting. During the difficult scenes, the actors really took to their role and brought it to life. Sonequa did a great job during her attack and Louisa did a good job being a wild teen.

✖ Plot: Toe-to-Toe is a coming of age movie dealing with acceptance. Jessie who is a rich white girl has a reputation that follows her. Tasha is a poor black girl trying to make her way to Princeton to be the first in her family. Both girls are on the lacrosse team and become competitive. Jessie tries to get the guy that Tasha likes with her bad reputation and that leads to the trouble of the movie. Jessie’s mother is always away so Jessie is always out having sex at parties and doing drugs. After Tasha catches Jessie with the boy she likes, a tiff between the two girls occurs on the lacrosse field. Although the two girls come from different backgrounds, they come together to help each other out in the end. I felt the plot itself wasn’t original, but the way director Emily Abt wrote the movie was original. There are a lot of movies with a rich teen who is left alone from his or her parents and a poor black teen trying to succeed. Emily Abt wrote this film with originality with the two girls coming together help each other out in the end. Abt balances the negatives of teen themes of sex, drugs, and alcohol with working hard to get into a good school.

✖ Themes: The main ideas of the film are dealing with acceptance and affection. This film shows the struggles most teens in today’s society deal with such as drugs, alcohol, and sex. This film also shows the theme of the struggle to get into a good college. This movie is not a love story, but it does leave thought-provoking statements about relationships with friends. You have to choose the right friends and not always fall back on a bad reputation. It also shows relationships between parents and school personnel. I think a hidden message in Toe-to-Toe could be that a reputation doesn’t have to follow you and you can break the habit. Jessie was known for her sexual demeanor at four previous schools and while she allowed people to believe she had changed, she relied on her reputation to feel acceptance. In the end, Jessie realizes she needs to break the habit. The messages are integrated within the plot.

✖ Genre: I don’t know what type of genre this would fall under. It is a drama with many themes built into the movie. This film, like I previously stated, relates to Thirteen. This movie is in its own genre dealing with pressing issues of coming of age.

✖ Representation: This movie mainly focuses on social class, teens, and working parents. Rather than having the lower class in a bad light, Emily Abt shows that someone of a lower class can be successful and get into a good school like Princeton. She shows the rich not being happy. She shows that money can’t buy happiness because Jessie is a rich girl who is missing something in her life. This movie shows mothers working seem to avoid or distance themselves from their children. Jessie’s mother was never around and she had to have a housekeeper. Tasha’s mother worked late hours and Tasha’s grandmother was around her life. This movie portrays the typical teen struggles and how teens deal with certain struggles. I think Emily represented these elements the way she did to show that anyone can succeed, teens struggle with pressing issues, and that parents who aren’t in their child’s life is going to miss out. Emily wanted to show these issues to the public in her film.

✖ Ideology: Sexuality in general was questioned in this film. There was a lot of sexuality and how some teens just do it without thinking. During the end of the film, homosexuality was also brought up, but it was not shown in a positive or negative light. Sexuality could scare some parents in this movie to see how some teens are so free with it. Jessie’s character and her not caring about how many people she has slept with accomplished it. Towards the end of the film, readers’ beliefs may be the same or change. Although Jessie portrays sex as okay throughout the film, by the end she realizes that it’s not okay to sleep with everyone.

Jago Ch 2- Choosing Which Books to Teach

✗ This chapter was really helpful in teaching vocabulary. I really enjoyed the section on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of The House of Usher."  Jago hands out book marks because her students can't mark up the pages.  I think this is a great idea because it allows students to not only see words that they are unfamiliar with, but also write them down for future reference. Then having students share the words that were unfamiliar to them is a good way to see words that each student related to. Jago states that "inviting students to bring their words to class and making these words the focus of instruction seems to help students buy into the work" (Jago 27).  

✗ I think it is a good idea as teachers to review prefixes and suffixes.  Sometimes teachers don't ever do this and by the time students are in high school they may unfamiliar with certain prefixes and suffixes.  Knowing what different prefixes and suffixes mean can help students define words they don't know. 

✗ I like Jago's suggestion in considering the utility of words when deciding what words to teach.  She has three criteria for finding words: Importance and Utility, Instructional Potential, and  Conceptual Understanding.  These three criteria will help teachers chose words with meaning and potential rather than words that students may not come across as often. I agree 100% with Jago that vocabulary is learned through reading.  Having students continuously engaged in reading will help enhance their vocabulary. 

✗ One of my biggest fears as a teacher is not knowing a word a student may ask.  Reading that Jago struggles with the same thing eased my mind. Even a veteran teacher still may struggle when asked a word by a student. Jago says to break students of the "Matthew Effect" you need to engage students with rich literature from kindergarden on.  I think this is essential.  If all teachers would pick texts for students to learn a colorful variety of vocabulary, then students' vocabulary may be broader as they reach high school.  I like that Jago states, "'Knowing' a word involves more than the word's definition. It also means knowing how a word functions in different contexts" (Jago 31). Students need daily exposer to different words in different contexts. 

Great Films and How to Teach Them- Ch 9

▲ As I pondered Renee Hobbs' question of why I am interested in movies I had to really think. It's not just because it's great entertainment, but a movie can be like a novel, teaching watchers different morals, themes, characters, and settings.  Students can learn just as much from a movie as they can a text.  The way I see it, many students are visual learners and a movie can depict the same message a novel was trying to get across. 

▲ In my classroom I don't know if it is required to know the terms such as film noir and foley editing, but it would be a goal of mine for my student to analyze the lighting, camera shots, framing, etc in a movie.  This can be like analyzing a book.  Seeing it on the screen may help students understand what analyzing truly means.  This could be a benefit for future papers and help students pick a part a novel. 

▲ Like I said in a previous post, I watched a film in class then my teacher played a particular scene again for us to focus on. After she gave us the terms and told us to pay close attention to different elements in the scene, we then wrote a paper on our observations.  I feel this was a great way to measure assessment, like step 3 of Hobbs' steps.  I think a neat project could be having students make their own movie incorporating the different terms I would like them to grasp. I could visually see that they understood what I was asking of them and that they see how movies are made. This would fall under Bloom's application in his taxonomy.  By allowing students to do this, I move farther up on the taxonomy scale.  I feel if I incorporate film into my class I will become a better teacher of it, eventually getting students to the evaluation level.  I think teaching a film each grading period I could show four films and build up to the evaluation level. 

You're Leaving a Digital Trail

♧  Being able to be tracked wherever I went, having no privacy would concern me. I don't have anything to hide, but I don't find this smart phone trend to be a social network. It's like stalking. It's almost scary to think that this is becoming popular. I guess I never associated the IPHONE as a tracking device. I thought of it as a useful tool to have different applications to look things up with the touch of a screen, but I could be wrong. 

♧ Brown states, "The way I see it, we all have Facebook pages, we all have an e-mail and Web sites and blogs." I agree that a majority of us have and use these different medias frequently; however, that is information we as users choose to put onto the web for people to see.  

♧ I think the Personal Environmental Impact Report is a great way to educate people on safe environments to run or hike. It gives people an option, which is a good thing. 

♧ I am in the same boat as Dr. Estrin. I think this new technology could be a useful tool, but the idea of sensor and containing personal information is where I am unsure about this technology, or unclear. I think I am just unclear about the whole technology itself.  

♧ Dr. Pentland states 3 principles about personal data. People have the right to posses their own data, people can control their own data about themselves, and people can get rid of data as they wish.  I agree,  Isn't that what Facebook and networking is for? I don't consider tracking someone a social network by any means. I have a hard time agreeing with this concept because America is founded on having your own personal rights. Only when you appear to threaten someone or harm someone should the privacy barrier be torn down. 

Sorry if this blog seems confusing, I thought the article was confusing.

The Oscars....It's about Time Sandra won

✉ GOOOOOOOOOO Sandra Bullock! She has been my favorite actress since I first saw her in Speed. I have loved all of her movies, even the ones that weren't so hot.  After seeing The Blind Side back in November, I fell in love with it.  Sandra's performance was moving and  heart felt.  I picked The Blind Side as my favorite movie of 2009 and it was no surprise that it was up for best film. Although it didn't win best film, it still deserved to be in the category of best picture. 

✉ The Hurt Locker walked away with a lot of awards.  Sadly, I've never even heard of The Hurt Locker until last night and I must see it.  Being patriotic, I have a feeling this movie is going to move me to tears.  It was cool to see history made when Director Catherine Bigelow won for best director for this film. Her acceptance speech was touching dedicating her Oscar

to the men and women fighting for our country. I could see the team work by the actors on

stage as they accepted their award. They had their arms around each other the whole time.

✉ GOOOOOOO Jeff Bridges. I love this man. His voice is so powerful and I was so happy

for him when he won for best actor. Although I have not see Crazy Heart, I've heard

nothing but wonderful things about it from those who have seen it. I am planning on seeing it over Spring

Break. I am just happy that Jeff won.

✉ I may be the only person , but I am not a Steve Martin fan. I wasn't crazy about the idea when I heard he

was hosting. Although him and Alec fed off of each other, I wish someone else was hosting. I loved

when Ellen Degeneres hosted. I would have even liked Neil Patrick Harris to host. While the hosting

was my least favorite part of the Oscars, George Clooney also put a damper on the Oscars for me.

I have liked him for years, but did anyone else see how angry or disgusted he looked during the

opening monologue? He looked angry. It appeared that the Oscars were above him and it seemed as though

he was bored with the whole night.

I'm so Totally, Digitally Close to You

☀ Because I am a somewhat-private person, I believe that the information, pictures, and statuses are a but too personal in the facebook world.  What many youngsters in high school and even college don't understand is that certain material can come back and haunt them. Although facebook is a great social network to stay connected to people, it can be a draw back also.  In the article, Clive Thompson quotes statuses about skipping class and being hung over, along with pictures revealing what happened the night before.  These particular elements to facebook, or social networking in general, can hinder someone from getting a job, especially in the education world.

☀ It was interesting to read about the News Feed feature to Facebook.  Today, millions of users rely on the News Feed to tell them what is going on.  I look at this article written in 2008, a year after I got my Facebook, and I can always remember the News Feed feature. Facebook has changed multiple times since I first got mine, but the News Feed was always present. It's interesting to think that people opted out of the News Feed and didn't want it because today I know people can't live without it. I think it was smart that Zuckerberg created a privacy feature so users could decided what they wanted on the web for everyone to see.  I still think the privacy feature for the reason of covering up material in your Facebook is silly. Why would you put something on the web in the first place if you are going to use a privacy setting to hide it? I can see hiding your page from users and making it private so that friends you accept can see, but why put information up if you plan on not letting anyone see? I never comprehended that.  

☀ It is fascinating to think that 100 million people are on Facebook. I searched just the name 'Amanda" in the Facebook search bar and over 1 million users came up. It's crazy to think so many people are on this social network to stay connected with people. 

☀ One comment I disagree with Clive Thompson is the quote of people being over the age of 30 find activities such as networking absurd. Maybe it's because networking has become more popular since this article was first written, but I know a lot of people over the age of 30 who are on Facebook and enjoy it immensely, specifically my mother. She finds it a great way to stay connected to her high school friends, work friends, and people she hasn't seen in 30 years. I know she recently found someone on Facebook with whom she hasn't spoken to since she was a Freshman in high school, and my mother finds it to be the most incredible thing.  

☀ The article then describes text messaging to be the first communication tool, and I have to agree. Before social networks, people were able to send a short text, and find out what someone was doing, kind of like Twitter in a sense.   Instead of calling someone, texting made it easier to communicate with someone faster, if necessary. I know I use over 1000 text messages a month. Yes, I am afraid I am a text message junkie. 

☀ I like how the article described social networks as "Ambient intimacy-a way to feel less alone" (Clive 4).  For me personally, with my boyfriend being in another country, social networking has allowed us to feel closer together than we actually are with continuous messages back and forth.  It is different from E-Mail because I can chat with him through the chat feature of Facebook, I can look at his pictures to feel as though I am able to experience his trip in Italy with him.  

☀ I found the Dunbar number interesting.  The number is 150, and I have 455 friends.  I looked at them and I talk to around 300 of these people more than just on occasion.  So I think this number may not be as prevalent as it may have been beforehand. I just look back on high school and I graduated with around 400 students. I knew a majority of the students I graduated with and talked to them frequently, so I have troubles seeing Dunbar's number.  I can see where some people are just "friends" on Facebook just because, but I think people's social backgrounds have expanded to more than 150 people over the years. The article also discusses that people define who you are if you aren't on Facebook.  I strongly have to disagree. I don't think people care, or at least the people I talk to, one way or the other if you have a Facebook.  This article discussed how this lady heard she was talked about and had unflattering photos of her posted on Facebook. I think this kind of thing doesn't happen that often, or people have matured about social networks over the years.  I know a lot of people who don't have Facebooks to protect themselves from potentially being harmed in the job market and no one talks about them or defines them. 

☀ Lastly, the thing I found to be a great idea and an awful idea is having a Facebook for Kindergardeners.  I think it would be great because at a young age, children would be able to learn how to use social networks and become tech savvy for their futures.  They can stay in contact with class mates at a young age, making it difficult to lose contact after graduation.  This is an awful idea because with become tech savvy, children will be able to find things parents may not want them to find, i.e, sex, drugs, online predators.  If this were to happen, there would have to be much approval from parents and administration, along with a lot of supervision. 

☀ 

History of Facebook

✌ I remember getting my Facebook when I as a freshman in college.  It trumped myspace and I shortly got rid of my myspace.  I am a busy Junior in college and to think that Zuckerberg was only 22 at the time he created the site in his dorm room is crazy.  The site became a phenomenon across the world. I look at people's MySpace sites now and it is funny to see how much they have changed to resemble Facebook. 

✌ Reading the article "The Battle for Facebook" creator Mark Zuckerberg seems cocky.  The fact he lost a lot of his friends, including his roommate, because of this site he created shows he is in fact too into becoming successful. Zuckerberg continuously states that it was not for the money when he created this site, but after reading how many people he "burned" along the way, I can't help but think that a lot of it was to do with money. He asked for others ideas, specifically Greenspan, but ended up losing those people as friends and even people to collaborate with on the project.  While reading the article, I thought Zuckerberg would remain working with Parker, co-founder of Napster, he made Parker look like a bad business man. I feel like after reading this article, that despite the fact that Zuckerberg is very intelligent, he used other people for ideas to make Facebook what it is today. 

✌ Also, after reading this article, Zuckerberg reminded me of Marcus in Little Brother. Zuckerberg's "reputation on campus as a renegade programer was cemented" (Hoffman 3). Just like Marcus was known as a computer junkie creating programs and software, Zuckerberg was known to those at Harvard as the same. He was "nerd like" and hacking into illegal documents just as Marcus did. 

Marxism in the Classroom

❂ Because I don't think I fully comprehended Marxism, I never thought about teaching it in a classroom setting. I figured that would be up to the Social Studies teacher.  After doing the activity with social structure on the Great Gatsby, I can see an approach to use this theory in the classroom. You can do this with a lot of novels and it gets students thinking of the different social classes, and it also works with the social studies department integrating the two different subjects. 

Creating a ladder to place the characters in is a great way to start off this activity.   It gets students thinking about which characters have more power over the others.  

❂ The benefits of teaching this theory is that teachers can prepare students for the world.  By knowing and comprehending the different classes, students will be able to be more knowledgeable in the real world.  Students can also start to see the different class structures in all novels and texts read in the classroom.  

❂ The disadvantages this theory could bring is insecurities.  Social structure is a touchy subject.  I know when I did this activity last week in Pytash's class, I was insecure at one point trying to decide where I fit into the mix on the social class structure.  Students can become insecure, embarrassed, offended, and refuse to participate.  Student's have different beliefs that could hinder this activity from being effective. 

Costanzo 1-4

❀ I remember when I was in high school, my junior English teacher had us watch "Finding Forrester" and I had no idea why at the time.  After we completed the movie, she went back to specific scenes and had us pay extra close attention to the different elements in the movie. She wrote different words on the board; lighting, camera, character placement. After this we had to write a paper on our observations.  

❀ It took me reading Costanzo's first couple of chapters and Kist's class to fully comprehend why I did the assignment I did when I was in high school.  Students learn from films and the different elements in a film are very complex.  Having students learn different scenes and different elements in a movie is another way to incorporate media into their learning.

❀ Chapter three of Costanzo's book defines most terms used in depicting a film.  Reflecting back on my experience, my teacher briefly touched on these points. I never learned the different types of lighting such as high and low key.  Also, I didn't know all of the different types of movement and camera placement.  After reading this chapter I see how complex and how much work goes into making a film.

❀ These couple chapters discuss the movie Citizen Kane. I remember seeing this film a couple years back and think it is a great film to use when discussing the different elements of film.  The different shots in this movie are unique, especially for its time. 

❀ As informational as these first couple chapters were, I wish they would have told me how to teach the information.