Foot - Great Films and How to Teach Them

I recently blogged about the movie P.S. I Love You and I mentioned that I had ordered the book that the film is based on. In my Literary Autobiography I mentioned several books that were also films, such as Fiddler on the Roof, based on Shalom Alcheim's Holiday Tales, Exodus based on the book by Leon Uris, and the Chronicles of Narnia based on the books by C.S. Lewis. How many classic books have been made into films? Just from Jane Austin alone we've gleaned the films, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion. It is truly amazing how linked films and literature really are. After reading Great Films and How to Teach Them I became even more excited about the possibilities surrounding the use of film in an English classroom.

I don't know very much about film except that I have watched a lot of movies and I took a film class one semester. My only fear about using film in my classroom is that it will become an easy cop-out for my students to not read the book - I know I could simply have them read the book first, but there has to be a unique and exciting way to interlace the two creating the best possible learning experience.

I decided to focus on Schindler's List because the possibilities of teaching this as a book and as a film are terrific. Also, Schindler's List is just one of the many Holocaust inspired films/books and an entire unit about the Holocaust could be taught using films, books, and a large variety of multi-media texts. Focusing just on the film version of Schinlder's List, I believe one of the most striking elements of the film is that it is in black and white. At one point in the film there is a girl with a red coat that is in color; it's very striking and seeing how this effects the students would be interesting. Here is an interesting website, Schindler's List as an Education Tool Classroom Activities based on Spielberg's Film, I found with a specific section for The Little Girl in the Red Coat.

Focusing on the Little Girl in the Red Coat reminds the students that the victims of the Holocaust were individuals; not just numbers. The website provides testimonials and entire lesson that focuses on the idea of individual remembrances.

Foot - You're Leaving a Digital Trail - What about Privacy?

You're Leaving a Digital Trail - What about Privacy? was a great article, especially since I got rid of my personal Facebook because I wanted more privacy. The very last quote of the article scared me a little, "For most of human history, people have lived in small tribes where everything they did was known by everyone they knew,” Dr. Malone said. “In some sense we’re becoming a global village. Privacy may turn out to have become an anomaly (Malone)”. I don't really want to become part of a "global village"; I like my privacy.

Of course, technology is a very useful, “'There are so many uses for this technology — from marketing to war fighting...'says Steve Steinberg, a computer scientist who works for an investment firm in New York"; he goes on to say, "'that I can’t imagine it not pervading our lives in just the next few years'”(Steinberg ¶ 7). Just this past year there were a plethora of stories about Facebook privacy issues , but did we stop using Facebook? Hardly. We, as a society, are becoming more and more willing to let go of our privacy and so Mr. Steinberg is correct in saying Technology will pervade out lives...but my thought on the matter is that we have let technology pervade our lives and we willing let go of privacy in order to be more "connected".

Foot - Letters from Japan: I (heart) Novels

Before reading I (heart) Novels, I had never even heard of Cell Phone Novels, and even now it amazes me...my thumbs would get tired.

From the article, I gathered that this particular type of writing is preferred by young girls, which I found very interesting. I mean, what girl doesn't remember being 13 on up and chatting with friends about all the extreme drama going on in their lives? Now a days, it's not just talking it's texting. Instead of just the seemingly inconsequential story lines of one would expect from a teen, the stories that emerge from Cell Phone Novels are emotional and thought-provoking. An example of the kinds of emotional stories being told through Cell Phone Novels, is a book called "Love Sky,” by Mika that describes the story of a girl who, in her Freshman year, "falls in love with a rebel named Hiro, and is raped by a group of men incited by Hiro’s ex-girlfriend. Then Mika gets pregnant with Hiro’s child, and he breaks up with her. Later, she finds out why: he is terminally ill with lymphoma and had hoped to spare her" (Goodyear ¶ 9). The article goes on to explain that the, "the moral of the story is not that sex leads to all kinds of pain, and so should be avoided, but that sex leads to all kinds of pain, and pain is at the center of a woman’s life" (Goodyear ¶ 9).

The good things about Cell Phone Novels are that young women are finding new and innovative ways to express themselves using a piece of technology that has taken the entire world by storm. I don't got anywhere without my cell phone; having that constant outlet for creativity is absolutely great. Another pro of the Cell Phone Novel is that, "miraculously, books have become cool accessories. 'The cell-phone novel is an extreme success story of how social networks are used to build a product and launch it,' Yoshida, the technology executive, says. 'It’s a group effort. Your fans support you and encourage you in the process of creating work—they help build the work. Then they buy the book to reaffirm their relationship to it in the first place'" ( Goodyear, Yoshida ¶ 18).

Some cons of the Cell Phone Novel could be the lack of grammar and a fear that actual literature will fall by the wayside. Grammar probably goes out the window - and in the firsts section of the article it is explained that one author, Mone, "started posting her novel straight from her phone to a media-sharing site called Maho i-Land (Magic Island), never looking over what she wrote or contemplating plot (Goodyear ¶ 2). Another fear of some would be that traditional Japanese Literature would become out of date, “Everyone in publishing received this as an enormous shock to the system, and wondered, What is happening here?” Mikio Funayama, the editor of Bungakukai, a respected monthly literary journal" (Funayama ¶ 14).

The pros and cons of the Cell Phone Novels are something to consider when considering using this in your classroom. I love the idea of using this during a unit on creative writing. Students could collect appropriate texts from a certain period of time, like over a weekend, and then they could piece the texts together into a story. Or they could simply compose on their cell phones whenever they wanted and post it on a sight that could be reviewed by the teacher.

I'm excited about the Cell Phone Novels and I look forward to it becoming a bid deal in the U.S.

Foot - Publish or Perish - The iPad, the Kindle, and the Future of Books: The New Yorker

The iPad, the Kindle, and the Future of Books article ties in nicely with my blog about Borders closing. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos boldly declared that, “the physical book and bookstores are dead” (Bezos ¶ 16). Yikes! I certainly hope not. But, as they say, numbers don't lie, according to the article eBooks, "account for only an estimated three to five per cent of the market, their sales increased a hundred and seventy-seven per cent in 2009, and it was projected that they would eventually account for between twenty-five and fifty per cent of all books sold" (Auletta ¶ 3). So, what makes digital books so popular? Obviously convenience comes into play; the Kindle boasts that it can download a book in 60 seconds (Auletta ¶ 16). Another positive of digital books is the relatively low price. When digital books started becoming popular, Amazon sold the books for $9.99 (Auletta ¶ 3). An actual paper, hard-cover book bought at a bookstore can cost up to $40.00; so digital books have that going for them. Convenience and price are gouging the bookstores, "Roxanne Coady, who owns R. J. Julia Booksellers, an independent bookstore in Madison, Connecticut, said, 'Bookselling is an eight-inch pie that keeps getting more forks coming into it. For us, the first fork was the chains. The second fork was people reading less. The third fork was Amazon. Now it’s digital downloads'" (Coady ¶ 22).

So what do regular bookstores have going for them? I'd say the strongest thing is the actual experience associated with buying a book at the bookstore. I got to Lewis Buzbee's book "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop" to prove my point, "Elias Canetti has described cafes as places we go to be 'along among others,' and I've always felt this was true of the bookstores, too. It's a lovely combination, this solitude and gathering, almost as if the bookstores were an antidote for what is sold" (Buzbee 6). Anyone who loves bookstores understands this wonderful feeling of being "along among others"; of browsing for a book and feeling, smelling, and seeing the bookstore experience. “In a bookstore, there’s a serendipitous element involved in browsing,” Jonathan Burnham, the senior vice-president and publisher of HarperCollins, says. “Independent bookstores are like a community center. We walk in and know the people who work there and like to hear their reading recommendations.” (Burnham ¶ 24).

What is the future of books? From Steve Job's or Jeff Bezo's point of view technology is the only possible future. I feel that though digital books are popular and useful and to some degree really great, paper books and bookstores will never be completely destroyed. I hope the future of books is a future where digital books and regular paper books coincide and consumers will always have the opportunity to choose which they prefer. As for me, I'll stick with the paper books and my beloved book stores.

Foot - Learning By Playing: Video Games in the Classroom

The words school and fun rarely go together. Of course as a future teacher I want my classroom to be fun; I want learning to be fun. And reading Learning By Playing: Video Games in the Classroom I realized there is a whole realm of exciting possibilities in the field of video games and the classroom. When I read the paragraph about the various worlds the students explored and went on "quests" in I was totally enthralled; it sounded awesome! "And while students at the school are put through the usual rigors of studying pre-algebra, basic physics, ancient civilizations and writing, they do it inside interdisciplinary classes with names like Codeworlds — a hybrid of math and English class — where the quests blend skills from different subject areas. Students have been called upon to balance the budget and brainstorm business ideas for an imaginary community called Creepytown, for example, and to design architectural blueprints for a village of bumbling little creatures called the Troggles" (Corbett ¶ 13).

One of the worries I have with so much technology in the classroom is exemplified by an 11 year old student named Kai. He explained the many different types of media he used but said this about blogging, "He used to have a blog, but it took too much time so he dropped it" (Corbett ¶ 21). Is the already shortened attention span of most children becoming even shorter? Are kids unwilling to invest too much time into worthwhile endeavors? That, I believe, is one of the benefits of more traditional learning avenues; they require more time and therefore the attention span of students will hopefully be developed.

Toward the end of the article there is a paragraph about a social networking program called Being Me, in which students are taught, "things like how to tag photos, update their status, credit the work of others, comment meaningfully on blog posts and navigate the complex politics of 'friending'". Okay, when I read this I couldn't help but find it pointless. I don't think we need to teach kids how to use a medium like Facebook; they can and do learn on their own. Corbett explains that Being Me is an, "effort on the school's part to look at the things kids are already doing - social networking, playing video games, tinkering with digital media - and try to help them do it with more thought and purpose, to recognize both their role and their influence inside a larger system" (Corbett 59).

Looking at it this way, I can possibly see the point of Being Me, still I don't think it's necessarily the best way to go about teaching the use of thought and purpose. Overall I enjoyed this article and I really want to incorporate video games into my classroom. An example, could be role playing games about classic literature.

Borders Store's Closing

If anyone paid attention to my Literary Autobiography Presentation, they'll know that I love books and reading. So, when I found out my very favorite book store, Borders, was filing for bankruptcy and closing several stores in Ohio and throughout the U.S. I was devastated. I started wondering why Borders was closing: every time I'd been in the two nearest my home, Niles and Mentor, the store was bustling with business. So after thinking about it for about 20 seconds I decided there was a double culprit: poor business management and technology.

I don't know much about running a business so I can't give much of a statement on the business side of things. However, I am an avid consumer of books and the fact that people would rather download a book or buy it online as opposed to actually going to the store makes me sad.

I know it's more convenient to get things off a website and I also know Borders has an online store and even offers eReaders, but still, whatever happened to human interaction? To actually experience the thrill of walking into a bookstore and seeing the thousands of different books, cds, movies, etc. laid out in from of you like a jungle of exciting and tantalizing entertainment and education? What has happened to the excitement of smelling the delicious coffee and pastries from the coffee shop...or the smell of new books? What has happened to interacting with other consumers, readers, sales people, and just other human beings in general? Technology is wonderful. Being able to download a book to your iPad, iPod, eReader, Kindle, etc. is fantastic - but believe me, there is nothing like going to an actual store, walking in and be bombarded with the sights and smells of an actual bookstore. For many people throughout Ohio, going to a Borders bookstore is maybe not impossible but highly inconvenient. What stores will be next? Barnes and Noble, perhaps? Who knows. All I do know is that our society is losing the wonderful experience associated with going to a bookstore to buy your books.

Here are a few articles about various Borders store closings:

The Chicago Sun Times entitled "Borders Store's Closing Saddens Fans"

"Borders: We Will Survive"

Here is a list of the stores that will be closing throughout the U.S.

Also if you love bookstores or the idea of the book stores The Yellow Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee is a fantastic read. Here is a link to an expert and review of the book!

Foot - Pleasure Reading

P.S. I Love You is one of my absolute favorite movies and when I saw that it's based on a book I quickly bought it from Borders.

I haven't gotten the book yet, but I thought I would blog a little bit about the movie as it's one of my favorites and I watched to for pleasure this past weekend.

The main gist of the story is that Holly (played by Hilary Swank) and her husband Gerry (Played by Gerard Butler) are madly, completely and totally in love and like all people who are in love they fight. The opening scene is a huge blow-out fight that ends with Holly and Gerry running into each others arms and realizing how silly the fight was. The scene ends and the next scene is a funeral - Gerry's funeral. He has died of a brain tumor and a few weeks after the funeral, on Holly's birthday, a cake arrives that says, "Happy Birthday My Love. I love you, Gerry" and a recording attached to the box with a note that says "Play Me" begins one of the most romantic stories of loss and renewal ever. The movie touches on the universal themes of a loved one dying and how to cope with that loss and how to eventually overcome the loss and begin life again. It sounds depressing, and it is a little, but it's also beautiful and happy and wonderful.

The soundtrack is amazing too! Here are links to two of my favorite songs on the soundtrack: Love You to the End by the Pouges and If I Ever Leave This World Alive by Flogging Molly and one more that is not on the soundtrack, but should be, Galloway Girl by Steve Earl.

And if the phenomenal story line and cast is not enough to get you to watch the movie then Gerard Butler should be =)

Foot - Web Gave 'Twilight' Fresh Blood

Reading "Web Gave 'Twilight Fresh Blood"brought up two different themes: How to connect social networking and Twilight and wondering if teaching Twilight is the best option for my students, or if it should just be kept for personal reading.

First off, it appears that Stephanie Meyers used social networking and the Internet to promote herself and her book and it worked wonders. Stephanie Myers personal site was used by Meyers as, "she directly engaged with her readers. When fans posted messages, Meyer's response was personal. She'd write back or blog about it" (Susan Carpenter, ¶ 6). The idea of fans being able to directly communicate with the author and breaking down a barrier between themselves and the one who created the characters they love shouldn't be a surprise. But, for some reason, it seemed rare to me. Maybe I haven't been looking at the right author websites. So, obviously from the HUGE fan base and reader response to the Twilight series, the web worked wonders for Stephanie Meyers. To demonstrate just how big the Twilight fan base is, I found these two websites, Twilight Fan Page and Twihards.com

The Internet and technology has obviously bolstered Twilight, however is Twilight something to be taught in the classroom? In the article, Publishers Weekly children's book editor Diane Roback says that, "It [Twilight Series] speaks to this sort of exquisite pleasure of not being able to fulfill the relationship," Roback continues. "The books have a strong moral message, which is abstinence before marriage, and by choosing a vampire who does not want her to become a vampire, they're locked in that kind of struggle of the hormones that many teenagers find themselves in (Roback ¶ 16)." So, this book could help teens identify with the characters and the struggles of raging hormones. That's one lesson.

Some may say that Twilight lacks the serious literary quality necessary for classroom books, but what is one of the biggest reasons we choose the books we choose for classroom? They are classics, and they are classics because they abound in timeless, universal themes. Looking at the Twilight series from that point of view one can see that the story holds universal truths. For example, death, relationships, and what it means to be a moral human.

If the thought of studying the Twilight series in your classroom makes you squimish, perhaps an accompanying text might be useful. For example, do a whole lesson plan on vampires. Read the Bram Stroker's classic "Dracula" or "Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of Immorality" . Also, when teaching either "Dracula" or "Twilight" your class can explore the different movies, adaptions, websites, and even video games spawned from these stories - it's certainly an easy way to introduce the power of different mediums into your classroom.

Another thing to consider when possible teaching "Twilight" is the way the Cullen family is portrayed. "Vampires were a largely untapped subject in teen fiction. Meyer capitalized on this by inventing a breed of vampire that hadn't existed before. Morally evolved and stunningly beautiful, her vampires are socially acceptable because they eat animals, rather than humans And they have the added benefit of looking like supermodels (Carpenter ¶ 10). Would the beauty of the vampires have any affect on teens with self-image issues? It's something to think about.

Finally, I found this blog called Twilight Series: For Pleasure & For Pedagogy which gives a few more interesting reasons to teach Twilight in your classroom.

At the end of the day, I don't really like "Twilight". It was alright, but I was never drawn into the books/movies and so I'm not sure if I would or wouldn't teach "Twilight" as I'm not vehemently for or against the books. I do however, find it very interesting how Myers used the world of social networking to connect with her fans and expand her popularity - just another example of the positives of technology.

Foot - So Totally, Digitally Close to You

Two things stood out to me in this article: 1) we are more connected now then we have ever been, and 2) we are losing our privacy and worries about privacy.

So Totally, Digitally Close to You by Clive Thompson was interesting and a certain idea really stood out to me, "they would just log into Facebook, and News Feed would appear: a single page that — like a social gazette from the 18th century" (Thomspon, ¶ 3). I love this idea that our social networks are a modernized variation of a "social gazette from the 18th century". Some people are against technology because they believe it separates people, and I am guilty of feeling this way too, but thinking of social networks in this way, it makes me realize how absolutely connected we really are.

Further into the article Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of Maryland explains that social networking is, "just like living in a village, where it’s actually hard to lie because everybody knows the truth already,” Tufekci said. “The current generation is never unconnected. They’re never losing touch with their friends. So we’re going back to a more normal place, historically. If you look at human history, the idea that you would drift through life, going from new relation to new relation, that’s very new. It’s just the 20th century.” (Tufekci ¶ 40). But is living in this virtual "village" where every tid bit about our friends, family, co-workers, that kid we met at the bar, etc. is instantly available, slowly causing us to become immune to any worries about privacy?

The issue of privacy is further discussed in the article when Thompson describes how iPhones introduced a built-in tracking device called Loopt. This, "piece of software...automatically tells all your friends exactly where you are" (Thompson, ¶ 10). One million people began using Loopt...one million people! In the article Mark Zuckerberg describes the initial outrage that surrounded the introduction of News Feed, but soon, "Users’ worries about their privacy seemed to vanish within days, boiled away by their excitement at being so much more connected to their friends. (Very few people stopped using Facebook, and most people kept on publishing most of their information through News Feed)" ( Zuckerberg ¶ 7). The constant information provided to us through News Feed and other social networks or technologies has hardened us to the idea of privacy. And we are quickly becoming addicted to "ambient awareness" (Thompson ¶ 10).

Ambient awareness is the incessant need to have information. This ambient awareness - Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks - is either bringing us back to a social closeness previously only found in small towns or it is turning us into a society hungry for an information fix and sacrificing our privacy to fulfill our ravenous appetite. It will be interesting to see where technology and social networking will take us in the future.

I found this article, Social networking through the ages by Stephen Fry, and it was a pretty interesting read about social networking 15 or 20 yrs ago.

Foot - Top recruit quits Facebook following 'living nightmare'

As I stated in my previous blog about Facebook, I no longer have an account, and one of the main reasons I got rid of it, was to gain back some of my privacy. I don't think this article was too harsh and I can absolutely believe that school recruiters would use Facebook as a tool to recruit up and coming sportsmen. I don't necessarily have a problem with recruiters using Facebook in this way, but I think it's absolutely vital to remember the importance of respecting one's privacy. If the school recruiters were to continue using Facebook as a recruitment tool they need to learn the lesson of moderation and respect; these potential "stars" are people and they deserve respect and privacy.

Foot- Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

As soon as I read the jacket cover of Little Brother I was less than enthusiastic about reading the book. As I read the book it became apparent that I hated it, but I soldiered through and after finishing it I decided I can appreciate it a little, but mostly I hated it.

Looking at this book for my students, I would say the book offers a wide variety of technology for students to explore for their own uses and it shows how the uses of modern technology are very powerful. The students can learn the lesson that technology can be used for good or for harm as the case with the spy ware the government used. This book also stresses the importance of the freedoms granted to us by the Constitution including Freedom of Speech and the right to privacy.

On the other hand, this book is clearly politically one-sided as it offers a liberal view point of the Department of Homeland Security, Guantanamo Bay, and the treatment of terrorists. By placing American teens in the place of actual terrorists it puts the Department of Homeland Securities in the position of villain; when in reality the techniques used by the DHS are usually reserved for those actual enemies of the United States of America. I can accept that Cory Doctorow was using creative license to make a point, however I find it too ridiculous to even find the valid point. I can't get far enough past the one-sidedness and ridiculous situation to appreciate this book especially when I feel like Doctorow is comparing the U.S. to Communist Russia in its own draconian treatment of its citizens.

If I was going to teach my students the lesson of the vital importance of freedom and the danger of an over-reaching governing power through literature I would rather choose Orwell's 1984 or perhaps even Ayn Rand's Anthem. These books are better written then Little Brother and they are focused on teaching about freedom; not pitching their own political views.

Granted, teaching these books instead of Little Brother the class loses the technology presented in Little Brother and so that needs to be taken into account. Also Little Brother is geared toward a younger crowd and it does provide an entertainment factor and teaching another text the teacher may lose his/her audience to the dreaded bore of the "classics". I'm not entirely sure what to do about these two factors, but any suggestions would be appreciated.