Teaching Literature

american literature

british literature

multicultural/women's/world literature

lesson plans/course syllabi

drama/speech

shakespeare

young adult literature

literary genres/mythology

nonfiction

poetry

critical lenses

story response/writing

assessment

censorship

professional development

media/technology

 

How to use this site

CHAPTERS

1

Goals for teaching literature: What does it mean to teach literature?

2

Understanding students’ individual differences: Who are our kids?

3

Planning and Organizing Literature Instruction: How Do I Decide What to Teach?

4

Using Drama to Foster Interpretation: How Can I Help Students Read Better?

5

Leading Classroom Discussions of Literature: How Do I Get Them to Talk about Literature?

6

Writing about literature: How do I get them to write about literature?

7

Using narratives in the classroom: What’s the use of story?

8

Teaching text and task-specific strategies: How does the shape of a text change the shape of my teaching?

9

Teaching the Classics: Do I Have To Teach the Canon, And If So, How Do I Do It?

10

Multiple Perspectives to Engage Students with Literature: What are Different Ways of Seeing?

11

Teaching Media Literacy: What else is a text and how do I teach it?

12

Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning: How do I know what they’ve learned?

13

Text Selection, Censorship, Creating an Ethical Classroom Environment. and Teacher Professionalism: How do I Stay in Control, Out of Trouble, and Continue to Develop as A Teacher?

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technology

 

Media/Technology

Student Units
[ you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the following PDF files ]

Using technology to teach literature

Media Literacy Curriculum Standards, Curriculum, Justification

MCREL media literacy standards for grades 6-12 for:
Viewing
Media

Renee Hobbs, Viewing and Representing: Media Literacy in Texas critically analyzing media representations

Marjorie Heins and Christina Cho, Media Literacy: An Alternative to Censorship

Hobbs & Frost (1999; 2003). Study on the effects of media instruction on reading/writing test scores
interact.uoregon.edu
mpls.k12.mn.us

 

Visual literacy activities

For other student documentary-production sites:
Children’s Media Project
Global Action Project
Teaching Intermedia Literacy Tools
Media Alliance
Bay Area Video Coalition
Media Arts Center, Seattle
Asian Media Access, Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, Minnesota
Multimedia Library: hundreds of QuickTime productions that illustrate documentary techniques
Intime teacher Video: students create an iMovie documentary on environmental health
Intime teacher Video: students create a CD-ROM documentary about Manson, Iowa based on photos, interviews
Street Level Youth Video
PBS: Listen-Up Youth Media Network
Document Durham: Neighborhoods Projects
The Library of Congress: The American Memory digital collection
Pics for Learning: lots of digital images
Hanover 2000 Worlds Fair: examples of 360 degree QT shots of exhibition buildings
Video: students using digital photos to create a montage of their school
Literacy through Photography
PBS P.O.V. documentary, Borders, video diaries of adolescents living on the Mexican border
digital cameras and photography as art
TechTalk: KTCA program: video on using digital cameras
Photo-Seminars.com
Curtin’s Short Courses in Digital Photography
Kodak online photographic tutorials
Kodak online guide to better pictures
BetterPhoto.com
New York Institute of Photography
Photography Basics
Digital Image Basics
The Art of Photography
Digital Photography Tips
The rules of composition
The American Museum of Photography

Media Education Organizations

Popular Culture Sites
  • Images: a journal of film and popular culture

Critical pedagogy and media studies
  • Media Reform: critical analysis of issues of media ownership

 

Video/computer Games

  • Google: links to video game sites

  • Apple: game trailers/clips

 
New Media Studies
 

Web-based Studies/Critical Analysis of the Web

 

Centers/Organizations on the Internet

 

Magazines/Journals about the Internet

 

Using Technology Tools

  • GLEF: technology-integration module

  • ALPS: resources, scaffolds, and contexts for building unit plans

  • Educause Review current developments in higher education uses of information technology

  • Tech Talk: Program produced by Digital Media Center, University of Minnesota (click on “episodes”)

 

Oraganizations that promote technology use in schools

 

WebQuest Design Process

Creating webquests:
WebQuest Training Materials
Adapting and Enhancing Existing WebQuests
Concept to Classroom
Creating a WebQuest
Using a WebQuest in your Classroom
The WebQuest Design Process
ozline.com: WebQuests &more
ozline.com: The WebQuests Design Process

 

Video-streaming software

 

On-line Video Clips

 

Film Techniques

  • Bordwell and Thompson’s (2004) Film Art, An Introduction (7th ed.)—for a sample chapter on Film Production, Distribution, and Exhibition

  • Thinkquest: excellent site for introduction to film production

  • Click here for examples of different uses of sound

  • Webquest: analysis of soundtrack for 1968 Romeo and Julie

  • Ian Pegler: free storyboard/scriptwriting software

 

Film Review Sites

  • Hollywood.com: A major site with a lot of trailers, including full-screen trailers

 

Film Study Resources

 

Film Journals/Magazines

 

Film/Television History

 

Animation

  • Eveo, a streamed video site

  • Hotwired, online animation and tutorial site

 

Film Adaptations

  • American Film Institute:
    examples of student-produced adaptations of 1984, Lord of the Flies, King Lear, Julius Caesar, and The Crucible—includes storyboards, outlines, video clips, and reflections.

 

Advertising

  • The Ad*Access Project: 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955

  • Adflip: ads from different decades

  • The Big Lie: The Truth about Advertising: lots of other components

 

Applying Critical Lenses to Media Texts

 

Analysis of Gender

  • Click here for further discussion of media and gender discourses

  • Click here for films/videos on women, gender, and feminism

 

Analysis of class

  • People Like Us contains a lot of activities related to defining the meaning of class

  • Click here for an introduction to Marxism by Dino Felluga

  • Clck here for extensive material on Marx:

 

Analysis of Race

  • University of Iowa Communications Studies site: representations of racial groups in the media:
    uiowa.edu
    uoregon.edu

 

Postmodern

  • The Po-Mo Page: discussion of different aspects of postmodern theory

  • Click here for an introduction to postmodern theory by Dino Felluga

  • Click here an introduction to postmodern theory by Douglas Kellner

  • Click here for an introduction to postmodern theory by Mary Klages

 

Postcolonial

 

Media Representations

 

Urban Neighborhoods

 

Suburbia

 

Studying Place/Space

  • Megasite: lots of links on place/space

 

Lesson Plans: Studying Place/Space

 

War

 

Political Issues

 

Advertising

 

Advertising and Gender

 

Alcohol/Tobacco Advertising

 

Advertising and Consumerism

 

Political Advertising

  • C-Span: campaign ads for the 2004 Presidential election

 

Parodies of Advertising

  • Why Milk—parodies of the Got Milk ads

 

Webquests: Advertising

 

Film/Television Genres

Types of Genres

 

Action/Adventure

 

Western

Yahoo Movies Directory
filmsite.org
IMDb.com
lewestern.com

 

Crime/Gangster

Ultimage Gansgste/Crime films
filmsite.org
IMDb.com
stungunresources.com

 

Detective/film-noir genre

thrillingdetective.com
filmsite.org
dmoz.org
http://dir.yahoo.com
thrillingdetective.com (television)

 

Mystery

 

Comedy

 

Science fiction and fantasy films/television

 

Horror/monster

 

Thriller/spy/heist

 

Soap opera

 

Reality television

 

Comics

  • Links to newspaper comic strips and political cartoons

  • Yahoo: lots of comic book links

  • E-zine: links to Indy Magazine/independent comics

  • Robyn Hill, (2002), The Secret Origin of Good Readers: A Resource Book.
    (pdf, online book).

 

Graphic Novels

  • 101 Best Graphic Novels
    http://www.bookfinder.us/review6/1561632856.html

  • Webquest: Net Force—the uses of graphics on the Web based on graphics in comic books

 

Media Ethnography

  • For a discussion of methods for studying places or institutions employed in the very useful first year college composition textbook, Fieldworking (Cheresi-Smith & Sunstein, 2002).
    fieldworking.com
    fieldworking.com: FieldURLs

 

Video Game Players

  • Assignment: conduct an ethnography of a New Media artifact

 

Fan Clubs

  • Christine Boese (1998), a study of the fan clubs for Xena, Warrior Princess.

  • For television program fan clubs:
    fandom.tv

 

Online Chat Rooms

 

E-zines

 

Theme/amusement parks/shopping malls

  • For a video clip of the Education Media Foundation video on Disney
    mediaed.org

 

Music

Popular Music

  • Webquest: select a genre for music for a theme park

  • Music Maps: this site provides you with image maps of the evolution of certain genres over time with links to sample songs/artists

  • Webquest: how rock music was used as social commentary

  • Lesson: studying literary aspects of lyrics

  • Webquest: studying the history of a specific genre

 

Jazz

 

Soul/Blues

  • early blues artists at the EMI Seattle Music Museum:
    emplive.com

 

Rap

  • Time-line exhibit on rap at the EMI Seattle Music Museum: emplive.com

  • The history of hip hop, as portrayed on the Seattle EMP Music Museum:
    emplive.com

 

Punk

  • History of punk/heavy metal music, Seattle EMP Music Museum:
    emplive.com

 

Folk

 

Country

 

Music Videos

  • Lesson: studying music videos

  • Lesson: on images musicians project in music videos/CD covers

  • Webquest: create a music video based on a poem

 

The Music Industry

  • Lesson: debating the Napster/free downloading issue

  • Webquest: use of the Internet in studying music

 

Radio

  • Minnesota Public Radio: Sound Learning site: resources for English teachers linked to specific MPR programs:
    soundlearning.org

 

News

  • Webquest: writing editorials on the role of imperialism in Africa

  • Webquest: creating a newspaper on the Protestant Reformation

  • Webquest: analysis of political cartoons

  • FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
    Webquest
    : analysis of the truth

  • Webquest: analysis of “racial hypocrisy” in news presentations


Documentary

  • Propaganda in the Classroom (Bill Chapman Classroom Tools): lots of articles/examples:
    classroomtools.com

  • NOVA: teacher resources organized by topic

  • Teaching units based on various teen issues related to PBS Frontline documentaries:
    pbs.org

  • PBS Flashpoints; issues of civil liberties, First Amendment rights, and security after 9/11

 

Film/Television/Media/Web/Music History

 
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