Media Texts as Mediation: The Role Popular Culture Can Play in Classroom Literacy Practices NCTE 2010 Katherin Garland

Literacy practices Barton and Hamilton (2000) described literacy practices as the ways that a society use reading and writing in social contexts. 2 They posited that literacy practices are unobservable because the way people practice literacy also embodies societal values about reading and writing.

Literacy events Conversations centered on printed words (Heath, 1983) Conversations centered on any text (Morrell, 2004) 3

Research question  How do high-school students in an English language arts elective class participate in literacy events centered on popular culture texts? 4

Vocabulary of filmed media unit: Observations ◦ 11Classroom observations ◦ 11Extensive field notes Interviews ◦ Student focus-group interviews ◦ Teacher interview Curricular artifacts ◦ Media diaries ◦ Focus texts ◦ Generative texts ◦ Popular culture texts 5

Self-evaluation of literacy practices (handout) Analytical Practices  Students apply formal concepts to texts.  Students use formal concepts to examine texts. Interpretive Practices  Students develop a process for responding to texts.  Students construct meaning from texts. Evaluative Practices  Students value and judge the meaning of texts within existing understandings.  Students value and judge the meaning of texts as they participate in formal study of such texts. Communicative Practices  Students use available materials to create multimodal messages.  Students create multimodal messages for a specific audience.  Students sequence and organize ideas to convey messages. Critical Literacy Practices  Students develop an awareness of the constructed nature of texts.  Students develop the ability to question the power of texts in shaping social and cultural views.  Students’ new perspectives of texts empower them to actively engage with such texts. 6

Findings Students developed five different types of literacy practices throughout the film study: Analytical, interpretive and evaluative literacy practices were developed to understand uses of film metalanguage. Communicative literacy practices were developed to create the “Illustrated Glossary.” Critical literacy practices were reported in social situations. 7

Students developed analytical, interpretive, and evaluative literacy practices “I thought it was a two shot because the camera is really on both of them. He’s like really sad, and he’s like the main character, and he’s like making sure that he’s okay” ◦ Alex 8 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)

Students developed communicative literacy practices POINT of VIEW SHOT ◦ Shown from the character’s eye view ◦ This picture is showing the subject reading a book. HS Building 09/17/ Phoebe and Kristian’s Illustrated Glossary (2009)

Students reported developing critical literacy practices

NCTE’s 21 st Century Literacy Framework compared to students’ practices 11 According to NCTE’s framework, students should be able to critique, create, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts Students developed critical, communicative, analytical, and evaluative literacy practices

Helpful resources: 1) Frank Baker’s website: 2) “How to Take a Screenshot in Microsoft Windows”: Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windowshttp:// Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windows 3) Reading in the Dark by John Golden 12

Katherin Garland Georgia College & State University 13