Foot: Final Reflection

Last semester, our education classes were my two favorite classes and I was really hoping it would be the same way this semester. However, I did not really enjoy Multi-Modal Lit. A lot of the projects we did for M.M. lit, I cannot really see doing in my classroom and didn't really like doing as a student. There are a few I specifically would like to mention:

• Multi-genre autiobiography- I really liked the idea of this project at first. I thought it would be really interesting to look back on my reading history and see what texts have stuck with me and I did enjoy this. However, if I were to do it in my classroom, I feel like I would do it more as a introduction type project for the students, so I can get to know them and what they like. I wouldn't be as concerned with as many of the topics we had to cover for class and I would split it on multiple days (definitely if the class is only 50 minutes) so each student could take longer. I wouldn't really expect my students to describe how the texts have influenced them; I think seeing what they feel has stayed with them is good enough.
• Blogs- I, personally, am not a fan of blogging. I feel like we have to do all this work for the blogs and then we don't even really talk about them in class. We were required to read so many different articles but we never talked about them in class. We were required to blog about Little Brother, but barely spent any time on the novel in class. Really, I feel like the blogs were to check that we were reading and I think discussing in class is a much better way to do this. Also, I didn't like having to spread our posts out over the course. While I can understand why we were supposed to do this, I and so many of us had so much other stuff to do that it was hard to find the time to get on and post a blog, or read and respond to classmates. It just wasn't worth it to me and it seemed like busywork. I don't think I really go anything out of it. Also, while I get adding technology into our blogs because of the nature of the course, I didn't like doing it. I think of blogs as online journals and it's not like a person has a song playing in their journal (at least usually. It would be weird if they did), or pictures, links, and youtube videos.
• The Cleveland Film Festival and other related film analyses- Okay, I get that it can help students think about literature in a different way. For example, the activity we did with Lost could really help some students with identifying literary elements in the novel. It is, after all, usually easier to pick up the mood of a piece when you can hear it rather than read the words. But, a lot of the stuff we did with films I thought was a waste of time. I enjoyed going to the Film Festival, but I didn't like being required to go. I feel like, since we had the time off from class to do it, we should have gone as a class. Also, the activity we had to do with the film we saw could have been done quite as easily with a movie we owned or a Hollywood production we saw in a nearby theater. The shot by shot analysis isn't something I would do at all in an English classroom. I don't see how identifying what a shot is will help students understand literature better. I can see using it for identifying mood or using it to compare and contrast with the novel, but teachers have to be really careful and make sure they aren't show films just to show films. I firmly believe it should connect with the literature in some way and I don't feel (for the most part) that what we did in class was accomplishing this. 

     I enjoyed Little Brother, I just wished we had talked about it more. To be honest, I feel like the only worthwhile activities/projects we did was tutoring in Firestone and the Canonical Wiki. I don't know how much I really helped my student with the OGT but I can definitely see the benefits of going into a school and helping students prepare for the test. The Wiki will be a good resource for us to refer to when we are teaching and it helped me see the variety of lessons that can be done with a text.     I was disappointed with this class and I don't like saying that because I feel like my education classes should be my favorite. I do feel like I gained some valuable ideas, but on the whole, this class didn't really help me prepare as a teacher. Also, the university should consider getting rid of Ed. Tech since Multi-Modal covered (even if not always well) many of the same topics and other topics Ed. Tech. never even touched.