Team Edward

Christmas Break '07, I did what I do every Christmas break. I went to the bookstore the night I got back to my hometown and picked up three books I had never read, so I could enjoy some pleasure reading over the month long break. One of the books I happened to pick up was Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. It was under the best seller section, it was considered young adult lit, and it mentioned something about vampires... I was instantly fascinated. I have always liked the supernatural genre of television, movies, and books, such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Roswell," so this novel seemed right up my alley. Also, I think its important to see what my future students are exposed to within the YAL circuit.
I remember getting home around ten that night, and I decided to just jump into this novel. I ended up staying up the entire night to finish it and then driving to the book store the next day to purchase both New Moon and Eclipse. I spent the entire weekend locked in my room immersed in this tangled love story of Bella and Edward. My dad actually thought I was mad and avoiding him because he did not see me for almost two days straight.
Needless to say, I was hooked, and I still am. I own all four books, I watched the movie in the theatre three times, I have the soundtrack in my car stereo right now, and I also have a "Team Edward" shirt hanging in my closet. Judge me all you want, but I think this book has the capability of opening doors to get students interested in reading beyond their required texts. It offers romance, action, supernatural elements, and characters that you relate to and care about. The fact that the "Twilight Movement" is a phenomenon sweeping the globe shows that my thinking can not be that far off.
In my Multi-Modal class we were assigned to read an article about how the Internet influenced the phenomenon that is now Twilight. I thought it was really interesting that it actually mentioned a website: www.fanfiction.net, which I visit quite often. I really got interested in writing creative fiction by wanting to alter or elaborate characters and plot lines of movies, television, and books that I had read. That is pretty much what this website does. It allows for anyone to post stories, poems, etc. in relation to films, books, television, etc. So sometimes when I'm bored, or I don't have the time to read an entire novel I will read a story on this website. I think it is really cool that I was not the only one led to writing through movies and television.
I do want to warn those who have never used fanfiction.net. Because anyone can publish the quality of stories (both in writing and topics) is not always so great. A good tool to get around this is to click on the rating bar when looking up stories, usually the K-T (kids through teens) sections offer stories that could be appropriate for young adults (emphasis on usually and could) . There is also a genre bar where you can pick action, romance, etc. Most of the stories also offer a summary before you click on them, so if there are any subject/material that you do not feel comfortable with reading you can most often avoid stories that contain it. While this is perhaps not a website I would suggest to use in a classroom, because anyone can pretty much go anywhere within the site to access any material without restriction, it does offer some really good examples of writing techniques, such as changing genres, developing character, etc. It is also a cool way to judge the popularity of certain works, for example the Twilight section offers almost 70,000 entries (this link will take you to only the K-T rated material).
The Twilight series is an amazing group of novels that I think anyone interested in literature, and especially those interested in Young Adult Literature, whether for teaching purposes, personal enjoyment, or just raising your kids, should read.
"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb...."

Multigenre Literacy Autobiography

For my Multi-Modal class, I had to complete a multigenre literacy autobiography. Which is pretty much an animated (PowerPoint, video, image montage, etc.) timeline of all the aspects of literacy (music, books, movies, etc) that you experienced over the years. This has to be one of my most favorite assignments I have ever done throughout my college career. First of all, I love reminiscing about the "good old days" and it is always refreshing to see how far you have come, especially on this kind of professional level. (To think my entire English career started out on Disney movies and Christopher Churchmouse books.) I think it is so interesting to see the dynamic way that people were brought up around different literacy aspects. I mean there were so many people in my class led to this career choice for so many different reasons.
And then there were the similarities, which seemed to be even more plentiful and striking. Is it just me or did everyone learn the alphabet with the "Letter People"? It was not only extremely interesting, but also downright hysterical to remember all the things we read, watched, and listened to over the years (i.e. The Spice Girls...yeah I was a fan, too.)
I think this project really highlights how anyone can relate to "English." Because nowadays there are some many different aspects to an "English" class. People can take almost any passion they hold and mold it into some form of literacy for an English class. Music, art, comic books, movies, they all can be considered valuable tools for reaching our students. This open field for common ground makes me feel so motivated to get into the classroom! It is the proverbial foot in the door for getting students interested in more of the standards and classics.

New Question

There are countless arguments as to the pros and cons of a student's knowledge of technology, and how a school should facilitate and teach technology to it's students. With these arguments there comes several main conflicts, including the idea of censorship and school/teacher liability. While teachers don't want to give students too limited a mindset of technology because we fear the negative aspects, we also do not want to be held responsible for opening a student's eyes to material consider objectionable, or for putting a student in a negative situation with the outside world. If teachers (schools/districts, etc.) protect, we in essence censor, and if we don't we could possibly cause harm to the student, the school, or our own career. You can see how this debate turns into a round robin... there really seems to be no good answer. And I am not suggesting there is one, rather I would like to suggest that educators, administrators, and schools need a new question.
In my Multi-Modal class, I was assigned to read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and while I am completely willing to admit that I am no computer guru and some of the technological jargon did have me a little lost, I think this novel brings up a valid point. We have reached a time where the average high school student is going to know more about working with technology than an adult does. It seems like common sense, adults did not grow up with the technology we have today, and students have, therefore, students are more comfortable (and most likely more knowledgeable) around technology than adults. Given this knowledge, I think perhaps the discussion should not just be what a student should or should not know about regarding technology, but rather how they can constructively use what they do know.
Let's face it, a teacher has a limited window of control on a student's life. A class? A semester? A year? The boundaries of control differ with every teacher, student, and/or school. So isn't it better to strive to influence rather than control a student's accessibility/knowledge of technology?
For example, let me throw out a little story to all of you (this will thrill all of you multi-modal people). A high school senior from my hometown made his national television debut this morning because of an online video contest. Reoccurring his role as a nerd from one of his high school musicals, Scott Bauman decided to create a lip-synced music video for the "My Grammy Moment" contest. While Scott did not receive first place this morning on CBS The Early Show, he did get a free trip to the Grammy's and his video was seen along with the other three finalists' videos behind Katy Perry as she performed during the awards show.
While this story is just all-around cool, what I consider to be the most beneficial to take from this is number one: look at what high school students are technologically capable of; number two: this Nerd character was developed in a high school musical (shout out to the dramatic arts!); number three: the limitless possibilities of how this YouTube like technology could be used in a classroom.
By teaching and allowing students to use technology in constructive (and most often downright comical) ways, teachers are influencing instead of controlling... and their classrooms just got a lot more interesting.