Teaching Ideas and Final Project

My teaching idea for this technology--I'm having trouble using the technology to add this idea to the wiki, however--is that I'd like students to create character monologues, in the form of podcasts, when we read The Crucible. We always look at character motivation when we read the play, but I think it would push them to explore the characters in more depth if they were writing a monologue and delivering it via podcast. I will first have students focus on one character and gather information about the character from the text. Next, students will work on filling in information about their characters that is not presented explicitly in the play. I will give them prompts to help them figure out exactly what their character would say in a monologue. Then, I will have students collaborate in reviewing each other's written monologues. Finally, we will hit the computer lab to create the podcasts, which of course will be added to the class blog/wiki.

As far as a final project, I am sticking with the idea of creating a wiki to help my students navigate our reader's choice unit next semester. I want students to create a very multi-modal final project for each novel. They will be working in groups and I'd like to set up a wiki so that they have a very organized way in which to participate in the final product. The final product will be required to have links to internet resources: images, videos, etc. They will also be required to have a podcast--possibly some type of character monologue again.

Twain's Mississippi Photos

My American Literature students are currently reading Huck Finn. This novel is always difficult for students, so we have been looking for ways to increase student interest in it. We are currently working on our final assessment and trying to create a project that is multimodal. I am interested in having students incorporate images from sites like Flickr into their writing. One of the topics that we always have students explore is the role of the Mississippi River in the story, especially as it relates the search for freedom.

The images in my Flickr Slideshow are all images of the Mississippi as I think it appears in the novel. Of course, the images are current, but most are taken from spots traveled by Huck and Jim. Students could certainly seek images that represent specific episodes in Huck's journey. They could use the images combined with images which represent ideas of freedom, morality, etc. to create a presentation about themes in the novel. My colleagues and I discussed having students create e-zines about Huck Finn. These images would definitely be useful in such a project.

Digital Mapping

I think tools like Inspiration can be helpful with prewriting across the board. We do a lot with thinking maps (NUA) at my school, and inspiration can help students create thinking maps digitally. When we compare/contrast different literary characters, for example, we do not use Venn diagrams anymore--instead we use the NUA double bubble. Inspiration already has a template for a double bubble! My students just finished double-bubbling Holden from Catcher in the Rye, and Jim Starks from Rebel Without a Cause. This could have been done digitally with the use of a digital tool like inspirations. The great thing about this is that with inspiration, students can then post their maps to their blogs. This is a problem I've already noticed with my students and their blogs. We do quite a bit of mapping, but then we don't have the opportunity to post it to our blogs because we create the maps on paper only. As more and more of my class becomes digital, I want to find ways to digitize the writing that we already do.