A number of school districts in the United States havebegun to integrate media literacy extensively into the secondary curriculum inorder to reach students aged 14 – 18. This chapter examines onecomprehensive approach to incorporating media literacy in English language artsfrom a high school in New Hampshire USA.
Interviews with seven high schoolteachers who collaborated on the
development of the curriculum were conductedand classroom observations
and examination of curriculum materials and studentwork reveal the aims
and goals of the program and instructional activities usedin
implementation.
Situated in atheoretical context based on scholarship in media studies,
cultural studies andeducation, secondary educators’ work is driven by
the need to strengthenstudents’ writing, reading, listening, and
viewing skills in responding to TVnews, advertising, popular culture,
and print media. The approach used in this particular site elucidates
some ofthe approaches used by secondary English teachers to integrate
media literacyconcepts into existing curriculum to help students
critically analyze mediatexts, tools and technologies.
Teachersin the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and other nations have been usingvisual, digital, mass media, and popular culture texts in the classroom topromote critical thinking and communication skills. In the United States, media literacy education has beenincreasing as an approach to instruction throughout the 1990s, and now thereare a number of school-based programs which have begun to emerge at theelementary, middle and high school levels. Defined generally as "the ability to access, analyze,evaluate and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms," medialiteracy emphasizes the skills ofcritically analyzing and composing using media texts, tools and technologies (Aufderheide & Firestone, 1993, p. 8). Thousands of teachers from K-12 to college have used media literacy inindividual classes as an instructional method, but there are only a smallnumber of systematic, school-wide initiatives which have developed in theUnited States, primarily as a result of particular interests and prioritiesamong the mix of faculty, administrators, academics, artists, activists, mediaprofessionals or others who are sometimes involved in developing programs. In contrast to most European nations,public education in the USA is highly decentralized, with decision-making aboutcurriculum entirely localized within the more than 15,000 school districtsserving some 70 million students ages 5 – 18. This has led to considerable experimentation with medialiteracy in a number states including Massachusetts, Maryland, Texas, NorthCarolina, and New Mexico, just to name a few.
Somemedia literacy initiatives are designed to increase students’ interest andengagement in learning by making classrooms sites for authentic learning instudent-centered environments (Bruce, 2003; Frechette, 2002; Goodman, 2002). Otherprograms connect the process of reading the media specifically to the processof literacy, emphasizing reading and writing as social and cultural practicesthat must be expanded to include visual, digital and electronic messages,re-conceptualizing the nature of ‘text’ (Alvermann et al., 1999; Kist, 2005; Krueger & Christel, 2001; Marsh, 2004). Stillother programs emphasize social and political concerns about media ownership,advertising and materialism, free expression, surveillance and control in aninformation economy, and the effects of media and technology of human behaviorand values (Semali, 2000). Someprograms are aimed to provide a fresh approach to vocational education forteens who might be interested in media-related careers (Kenny, 2001). Otherprograms focus on exploring the media’s impact on health and lifestyledecisions, exploring how media messages shape attitudes and behaviorsconcerning our health, including nutrition, body image, aggression, sexuality,and substance abuse (Axelrod, 1997; Hamilton & Hamilton, 2004). Andmedia scholars are urging schools to begin to explore how to build criticalthinking skills about participatory media like videogames and the Internet (Jenkins, 2006; Squire, 2005). Thesediffering motivations among practitioners and scholars have meant that theterm, media literacy, has complexnuances of meaning associated with a wide range of different instructionalpractices, leading scholars and practitioners to engage in some great debatesabout what constitutes best practices (Hobbs, 1998).
Thispaper critically examines the work of one group of high school English teachersat a medium-size public school in Concord, New Hampshire USA. In 1998, theycreated a required course for more than 300 Grade 11 students (ages 16-17)entitled, “English 11: Media/Communications.” This course is now a permanent part of the high schoolcurriculum, and nearly 20 teachers have taught it over the years. The courseintegrated media literacy within a context of instruction in English languagearts, and was taught during the first three years by seven teachers with noformal background or training in media studies. Three of the seven teachers who developed this curriculumparticipated in a week-long staff development program that I offered at ClarkUniversity, entitled, “Teaching the Humanities in a Media Age.” Apart from this experience, however,Concord teachers were on their own to develop their new course as they saw fit.The curriculum involved students analyzing the language and images not only oftraditional literary forms, but also websites, television shows, print andtelevision journalism, films, advertising, and political speeches.
Research Methods
Iinterviewed teachers, observed classrooms, and interviewed students at ConcordHigh School in order to document teachers’ approaches to implementing medialiteracy. Over a 9-year period, Imade use of over 700 pages of interview transcripts, four hand-written fieldnotebooks, and nearly 200 different artifacts, including student writing,videos, lesson plans and assignments. Throughout the process, I reflected on the actual activities and lessonsthat comprised the learning experiences, studied the way parents and schoolleaders interpreted the new approach to literacy, and examined the ways thatstudents responded emotionally, socially, and intellectually to the experienceof critically analyzing and compositing using media texts, tools andtechnologies. Qualitative research was used primarily to gather information todocument the nature of the instruction used in English 11 and to learn moreabout how teachers and students perceived the learning experience as theyimplemented media literacy into a high school English language artscurriculum. Theodore Sizer’s Horace’sCompromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (1984) is a powerful illustration ofthe value of qualitative inquiry in education. It is the first of a three-volume series that laid out acomprehensive plan for high school reform and improvement, one that wasinfluential in the 1990s in shaping many American teachers’ ideas aboutteaching and learning. Sizer usedthick description, thematic analysis and reflexive writing to illustrate theproblems of a high school teacher, a composite character created to representthe many English teachers he had met in his roles as teacher, headmaster,professor of education and Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Qualitativestudies have the power to “portray the contexts and vicissitudes of educationthrough vivid accounts of its practice…mediated through the disciplinarytheories, orientations, and perspectives in which a given researcher has beentrained” (Flinders, 2003, p. 386). Such accounts are useful in helping classroom teachersimagine fresh possibilities for themselves and their work with students. Similarly, this paper strives tocapture the lived experiences of Concord High School teachers in order to sharewith Greek educators and scholars as they strive to understand theopportunities and challenges of implementing media literacy in secondaryeducation.
Aims and Goals of theProgram
Educators atConcord High School saw media literacy as perfectly consistent with theiroverall goals. At this school,teachers aim to provide challenging curriculum and learning experiences andexpect students to be able to use knowledge of the cultural and natural worldbased on an evolving core of concepts and information. One of the reasons why media literacywas a natural extension of the high school curriculum was that it fit withinthe overall mission of the school, which emphasizes students’ roles as:
- Active self-directed learners, who inquire creatively about their world, take risks and examine options as they initiate actions and complete tasks.
- Effective communicators, who write well, read widely and in depth, listen perceptively, share ideas orally, and use language, numbers and symbols to convey and receive information.
- Effective collaborators, who assume various roles to accomplish group or community goals, using self-knowledge, compromise, cooperation and respect.
- Informed decision-makers, who define the issue, research alternatives, consider consequences, and make choices, which demonstrate intellectual integrity and rigorous evaluation.
- Creative producers, of art in the classical, contemporary, and practical traditions using invention, design and critical assessment.
- Life planners, who determine options and pursue career and personal goals including a consideration for physical, emotional and mental well-being.
- Community participants, who understand and practice democratic traditions and values, including respect for human dignity, honesty and fairness and who accept the consequence of their actions.
The Concord HighSchool mission statement emphasizes the importance of establishing reasonableand challenging expectations; using civil, non-violent methods of communicatingdifferences and resolving conflict; respecting and protecting individualdifferences, roles, responsibilities, and contributions; practicing a positivework ethic, using all avenues of communication while valuing face-to-facepersonal interaction; and celebrating positive performance. Teachers believed that medialiteracy could be used to deepen these dimensions of adolescent’s moral andethical development.
Thisparticular group of high school English teachers believed that popular culture,film, television and news media were ‘texts’ that needed as much careful studyas works of classic and contemporary literature, following a line of argumentdeveloped by contemporary cultural studies that emphasizes how the convergingenvironments of television, the Internet and new media are now enablingeducators to engage with the semiotic challenges that Baudrillard (1994) has identified in hisdescriptions of how cultural symbols have detached from their relationship tothe world. We live in a societywhich has become a cross-referential system of culturally constructed meanings,creating a funhouse of mirror-screens “each deflecting and yet projectingimages and symbols of desire and identity onto human subjects (Luke, 2003, p. 24). Growing up in such a culture, students are hungry forserious dialogue about what they experience via the mass media; when mediacontent “becomes classroom subject mater, students’ discussion and writing arenot tentative” (Morris, 1989, p. 38). As students engage in sharing ideas and reflecting onexperiences that matter to them, a learning environment is created wherestudents can examine the relationships between meaning-making, power, pleasureand identity. As Postman (1985, p. 163) has written, media literacyreflects the “acknowledged task of the schools to assist the young ininterpreting the symbols of their culture.”
Based on their awareness of this body ofscholarship and their personal interests and prior reading and study, teachers decidedon some key themes for the Grade 11 course in “Media/Communication.” These topics were explored during thecourse of the year-long program:
· a focus on advertising, persuasion and propaganda incontemporary society;
· the role of point-of-view in storytelling in dramaticfilm, television fiction, and contemporary and classic literature;
· the theme of man’s relationship with technology;
· the role of journalism in society, including print,television news and non-fiction genres;
· the process of literary adaptation from literature tofilm;
· entertainment culture in historical context, includinga focus on the role of global media corporations;
· the representation of race, gender and ideology inmedia messages; and
· the personal and social impact of media violence.
Based on thesethemes, teachers purchased a set of copies of Team Rodent
(1998), a critical commentary on theDisney Corporation and its social
influence on American culture by Carl Hiassenand had chosen a
reflective book-length essay on the practice of journalismentitled News
is a Verb (1998) by veteran journalist PeteHamill. They bought
subscriptionsto Brill’s Content magazine, a monthlypublication
developed by American Lawyer magazine and Court TV founder Steven Brill
which provided an in-depthlook at the media business, including the
worlds of publishing, televisionproduction, journalism, film, and new
media. They bought copies of Steven Stark’s Glued to theSet (1997), a
book of short essays abouttelevision history and cultural influence
framed by a focus on thirtyinfluential television programs from the
1950s The Howdy Doody Show to the 1990s Roseanne.
Amongthe
works of classic and contemporary literature to be included in the
Grade 11curriculum there was Frankenstein (1994, 1818) by Mary Shelley,
As I LayLaying by William Faulkner (1963), Beloved by Toni Morrison
(1987), One Flew Over theCuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (1962), Brave New
World by Aldous Huxley (1946) and 1984 by George Orwell (1959). Each
of these works was conceptualized in relation to one ofthe themes
described earlier.
Inthe journalism and information unit, students explored the process of learningto develop intellectual curiosity. They analyzed newscasts, including local, national and newsmagazinebroadcasts. They criticallyexamined newspapers and web sites, comparing coverage of an event or individualacross multiple sources. Theyexamined the process of remembrance, reflecting on how both literature andmedia messages shape our understanding of history by transmitting culturalunderstandings from one generation to the next. They studied communication techniques by analyzing wordchoice, images, sequence of information, content emphasis and omission, andpatterns in racial and gender representation. They learned strategies for evaluating the quality ofinformation. They discussed theeconomic structure of the mass media which emphasizes ratings and money as theonly meaningful markers of quality.
Inthe unit on advertising, propaganda and persuasion, students applied theirability to analyze messages by looking at television, advertising andjournalism. In analyzingadvertising, students analyzed the techniques and approaches used in print andTV advertising. They determinedtarget audiences and noted the use of emotional appeals and graphicdesign. Some students visited anadvertising agency, taught a mini-unit on advertising to younger children,created ad parodies, or constructed consumer awareness campaigns. They read Bradbury’s Farenheit451 (1967), and a young adult novel byM.T. Anderson, Feed (2002), a tragic romance/sciencefiction story about young people growing up in a culture where all their mediacomes to them from a chip implanted in their brains.
Inthe unit on the representation of race, gender and social class, studentsexamined the concept of representation and reflected on the role of media andpopular culture in shaping personal identity and an understanding of the socialworld. How do gender, race, ageand class shape our understanding of our own power or powerlessness? Whose voices are portrayed in the massmedia and whose perspectives are omitted? What ideas and values are depicted in media representations? Students looked at changes in mediarepresentations of romance and dating from the 1950s to today by looking atpatterns of relationships depicted in television programs from different timeperiods. They discussed the issue of media violence by examining the role ofconflict in storytelling, the impact of violent media on children and youngpeople, and its function in maintaining cultural myths of power, independenceand freedom. They read Gluedto the Set(Stark, 1997) to learn how specific showsreflected and shaped cultural values. They read Toni Morrison’s Beloved,a story with many voices that shows slavery as a paradigm of the complex powerdynamics that exist in social relationships. They viewed Spike Lee’s film, Bamboozled(2000), a satiric look at racism inAmerican television that shows how America’s racist past still impacts thepresent.
Inthe unit on storytelling, students explored the question: Who are ourheroes? What is the relationshipbetween the individual and the community? Students examined how point of view shapes the nature of a story. Forexample, students analyzed point of view in Ken Kesey’s book, One Flew Overthe Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), examining how the book andthe film use different strategies to tell the story through manipulating pointof view. They read A PerfectStorm (Junger, 1997) to examine how the economicsof the film blockbuster shape differences between storytelling in literatureand film. Students analyzed Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, examining the different depictions of the birth ofthe monster in the many different film versions, from the 1931 Frankenstein, the 1974 Young Frankenstein parody, and the more recent film adaptation, MaryShelley’s Frankenstein. They got the chance to becomestorytellers themselves, writing screenplays to adapt Faulkner’s As ILay Dying to a create a television program, composing creative fiction,examining storytelling structures used in film, and creating videos to capturetheir ideas using images, language, editing, and sound. Although the curriculum was designed ina collaborative way, each teacher was free to use the resources and activitiesin ways that suited their teaching styles and interests, so there was somevariation in activities and assignments implemented from classroom toclassroom.
Instructional Methods
After careful reflection and considerabledebate, teachers developed a detailed curriculum and went through the laboriousreview process to have it approved by the school district (Hobbs, 2007). The school used block scheduling, with four 90-minute blocksof time per day to allow flexibility for a diversity of instructionalactivities. At Concord, studentshave a 90-minute English class every other day. For Concord High School, the scheduling change was linked toan interest in decreasing the amount of standard lecture-discussion-seatworktype instruction. Teachers wereinterested in increasing opportunities to individualize instruction and usecreative teaching strategies. Larger blocks of time do allow for a moreflexible and productive classroom environment, along with more opportunitiesfor using varied and interactive teaching methods. Other benefits included: more effective use of school time,decreased class size, increased number of course offerings, reduced numbers ofstudents with whom teachers have daily contact, and the ability of teachers touse more process-oriented strategies. These elements turned out to be essential for thelearning activities at the heart of the English 11 media literacy curriculum,which required sustained time for small-group and large group discussion,hands-on activities, and time for reading, viewing and writing.
Teachersused five critical questions to help unify their curriculum:
1)Who is sending this message and what is the author’s purpose?
2)What techniques are used to attract and hold attention?
3)What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in this message?
4)How might different people interpret this message differently?
5)What is omitted from this message?
They began theschool year with critical viewing, writing and discussion activities designedto showcase the power of these questions to strengthen analysis skills. Forexample, one teacher brought in taped examples of advertising, entertainmentand informational programming she had taped off-air. Working as a large group, students would work through theprocess of exploring these questions. Sometimes she asked students to freewrite their responses, then readaloud and share. Other times sheasked small groups of students to work through the questions throughdiscussion, making notes of the key ideas and sharing them as a large groupafterwards. For example, early onin the school year, students were asked to tape a 10-minute excerpt of atelevision program of their choice and write a five-paragraph essay addressingthe critical questions. They alsomade a brief oral presentation, showing an excerpt from the show, and the classresponded to students’ ideas in a discussion. This activity helped teachers get to know their students asindividuals, and the writing and speaking samples helped them assess thecapacities and talents of each student as well as the areas of growth andimprovement needed.
Becauseteachers were themselves not experts on media topics, there was very littlelecturing in “English 11: Media/Communications.” Teachers made active use of the practices of reading,discussion, analysis, and writing— but sometimes the ‘text’ was a book, a film,a television show, a commercial, a newspaper article, or an Internetwebsite. In oral presentations andin written work, students were encouraged to look for thematic connections anddisjunctions between ideas presented from this wide range of perspectives. According to teacher reports, studentsincreased their confidence in encountering unfamiliar expository texts from awide range of sources and learned how to identify an author’s purpose, point ofview and bias. Teachers andstudents both enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on the power of artists toshape our understanding of the human experience— through images, language,sound and digital forms of expression and communication.
Media Composition: An Approach to CreativeWriting
Some (but not all) teachers createdassignments that involved students in collaborative media production projectsthat required imagination, planning, and creativity. Since there was no equipment available for English teachersto use in this course (see Hobbs, in press for context), students could usetheir own home video equipment. Students who did not have access to videoequipment could submit assignments in writing. In one example, students were asked to plan a televisionprogram that would relate the story of William Faulkner’s classic novel, AsI Lay Dying, as if it were one 30-minutetime slot on network television. Working in teams of three, students were required to produce an overviewthat described their TV show concept and they also needed to provide arationale for their approach. Group members were responsible for producing 1) astoryboard depicting the sequence of scenes in the program; 2) a transcript ofan interview with at least one of the characters in the program; and 3) ascreenplay or detailed description of one three to five-minute scene. Student teams either made an oralpresentation describing their program or created a video depicting theirprogram concept. Students worked both inside and outside of class to preparetheir presentations or videos. Students showed creativity in approaching thistask. Many students used theirhome video equipment to create short scenes of the television program conceptthey had imagined. One team ofstudents used the genre of the thriller to present this story, portraying thecharacter of Vardaman as jealous and deranged, verging on evil. They made much visual drama of thescene where he drills holes in his mother’s casket so she can breathe, and theyplayed up the “blood and gore” in the scene where, after catching a big fish,he cleaned it by hacking it up using an ax. In explaining the rationale fortheir choice of genre a student wrote: “Thrillers and horror films are popularnow and have been equally popular in the past. People for some odd reason find it very appealing to feelthe fear of the characters.”
Anotherteam of students adapted the plot of As I Lay Dying as a courtroom-based drama. In writing a scene for the show, theycreated the character of a prosecuting attorney who struts before the judge andexplains, “I would like to bring before the court the story of a woman thattook care of and watched over her family, and what did they give her inreturn? Thirty years of pain andsorrow and all she wanted to do was die.”
Anothergroup told the story using a talk show format with Darl and Jewel Bundren asthe main characters in an episode of the newsmagazine show 20/20, along with Barbara Walters, the interviewer, who isrepresented in the students’ video as a cardboard cutout seated along with membersof the Bundren family in a comfortable living room set. In the video, Darl’s confession waspart of the TV interview, where, in responding to a question, he explains whyhe burned down the barn and how embarrassed he was by the stench of his mom’sdecomposing body on the long trip. Still another team situated the Bundren family on the courtroom realityTV show Judge Judy, where viewerslearn that Anse Bundren, who has gotten everything he wanted at the end of thenovel, has completely disregarded the memory of his badly-treated wife. In their student production, she isalive and is pursuing legal action against her husband, seeking a divorce. Astudent explained the group’s rationale, writing, “We wanted to do somethingthat focused on Addie because we felt that she didn’t get much of a chance tospeak her opinion in the book. Wefashioned the family’s behavior in court around their dysfunctional tendenciesand concluded the case with Addie’s victory because we felt it wasjustice.”
InEngland, scholars have found that the most effective multimedia productions byyoung people incorporated familiar genres and forms that were familiar to them,like the horror genre (Buckingham, 2003). The process of digital media production allows for theinternalization of abstract concepts of genre, narrative and audience. Burn and Leach (2004, p. 164) write, “Cultural experienceand the media discourses … provide the semiotic raw material for their work, aswell as modeling the kinds of structures they build in their own video,multimedia or writing.” Gettingthe chance to write scripts and draw storyboards and compose short videos basedon literature was not only pleasurable and motivating: it helped studentsappreciate storytelling techniques using in film and media. It built their ability to recognizestructural devices in narrative. It strengthened their ability to communicate effectively in a small teamand to work through the steps in a complex process.
Forthese students, William Faulkner’s novel had come alive, quite literally, inthe imaginations of those English 11 students who tried their hand at thechallenge of adaptation. Usingbrainstorming, planning, writing, drawing and the lenses of their home videoequipment, they worked in teams to re-tell a story using images, language andsound. In teaching writing andcomposition, much of the creative process can be understood as an intertextualprocess, and that in learning to write, “what the student needs from theteacher is help in seeing discourse structures themselves in all their fullnessand their power” (Scholes, 1987, p. 144). When students recognized how Faulkner manipulated readers’perceptions through his strategic use of point of view, they were then able tothemselves play with these same rhetorical devices as storytellers themselves.
Evidenceof Program Effectiveness
Quantitative research on theimpact of the Concord English 11 Media/Communication program has shown thatstudents measurably strengthened their comprehension skills as readers,listeners and viewers in responding to print, audio, visual and video texts (Hobbs & Frost,2003). Researchers compared the performance ofa sample of Concord students to a demographically-matched control group on anumber of critical reading, listening, viewing and message analysis tasks. Among the findings, students increasedtheir reading comprehension skills compared to the control group. In analyzing messages, studentsdemonstrated the ability to recognize the complex blurring of authorialintention and purpose as texts may simultaneously strive to inform, to persuade,to entertain and to make money for their authors. They acquired a more focused appreciation of the concept ofaudience, appreciating that media messages (while they may be read or viewed byanyone) are designed to appeal to particular audiences based on theirdemographic characteristics. Theylearned that authors hold an imaginary reader in their minds as they compose,considering how to connect their goals to the reader’s own agenda. In a study measuring students’ advertisinganalysis skills, students gained a deeper understanding of how messages useambiguity and identification to create symbolic links between products, needsand feelings (Hobbs, 2004). Compared to the control group, quantitative evidencerevealed that students developed a more nuanced understanding of how authorscompose messages to convey meaning through the use of language, image, andsound and how readers respond with their own meaning-making process as theyinterpret messages (Hobbs, 2007).
Because they developed skills ofanalyzing messages using both texts that were highly familiar (like TV shows,popular music and advertising) as well as with unfamiliar materials (likeliterature and expository texts), they gained the ability to understand and usestructural knowledge about a wide range of genres, forms and types oftexts. Students’ critical thinkingskills were enhanced because they were able to employ a simple and clear set ofconcepts, the key media literacy questions, which provided the central heuristicinquiry framework. As English 11students explored the news media, they discovered the power of communication toshape the public’s understanding of social reality. They recognized how the news media shapes messages through avariety of different techniques and that these techniques mean that news mediamessages are never objective, but always partial, selective andincomplete.
But they also learned how to takeaction in responding to press coverage of a news event, discovering the powerof “talking back” to the news media and learning, in the process, about some ofthe responsibilities and obligations of citizenship (Hobbs, in press). Rather than see “the media” as amonolithic entity, students in English 11 discovered that, as Toto revealed toDorothy in The Wizard of Oz, that themedia is not the work of an all-powerful wizard, but created by teams of ratherordinary people who are doing a demanding job, making both good judgments andmistakes often under challenging day-to-day circumstances. Students gained power as communicators,developing their skills of speaking, writing and media production. Students had many opportunities to uselanguage, images and sounds in expressing a message. According to their teachers, students’ writing improvedbecause they had repeated opportunities to write about subjects that they caredabout, where they could bring their confidence, knowledge, and personalinterests to the writing process. The pleasures they took in popular culture were respected by peers andteachers, so they gained confidence in reflecting upon their choices and habitsas media consumers. Through regular and sustained opportunities for dialogue,students realized that they were shaping their own learning experience throughwhat they, their peers, and their teacher each contributed to the quality ofconversation. When writing andspeaking, students got opportunities to share their opinions or present theirpoint of view, but they were continually challenged to use evidence andreasoning to support their ideas. In the absence of school access to video production equipment, manyEnglish 11 students were able to use their own home equipment to compose amessage using a combination of language, images, sound and specialeffects.
Students gained a deeperappreciation for the value of teamwork and collaboration by participating inactivities that involved small group problem-solving and the exercise of imagination. They developed respect for thecontributions of others, coming to see learning not as a competitive game butas an intensely social and interactive process. Through the process of asking critical questions, theircuriosity was stimulated and they grew as independent learners. Many students experienced thegenuine thrill of research and discovery that comes from seekingknowledge. These learningoutcomes are consistent with what many school reform advocates describe as thekey elements of active, engaged learning (Sizer, 1996).
The Community asLearning Environment
Theoutcomes described in this paper were made possible in part because of thepre-existing learning environment at Concord High School. The community’s values, local newsmedia, school leadership, and the structural dimensions of the high school allhad an influence on the implementation of the new curriculum (Hobbs, in press). For example, the community’s support of the new initiativereflected some fundamental cultural values and beliefs about education,including the overall conceptualization of curricular change. Curriculum reform was understood to bethe responsibility of the faculty, not something to be imposed upon them fromabove. In some communities,curriculum reform is viewed as a signal that there is a “problem” in theschools that needs to be “solved.” In other educational contexts, academic experts create curriculum andteachers are merely expected to “deliver” it. In Concord, New Hampshire, parents and school leaders viewedcurriculum reform as necessary, healthy and vital process. There was little of the tension thatexists in some schools that occurs when curricular reform efforts make teachersfeel that their teaching practices are being criticized (Muncey & McQuillan,1996). Among Concord school leaders, there wasa shared expectation that the faculty could be trusted to design a new courseand implement it effectively. Thecommunity believed that the goals of both relevance and rigor could bepartnered in the new English 11 course in Media/Communication.
Conclusion
AsI have illustrated in this paper, teachers integrating media literacy intoEnglish education used a wide variety of texts, themes and instructionalpractices in the classroom. Theyselected diverse print material, including classic works of literature,contemporary fiction, young-adult literature, essays, non-fiction books,magazine articles, news stories, opinions, and works of criticism. They made use of documentaries, fictionfilms, TV news and informational programs, entertainment shows andadvertising. They madeactive use of the Internet both for finding resource materials for theirstudents and as a tool for independent student research. The course content and ideas centeredon some key themes: the social role of the storyteller and the dimensions anddevices of storytelling; the use of language and images as tools for socialcontrol and the exercise of power; the complex relationship of media messagesin relation to truth, memory and history and the nature of mediarepresentations as inevitably partial, selective and incomplete; and the socialcontexts of communication and the responsibilities of individuals in relationto their community. With the riseof the Internet and the continuing development of a global media culture, theseimportant issues must be more fully included worldwide in public education forthe 21st century. AsJenkins (2006, p. 72) writes, “It makes sense tosee education as playing an important role in helping people to develop anunderstanding of the capacities of different technologies and systems ofrepresentation and to master new strategies for deploying those technologies ascognitive resources.” As thispaper has shown, this broad new vision of education cannot be realized withoutthe energy, imagination, dedication and creativity of classroom teachers.
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