In a continually evolving society, technology is becoming
more prominent in people’s everyday lives (Dean, 2010), therefore being able to
access and understand it is increasingly important. I interviewed a student teacher (Student A)
to gain insight into her attitude towards using popular culture in the classroom. One idea which arose from this was the link between
multimodal texts and children’s experiences outside of school. Student A expressed that using technology and
popular culture in literacy made it relevant to children, which complies with Dyson’s view (2001:15) that ‘children
must stretch familiar resources from their communicative experiences into new
social constellations if they are to participate meaningfully into the literacy
social practices of school’. However, as
political debates lean towards traditional literacy, this relationship between
children’s school and home experiences could be diminished (Merchant,
2007). Interestingly, Student A
suggested that multimodal texts are engaging, particularly as they could be
considered a reward. However, she raised
concerns about their ability to support the National Curriculum, stating that
teachers would need to clear and well established aims before considering using
them in literacy. This is amongst many
teachers’ anxieties, possibly because texts such as comics are still considered
inferior to chapter books (Dean, 2010).
The most surprising response was the idea that whilst multimodal texts
are engaging, ‘they can only go as far as to capture the imagination in
children: Typical storybooks can inspire
in a way films or moving images can’t… films already do the thinking for you’. This challenged my perception of using
popular culture in the classroom, as Alexander (2009) suggests that being literate
in non-print media is equally as important as accessing print texts. Additionally, they appear to promote a number
of literacy skills, for instance, moving images can develop understanding in
narrative and story sequencing, therefore they seem to support children’s
learning (Dean, 2010).
Amy Knowles
References:
Alexander, R. (ed.) (2009) Children, their World, their Education: Final Report and
Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review. Abingdon: Routledge.
Dean, G ‘Rethinking Literacy’ in Bazalgette, C (ed) (2010) Teaching Media in Primary Classrooms
London: Sage
Dyson, A.H. (2001) ‘Where are the Childhoods in Childhood
Literacy? An Exploration in Outer (school) Space’. Journal
of Early Childhood Literacy 1 (1) pp.9-39
Merchant, G. (2007) ‘Writing the future in the digital age’ Literacy 41 (3) pp.118-128
I agree with your student teachers view that teachers will need clear and well established aims when using popular culture and media in lessons to prevent children from thinking it is just a 'reward' or something fun. Also, the view that multi-modal texts only go as far as capturing the imagination seems controversial, surely if the imagination is captured it can then be probed and used in a variety of ways? For example, a child could watch a clip from a movie and then alter the ending or change the characters or think about language they use and why to support writing as well as reading. The children could also watch a clip and do some research around that film in the classroom before presenting it, developing their speaking and listening skills. Although all of these activities can come from reading, it seems to be there is also potential for them to come from other forms of media to promote aspects of Literacy and develop children for the technological society we live in today.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting about the use of film in the literacy lesson. There are many ways in which to use film to its fullest potential as Charlotte comments on. Comics have potential to aid struggling readers to progress as it is something that they are interested in. The punctuation that can be gained from reading comics is quite outstanding if people choose to delve deeper that the surface. These may be different genres that traditonal classroom environments may not be accustomed to but I feel that they should be used within the inclusive classroom
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