Really great yesterday going into one of my research schools and seeing a teacher working wth his class on the critical lieracies project. Fantastic to see the kids so into it and working so hard. They have a formular PEE - make a POINT, provide the EVIDENCE, and give an EXPLANATION. And they are learning to ask questions to help them unpick the ideologies within texts.
Lovely to see the notices round Mark’s classroom and to see someone so talented and clever in action. The kids were really getting so much out of what was going on. RESPECT is a key thing in that place:
Ths was the text for the starter activity:
the kids were well into it and loving looking at the ‘rip off ad’ at the top of the page. they were really interested in discussing the business side and I think maybe that is a direction to take up next.
Or maybe Mark will be interested in looking at streetart and asking questions about that using a critical literacy frame….
Whose voices do we hear on the street?
What is streetart trying to do?
Where is the power?
Look at this pupil’s folder:
Do you think it belongs to a girl or a boy? (Why do you think that? Who is the folder aimed to please? What is it trying to do? What does it assume about the audience?)
Next I went to a City Learning Centre and heard Judy Robertson from Glasgow Caledonian University talking about developing kids’ storytelling skills through computer game design. She gets kids making ther own pc games and then looks at ways in which teachers can build on the skills the kids are developing.
She uses Never winternights. which I am going to buy and have a go.
Interesting that out of the 8 people who attended the seminar, one was a teacher advisor; one was me; one was the person who arranged it; two were PhD students; then there were three teachers. Two of the teachers said they did not think they would be able to use the ideas; one was already trying it at an after school club. This is going to be a long struggle to get people to be brave enough to use this stuff in school and to see that not all skills are listed on the National Curriculum. It is so hard for teachers these days as they hae to justify everything they do in terms of hitting pre-set targets - set by a givernment interested in developing literacy of the past century, but using technology from the current one.
In the meantime … I am going to watch BB tonight. All eyes are watching….
Facinating stuff. I love seeing and hearing of how other teachers are doing things in their own classrooms. Maybe I should start to do a bit more of that on my site? What age group was the teacher doing that critical literacy with?
Comment by Chris Best — July 1, 2006 @ 3:58 pm
Glad you think it’s interesting Chris. This is a Year 8 group in a comprehensive school. Yeah I think it’s cool t hear what you are teaching about; I liked the stuff you did about film and visual literacies.
Comment by DrJoolz — July 1, 2006 @ 4:54 pm