To learn more about the who what when where and why of understanding and critical thinking, students need to be equipped with tools for decoding information. The very idea of this skill is basic and fundemental, for example letters are merely constructed symbols until you learn they have disticnt attributes. You then build upon that learning by combining those attributes to form various words, which leads to learning a new skill... so on and so on until a proficient reader has emerged. Spoken words are or can be so different from written words or to better illustrate... we learn to speak long before we have any idea that the words coming from our mouths exist in a written (symbolic) form. When we learn the current rules for symbolic representations (I use current as a way to represent that languages are generally growing, morphing, and changing as learning changes) we also learn to use a wide array of different combinations of those symbols to present our thoughts and ideas. A good example of this would be the contributions Shakespeare made to the English language (some 1700 word changes) to better represent his creative thoughts.
This idea leads to my first lesson for student learning: Cartoon Analysis This is a link to a lesson found on the LOC website and the actual cartoon is titled "Inch by Inch" and was first published in 1960 to raise awareness about segregation in education. By using cartoons students learn to develop a whole new symbolic language and can also begin to learn that there are NO errant pen strokes... everything the artist drew has a purpose. Identifying this purpose can lead to deeper understanding and the true motive for the creation.
Lesson number two will follow the same theme, but change the media venue to be analyzed and will also introduce a new tool for presenting information (infographics)... Video Analysis
This lesson plan is located on the PBS website and presents another topic that could have a current event connection to "profiling" and how that may or may not be an infringement on Constitutional rights. This also follows a thematic question I have been developing with my students about what crosses the line, by introducing a topic that could potentially impact them it brings instant relevance to the topic, but it also provides a venue to further investigate the potential producer bias... "why is only one side of the topic being presented" what types of persuasive tactics are being used. This lesson would then have the students create an infographic report using PiktoChart
Lesson three will focus on the creative tools available to demonstrate understanding or creating for the purpose of presenting your understanding to others. The main idea of this lesson will be to offer students a list of good resources ( Best Web 2.0 Websites ) and let them choose the site that will best represent their learning and if students already have a venue they prefer to use that's okay too (this is not a ploy to influence students to a particular option, but encouraging them to find the most suitable venue for their topic).
These lesson plans are the ideas that closely mirror the quotes and themes I pulled from the reading and activities this semester. Below is a short example of what students may produce.
Persuasion short by rjsnell82 on GoAnimate
GoAnimate is free for 30 second videos and the even have a secure school component for whole classrooms at a small cost.
Citations:
GoAnimate.com
Library of Congress.org
PBS.org
PiktoChart.com
Techlearning.com
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