Foot: Naruto/Pinocchio Compare and Contrast

Text and Dialogue:

Narration- The Narration in Pinocchio and Naruto are similar. They both are a computer font and are not hand written. Pinocchio’s letters look more angled and sometimes both books narration is bold faced or has bigger letter.

Balloons- The balloons in Pinocchio are more the normal dialogue shaped balloons with the hook at the end leading to the person who said it. While Naruto does have this, it also has different shaped balloons. Not all of them are the normal circles. Some are more square and some do not have the hook to the person that said it.

Captions- I did not remember any captions in Pinocchio. I think for the most part it is dialogue. I did find some captions in Naruto. One time Cursed Fox…Naruto! showed up in a panel without a balloon. I would consider that a caption. There were also other times where words were prefacing the scene.

Emanata- Naruto seemed to have more emanata’s. They used it by putting the lightbulb above some of the characters heads with symbols inside of them. A lot of the time it was exclamation marks. Pinocchio tends to have more dialogue and I didn’t notice any emanata’s.

Labels/Signs- Both of the texts have labels and signs. In Pinocchio there is a sign for the carpentry shop. It is a nice neat bold sign that looks professional. Naruto has what looks to be different chapters inside of it. There are labels for the different chapters. Pinocchio doesn’t have different chapters inside of the text.

Lettering- Pinocchio has more pencil like writing. It is basically a slim font, although it does have some block letters too. Sound effects seemed to have a different font. They were larger and bolder, to catch the reader’s attention. At times they even followed a different shape and didn’t read straight across. Naruto also had a more pencil like font for inside the balloons. The sound effects were a larger font. At times it took up the whole page. The letters would also form different shapes as to be shooting off or showing the word they were telling. So for example the word shoot would look like it was bursting upward. There were a lot of comparisons in the lettering in both of the books.

Sound Effects- I kind have incorporated this into the lettering category. You were very aware of the sound effects in both of the books. When I look at a page, I see the sound effects right away because of how big and unique the letters look. The emphasis is really drawn to what the word means and it seems to make an even larger impact in Naruto.

Visual Features:

Characters-The characters of graphic novels always look the same to me. When I picture a graphic novel in my mind, I see that square face with sunken eyes and skinny box like body. This holds true for Pinocchio. He has a face that is square and eyes that make him look like he’s been punched in the face. Naruto’s characters don’t have quite as square of a face. The characters chins do come to a point. The faces seem more oval to me. The characters in Naruto remind me of the show “Pokémon”. The eyes of some of the characters look a little possessed or like they are going crazy. The lower half of their body looks normal.

Objects- The objects in Naruto seemed life-like. There was a clock in one of the scenes and it had 3, 6, 9 and 12 all in the correct places. In one scene from Pinocchio it had him in a bed with a nightstand beside with a candle on top of it. Everything looked real like a normal person could be living in that bedroom.

Icons-I could not find any icons in Pinocchio or Naruto. I thought Pinocchio might have some since it’s based off of the original version of Pinocchio, but I could not find any. Both books seemed to have a lot of objects, but no icons that I could find.

Scenery- Pinocchio’s scenery seemed to be more simple and straight lined. Both books are gray scaled, but Pinocchio seemed to have less going on it. The scenes are not as detailed and showy. The pages seem to focus more on Pinocchio and his struggles. Naruto seemed to have a lot going on in the scenes. When I glance at a page of it beside Pinocchio, Naruto has more shapes and grass and rocks visible. Not only does it show the characters, but it shows where they are in detail. 

Depicted Action:

General Layout and Design- Pinocchio was read like a regular novel from left to right, front to back. Naruto was read from right to left, back to front. Naruto seemed more like a comic book to me. It could have been just the time of material this particular book was printed on, but it was a rougher material, whereas Pinocchio was on smooth shiny paper.

Borders-I couldn’t find borders in either book. They were mostly just panels and gutters.

Gutters-There are lots of gutters in Pinocchio. Most of the gutters are just white space between the panels. Naruto has a lot of gutters too. They too are made up of white space. I could not find any with any designs.

Panels- Both texts have panels. They both have large and small panels. Some are made of straight lines and others are diagonal.

Open Panel- I found a few open panels in Naruto. Most were large pictures of a character’s face or body. There were also some in Pinocchio at the beginning of the text. The larger the icon or character the better chance that the panel was open it seemed.

Splash- There were a couple splashes in Naruto and Pinocchio. Naruto had a guy getting attacked by girls that took up the top of both pages. In Pinocchio it was at the beginning. One scene had Pinocchio walking down the street and a monster appeared behind him. The scene took up two pages. 

Angles and Frames:

Bleed- There was bleeds in Pinocchio. Pinocchio himself would extend across the page, and there was the scene where the monster was behind him.

Rather than going through every shot: close-up, head shot, head-shoulder shot, full-figure shot, longshot, extreme longshot, and reverse I decided to just write a paragraph on them all. Both texts incorporate all of the shots. These novels are graphic novels, so you are going to have a variety of scenes. Naruto probably had more of these shots because it was twice as long as Pinocchio. Regardless, they both had scenes of the characters up close, far away, walking with their backs toward us and just a normal image.

Rhetorical techniques:

Exaggeration- They both seem exaggerated. Obviously Pinocchio is not going to come alive and go kill people and Naruto seemed more realistic in some ways. It was more a person fighting off bad people or ninja’s, but it was exaggerated too especially with the exclamation marks that were in the balloons.

Empathy/identification- I think Naruto was easier to identify with. The story seemed more realistic and that it could happen to a human. Pinocchio was harder to identify because he was like a doll that came to life and was trying to kill off the bad guys to find his father.

Mood/tone- Pinocchio seemed a lot darker and deeper than Naruto. The pages seem a darker shade of black and the characters faces seem angrier. Naruto is happier because he’s just a kid and fighting. The pages aren’t as black and he seems like he is joking around a lot.

Simplicity/complexity- Pinocchio was easier for me to understand. The storyline was simple and the book was about a fourth of Naruto. So, Naruto was harder for me to understand. There was a lot going on and the book was like split into chapters, which helped, but it also was read from right to left, which was confusing. There was a ton more characters in Naruto, so it took longer to separate the storyline.

Irony/satire- It was ironic to me that a doll became a vampire in a sense and was killing off people, but wanted  to find his father. When he does find him, he ends up killing him.

Realism/icons/symbolism- As I said earlier, Naruto seems more realistic. It’s not like he’s a doll coming back to life. They both have symbolism in them. As anyone who knows the Pinocchio story knows that his nose is symbolic of his lies and Naruto has power based on his headband.

Order/disorder- Pinocchio was an easy read. I sat down and read it within an hour. It flowed like a normal novel would. Naruto was confusing. You had to read it right to left and there was so much going on and so many people that it took a lot longer than Pinocchio.

Juxtaposition- They both are novels about fighting. It’s in a different sense though because Pinocchio comes back to life and fights to find his father, where Naruto goes around fighting random people. Naruto doesn’t seem as intense as Pinocchio.

Relationships- Pinocchio is trying to rekindle his relationship with his father. He has relationships with people on trying to fight the bad guys. Naruto has relationships with a lot of people in his training and his instructors.

Point of view- Pinocchio is mostly told from his perspective. Occasionally, you would see someone else’s perspective if they thought he was lying. Naruto is told in his perspective and from the people his is fighting with and fighting against.

WordGirl

       So, I was flipping through the channels last week and stumbled across a program on PBS. Now I use to be a big PBS fan when I was little. I watched Arthur, The Big Comfy Couch, Clifford and who knows what else. The shows were awesome in my terms, but they probably weren't educational. I mean The Big Comfy Couch did teach me how to stretch and Arthur always was learning how to do something, but it wasn't as blatantly obvious as the show I stopped on the other day.

      The show was WordGirl. I did not watch the whole thing, but I watched long enough to see what it was about. I know were going to be high school teachers, so this is probably not something you would want to use in your classroom, but it does show the availability of useful television programs. WordGirl was like a superhero and she would teach you two words per show.

        That day the words were abrupt and revolution. The words were told and shown on screen at the beginning. Throughout the half hour program they would teach you about the words and use them in the storyline. For example, Wordgirl came to an abrupt halt. She showed you the word, told you the word and then acted it out. Sounds like multiple modalities to me. We all can use a kid show every now and then. Perhaps this would be a better show for some children because it actually does teach vocabulary words.

The clip below is not from the episode I saw, but it gives you an idea of what the show is like. 

Foot: Final Reflection Post

     This course was a relatively challenging course in terms of the amount of work that we had to do. I think the divide came because we have grown up in the time that all the different kinds of media sites have come about. We technically already know about them and how to use them. We started the semester off learning from Gary Mote, who was very informative, but it almost seemed like there was so much information that we couldn't take it all in at that moment. I think it would have been more beneficial if we had started on our autobiographies and the he came in to help us with uploading and editing them. 

       The next issue I had was with the readings we did outside of class. It almost seemed like everything we had to do was to be done outside of class and didn't really tie in with that day's lesson. We would talk about Little Brother for a little bit, but mostly just had to blog about it. The problem is, we spent so much time reading the book and then having to make our own lengthy blog posts that we really don't have time to look at a lot of our peers posts too. We would read articles about the Internet and Facebook and then have to blog about them. To us, Facebook is like second nature and we all have probably heard the story of how it got started ten times. I feel that I would have enjoyed reading the articles more if I knew they were going to incorporate them into the lesson during the next class period. 

       The multigenre autobiography was fun. I did feel bad for the people who got cut off in the end. I was the first one to go and I think mine was only six or seven minutes, but some people didn't even get to show their whole thing because we ran out of time. I realize that some people went over the time limit, so that was understandable. I think it would be easier if there was say a 6 minute time limit and we could not even start showing our autobiography if it was longer than that. That seems like it would give everyone the same advantage. 

       I absolutely did  not enjoy the Costanzo book. I could understand learning a little about films, but to have to scrutinize the camera shot seems to me like that would be for a film class. Even after reading the chapters in the book and before I did my film shot analysis, I had to go research some of the shots because I did not know what they were. I feel that we could have covered that more in class. We aren't film majors and just because we read one book doesn't mean we are going to be experts on film. The film analysis was very frustrating and time consuming because the whole time I kept wondering if I was doing it right. I feel that if we would have been able to review it more in class, then I would have felt more confident and knew what I was doing.The film festival seemed like an overall good experience, but I feel we could have learned the same thing by just watching a film at any movie theater.

       I really enjoyed our time at Firestone. It was a little unorganized and that's understandable for doing it the first time. Some days, I didn't feel like I was doing a lot for my student and I knew she was bored, so I tried to integrate some other aspects beside the OGT packet, like going over test strategies. It's great to get into the real school setting and help the students. That made me envision what I will be doing next year during student teaching. 

      I also enjoyed doing the Canonical Wiki. It took me a rather lengthy time to complete it because I got so caught  up in the different lessons I found online. I wanted to get the best lessons and since there were so many, it took me a long time to look. Not only did I find lessons to use with Edgar Allan Poe, but I found websites that I can use in the future with different texts. So I got to find lessons that I can use with Poe's works, lessons to use with other works and great teacher friendly websites. This was probably my favorite part of the whole semester!

        We read a graphic novel last semester, but did not go over them in detail. I really had trouble knowing how to compare and contrast Naruto and Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer. I wish that we would have spent the class time learning about the different descriptions of graphic novels. Instead we listened to music and looked at post cards and then with only like a half hour or so left we started comparing other graphic novels. I feel that during class we could have learned about those different descriptions and that would have been extremely beneficial to us. With that knowledge then we could go out and compare Naruto and Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer. Without it, I left lost and dreading the upcoming blog post because I didn't even know half of the words to compare and contrast them.

        The major concern I had with this course was the blogging. Blogging is a new form of communication and can be used in the classroom setting, but I don't feel like I would use it like we used it. For one, to tell someone how many times they have to blog seems a little bit too intense. Its supposed to be a blog where you go and look at other people's and learn what they are talking about. It took me so much time to read the books and make my own blogs and make sure that I commented on six other people's blogs, that I didn't have the time to look at any other blogs than the ones I commented on. Also, sometimes things come up and I can't seem to think that you should make  your students stretch out their blogging over the weeks they have to do it. One week they might have an emergency or not get the time to blog. As long as they get their blog posts done, it shouldn't matter if they did it in three consecutive days or took them three weeks. I think the blog should be an addition to the class, not feel like it's the class in and of itself. 
     Overall I can understand how multimedia can be used in the classroom, but I don't feel that it will be used every day and be as intense as we used it. It's good to make us aware of it, but I really think there are better options to having a literature circle than through Facebook. I would like to use things like the autobiography and films in my future classroom, but don't plan on making my students define certain shots when they might not be that familiar with the shots. Also, it might seem fun to make a video, but I don't think it should be as strict. If you aren't going to teach the students how to put a video together or how to edit it, then I think the original videos and the creative videos should be graded just the same. There might be a group that is not very tech saavy and is fearful of making their video look like a piece of art. You want them to give their best effort, but also take into consideration that it's not a video class and they won't be experts. 
      Like everything else, I think all things are good in moderation. Blogging might be beneficial, but I think it could be toned down a bit. Usually I'm all about structure, but for some reason I liked the flexibility of the Canonical Wiki and I think that let me explore it more. There were a lot of great ideas I got out of this class, I just wished we could have done more in class and got more out of the class sessions, so I knew exactly what I should be doing or how to do the project.

Pytash: Final Refelection

     The semester is nearly over. If only the sun would come out and stay out, then it might seem like it's almost May. Going through the syllabus and looking at the various activities we have done this semester, I have realized how much I learned. 

      Teaching Literature in Secondary Schools helped me to see views out of my normal lens. Last semester we focused on young adult literature and I really enjoyed that class because I got to see different books and ways of incorporating them into the classroom. This semester I got to learn about different theories to apply to those books. I was not aware of the theories: Language as Artifact, Development, Expression and Social Construct. I had one way of how I viewed a lesson and did not take into effect all of these different ways of structuring a lesson based on a student’s needs.

            I had never read The Great Gatsby before, so that was a treat itself. Before reading it, I had a preconceived notion of this horrible book with words that I couldn’t even understand. I guess that’s my basic consensus of the canon. The book was not as bad as I thought. There were actually ways to relate it to a student’s life like understanding the aspects of loyalty, social class and gender roles.

            I enjoyed going back to Firestone, but thought it was a little unorganized. I did not get to spend the whole time with my assigned student, but in the long run that was probably better. I got the chance to see different learners and how they approach a pre-test like the OGT booklet. It allowed me to use different strategies with them, but more were test taking strategies than using language arts.

            One of the biggest benefits for me was reading Classics in the Classroom by Carol Jago. I have posted this in my blog before about previously hating canonical literature. She got me to look at it in a different way. There are a lot of things that I totally do not agree with her on, but there are things that I’m more aware of and willing to accept because of reading the book. I will give a book in the canon a chance now and have found that it can be used in ways just like young adult literature. To me, I almost see the canon as a tradition. We have traditions that we do particularly during holidays year after year. The traditions are just so good and a part of us that we can’t let them go. This seems to be the same way with canonical literature.

            The last thing that I thought was beneficial was learning how to write lesson plans. This is the only part that I was a little surprised on. I thought the whole course would be structured around making lesson plans. Before this class, I had only made one brief lesson plan. I was glad that we got to work in pairs or groups for a lot of this class. I know our lesson plans will need to be very descriptive and I wish we would have spent more time scrutinizing them. Perhaps we could have even performed different lesson plans and decided whether it was a good plan or needed more work. 

         I almost forgot to mention our blogs. I think you only get something out of blogging if you are willing to look around and have the time to read and browse others sites. I don't think it should be something that's extremely structured and tells you how many times you have to update. I liked the flexibility that you gave us on that. I actually think I was more apt to look at other people's posts in this class because I didn't have to keep track of the number of people's blogs that I commented on or how many post I made myself. It allows us to use another form of communication, but in a relative lax manner. 

Foot: Virginia Hamilton and OSEA Conferences

      I wanted to share about two conferences that I attended this weekend. The first conference was held at Kent State and it was the Virginia Hamilton Conference. I am part of an Intergenerational Mentoring group that is sponsored by the Ohio Education Association. Each future teacher that signs up is paired with a retired teacher to help and share materials throughout college. I was blessed to be paired with a retired librarian, Kay, in Ravenna. Kay has brought so much to my attention that I would otherwise not know of. One of those things is the Virginia Hamilton Conference. This is a conference that many author's come to, tp share ideas and have a book signing. I was only able to attend on Thursday evening because my other conference started on Friday. Each year there is a main speaker and this year it was Nikki Giovanni. She is an author and poet that shared a phenomenal story about getting student's work involved in our country. Giovanni wants to see art and stories displayed and emphasized like we do the showing of athletes. Student's from a performing arts school even recited some of their own poems. The students were in elementary and middle school and have to audition to attend, and that definitely showed in their performances. The evening ended with a book signing. There were probably seven to ten other authors there to sign books. The new books I purchased and got signed are: Ego-Tripping by Nikki Giovanni, Names Will Never Hurt Me by Jaime Adoff and Chameleon by Charles R. Smith Jr.. Unfortunately these books will have to wait until the summer to get read.

         The second conference was the Ohio Student Education Association Conference. This was held in Worthington, Ohio. Friday evening we got to hear from three speakers. The outstanding one that stuck in my mind was Aimee Young, a teacher from Loudonville, Ohio. She went through her teaching story with us. It went something along the lines of her becoming a teacher and going back to school to get a pay raise and falling in love with the story of the Holocaust. She was so infatuated that she indulged in all of the information that she could get on it. That led to her teaching a class on it. This teacher is an integrated language arts teacher like we all will be, not a history one. She used her knowledge of the Holocaust to have students create projects and write papers and in turn won many awards. She even took them to Aushwitz for a tour. A very long and challenging story, she related how angry people in her community were with her because of her interest in the Holocaust. Some parents didn't want their children learning about it and others thought that Mrs. Young was a horrible teacher for teaching about something that happened outside of the United States. She fought this battle for at least seven years. Young was so stressed with work and a family that she had a heart attack when she was forty something. That was not the worst part. She was driving home with her daughter and friends one evening and got hit in the driver side door, more towards the front wheel of it by a boy who was under the influence. Mrs. Young had many shattered body parts, and did not get out of the hospital for around four months. She returned to school this past January. Out of the whole thing she wanted us to remember that we have to have a passion for teaching. At first she didn't want to go back to school, but now she says those kids are what keep her going. She has come extremely far, as she walks and talks like she didn't have metal plates put in her arms and legs less than a year ago.

       The next day we went to West High School for an outreach to teach project. This school was huge and has thousands of high schoolers mingling in it every day. Some of us worked on painting murals on the walls, others worked on bulletin boards and posting signs, and the rest organized donated books. For the afternoon we had different sessions. My first one was called "What Will Your Impact Be?" Joseph Hayberger conducted this one and had so much information to pass along that we did not even get to cover it all. He suggested many books, but one that I currently have sitting in my dorm is The Essential 55. My mom actually picked this book up a long time ago and she mentioned it to me during a discussion last time I was home. I brought it back to school with intentions to read it, but have gotten too busy with other work. It is supposed to enclose the top 55 rules you would need for your classroom. I know, that sounds like an awful lot, so I'm interested in why we need so many, and how to enforce them all! My last session was called, "Surviving Your 1st Year of Teaching". I was not enthused with this one. I probably should have chose another class because the speaker- Guy Kendall-Freas had already spoken at a KSEA (Kent Student Education Association) meeting. A lot of his ideas were very basic. One thing that he loves to promote is the member benefits of being in the OEA. There are many perks: coupons, half-price dining and discounts on vacations through the association. It's basically something you have to check daily in order to get the big deals. If you're interested, take a look at the website.

Pytash: Jago Chapter 7

Literature, Knowledge, and The High School Graduate

     "Eighteen states require students to pass exit exams in order to earn a diploma. To the extent that these tests help ensure that every student has had access to a rigorous curriculum" (Jago 148). I was wondering if this is like our Ohio Graduation Tests. Students in Ohio must pass the OGT in order to graduate, but they most likely do not pass it during their senior year. I am not sure where students in California take their exit exam in their senior year or not, but they seem to align with one another with the sole purpose of making students understand enough material to graduate high school. 

      I was surprised on many accounts by statements that Jago made. The first one dealt with her applauding the state for creating an exit exam. Based on her beliefs and structure of her classroom, I felt that she would be against the government and standardized tests. I'm assuming their exit exams are like our standardized tests. I know a lot of us have an issue with this type of testing. I personally do not think that it evaluates what the students have learned in their curriculum's throughout high school. A lot of it, I think, is material that they smash in your head just to pass the test. If they evaluated you on what you learned on what the teacher wanted the curriculum to be then I don't think teachers would have to teach to the test, and each school's evaluation would be different.

      I was pleased with Jago's application of literature to life. This is so important to me because I feel that if I don't apply to the students lives then they will get practically nothing out of it. This was a hang up I had with classical literature. It seemed to me that it would be so hard to apply some of the writing to student's lives today. I was pleased to see that Jago applied Julius Caesar to the election world and whom would be best fit for presidency. This seems to be something that the students could understand and relate to the world today. 

     A second surprise from her was her talking about not making homemade multiple-choice questions. I figured she would have perfected that a long time ago and would use them frequently. I sometimes think that multiple-choice questions are much harder than extended responses. The answers seem to be so close that only a detail, sometimes minor, separates them. Viewing Jago as very blunt and strict, I thought that she would demand her students to be able to pick through multiple-choice questions and make them see the differences between her choices.

     The third and last surprise from her was towards the end, talking about assessing student's work. I know a lot of teachers that require their students to submit their papers to Turnitin.com. This site searches their papers for any plagiarism, so the teacher doesn't have to try to catch it on their own. With the intensity of Jago's classroom, I figured she would be very particular and want her students to submit their essays, so she didn't have to try to find the plagiarism on her own and to relate how serious of an offense it is. Surprisingly, she would rather work with the students on their papers than to have a computer do it. She makes students do other things like submit the rough draft and final copy together, to show how their writing has changed. I really like that idea and think that would probably make more progress for the students, than to just have them turn it in online.

      I was pleased with the final chapter of Jago's book. It was much more calming than her first. At the beginning, I thought I would hate the book and her love of canonical literature. There were times that I was not her biggest fan, but I don't see her as much as the brutal teacher I did in the beginning. There were a lot of great lesson ideas she had that I will probably use in my future classroom. With all things, I think moderation is needed. We can't go haywire on one subject or type of text or we will watch the students run out of our room. It was very interesting to see a teacher who was so different from my teaching beliefs and also to Kyleene Beers, who we read last semester.

Foot: Film Festival Review

Crime After Crime

A.   Personal Issues- This film showcased the life of Debbie Peagler and her unlawful sentence of spending at least 25 years in prison for having her boyfriend killed to get his life insurance. Seeing a lady that looked like she had transformed her life and made something out of herself after what she supposedly did was what hit me strongly. So many times there are people that go to jail and just sit there and then want out on good behavior. If you just sit there everyday knowing that you can get out for behaving for a year, well then everyone would do that.  Debbie took it a step further. She didn’t just sit around. Instead, Debbie was a leader for her church group, instructed people making electrical components, and inspired many other women in the prison. I felt compassion for her because she was trying to do something regardless of what she had done in the past. After 25 years serving and forgiveness from her victims family, I really thought she could be released. The court just kept overturning her case. Everytime there was hope, she was let down. I definitely was moved when the court sent her a letter saying she was going to get out, and then took it back, saying that was not the best choice. This lady was so grateful for her attorneys to try to fight for her case. The most moving part was when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. It was so hard to see a lady go through the treatments involved with cancer and then have to go back to prison. I know personally of how horrifying the aftermaths of chemotherapy can be from watching my aunt go through breast cancer. I think that other people could easily see my response to the things Debbie had to go through if they have ever had a loved one go through cancer. It’s hard enough to go through cancer at home; it would only be harder in prison. When Debbie was given only eight months to live, I could not understand why the district attorney would not let her out. I highly doubt that she would be focused on anything demeaning, but rather living her last days to the fullest. 

B.  Technique- This was not technically a movie where they acted out the scenes. I am sure that Debbie’s attorneys might have had to rehearse some of the monologues, but for the most part it seemed that things were shot based on how they were occurring. One technique that I really liked was the rolling years that would show before certain scenes. This was more of a documentary, so the years were important and at each important year a black screen would appear with a dial turning to the date. Then, sometimes they would give a short synopsis of what had happened during the time between what was just shown and what would be shown in the next year. The techniques that mattered most were not the different shots the camera gave, but the screen titles of what was happening, the dates that were appearing, and the statistics. The biggest strength was all of the data that they gave. This is a true story and it was so believeable because of all of the data that they used. I was not interested in how the camera moved, but the ladies story and if her attorneys were going to win. One of the weaknesses was that it ended like so many other movies ended. She got out of prison and then it was over. I’m not even sure what I would have liked for them to do, but I think it would have been interesting to see snippets of the attorneys and if they have held any cases like hers since her passing. I was ecstatic to see her released, but really wanted the movie to continue. 

C.   Acting-I guess I kind have answered the part of acting in the technique section above. Again, this was a documentary of a battered woman’s life in prison. She was not acting, but was going through her daily life. She was singing in church, talking with friends, and instructing others all while in prison. The attorneys were basically telling their findings. Most of the time they were sitting in front of the camera talking to it. Other times they were talking with Debbie. I’m pretty sure that they could not have had the time to set up rehearsing and acting while in prison. Everything was so credible because it was actually happening. The producer actually had to ask to film the whole prison because they weren’t allowed to just film one person, so they filmed the whole person in order to get to film Debbie in her actual environment. 

D  Plot- Crime After Crime was a nonfictional film about Debbie Peagler supposedly having her boyfriend killed in Los Angeles, so she could receive his life insurance. The actually story is that Debbie moved back in with her mother and her boyfriend, Oliver, moved in with someone else to try to help both of them get their lives back on track. Oliver would not leave Debbie alone, so he mother suggested the gang in their community get Oliver to leave Debbie alone. Two guys end up beating Oliver to death and they along with Debbie are charged with at least 25 years in prison. Two attorneys hear of Debbie’s case and come to her defense. They fought for over seven years trying to free her. It showcases a battle between the court system and a woman fighting for her life. In the end, Oliver’s family forgives Debbie and pleads for her release; she is diagnosed with lung cancer and finally gets released ten months before passing away. Most of the film is shot in the prison where Debbie resided for 25 years. We get information from both her attorneys and the district attorney. Her family, as well as Oliver’s has say in the film too.  

  

E.    Themes-The main theme of this movie was that battered woman are being wrongfully accused. Debbie was trying to save her own life and ended up serving for it. Oliver would beat her with a whip, give her black eyes, and make her fearful of her life. The producer wanted to tell her story because there are so many more women, whom are serving an unjust term. Not only does it tell us about woman who are fighting for their lives, but the cracks in our court system. We got to see leaders of the state, like district attorney Steve Cooley, who were cheating the system and people. These themes were very thought provoking. It left you feeling sorry for the people who have to take the blame for others wrongdoings. I don’t really think that there were hidden messages in this film, but there are hidden messages in the real story and this film brought those hidden messages, like Debbie not actually having Oliver killed for his life insurance to light. The basis for the movie was to tell this woman’s story, so more people would be aware. The producer doesn’t want people to be blindsided by the false realities of the media. The messaged are integrated with the plot, paralleling with Debbie’s adventure of living in jail. 

F.    Genre- This film is a documentary. It could be classified as a crime story as well. It’s a true story, but it is about a crime that a woman supposedly did. Practically the whole film was shot in and around the prison, so it’s definitely a crime story. What makes it even more enriching is that it’s true and so the documentary includes a crime story. People like to see things that are real, things that you don’t think could happen that really do. Debbie is a inspiration to many people and brings to light the aspects of the court and how unfair they can be. 

G.   Representation- The story represented the people in prison as not as bad as the rest of society makes them out to be. There could be other prison stories, where they want you to see how horrid the people are. That was not the case here. Oliver was not really outcasted for what he did. The main focus was on bringing freedom to Debbie. They wanted to show Debbie in the best light to let her free. The people in the courts who have higher status were represented as snobbish and not caring. Many times they would not even speak to the cameras and would not listen to the facts being told. Instead, they were only worried about representing themselves and fixing their hair. That last statement is actually true. They showed the district attorney (a guy) styling his hair before getting ready to get interviewed. The basis of the movie was the struggle between Debbie and the court system, and it was nonfictional, so there are facts backing her, but it definitely did highlight Debbie’s good deeds and the courts bad deeds. 

H.   Ideology- Cultural beliefs on believing the juridical system and believing battered women were challenged. We were shown the true colors of the people working against the inmates. No matter how hard Debbie’s attorneys tried they knew they would probably be denied because of how the system works. I’m sure this was not a surprise to many people, as we all know how messed up the court can be at times. Also, we were shown that just because you are in prison doesn’t mean that it’s your fault. There are chances for people to change and grow from their wrongdoings. One might have thought of Debbie as just another black woman that was getting beat by her boyfriend. At the end of the film I’m sure they thought differently. She didn’t just stay with him and not try to improve herself. She moved out and was trying to move on and that’s when she got wrongfully accused. The film was filled with examples of our beliefs as a culture on prison and what happens there. Debbie is just one example of how sometimes you are able to deny the odds and break beyond the barriers. 

   
    To learn more about the film see the link here. http://crimeaftercrime.com/
    To see some snippets of the film check out the video below. It's truly an amazing story!

  

Foot: Film Festival Review

       Unfortunately finding the Film Festival was not as easy as I would have liked it to be. First off, I do not own a gps, so I printed my directions off ahead of time, hoping that I picked the best route. To my dismay, it was not the easiest route and without the help of Colleen I probably would not have gone because the directions were just insane. They wanted to take me on side roads instead of the highway. It’s very hard to drive in traffic in Cleveland when it is snowing and try to look at the directions.

I wish the festival would have said that the films were showing in Tower City. I knew there were in Tower City Cinemas, but I thought it was in a separate building and if I had known that they were in there I would have at least known of the general area of where the festival was. Having to drive down towards the flats to park was crazy. There was a barrel in the middle of my lane because of how bad the pothole was. So you had to wait for no cars to be coming in the opposite direction, so you could pass the hole in their lane. I was expecting someone to jump out in front of me; needless to say it was sketchy.

I was not very impressed by the festival. It was just like going to the movies. I would have rather went to a movie theatre close by and not have to pay for gas than drive there just to watch a movie. If you were into movies and wanted to spend the whole day watching films, then I could understand going. The only perk of going, besides watching a touching film, was getting to see the producers at the end of the film. I wish they would have announced after the show that they were going to be standing by the doors on the way out because I didn’t even realize it was them until after we passed. Overall, the movie was great, but it was not really a new experience. It felt the same as going to the movies, only more expensive and stressful.

Foot: Pleasure Reading

The Purpose Driven Life

Over break I have been reading The Purpose Driven Life. It is a religious book that is basically a devotional book to be read everyday for forty days. It is supposed to help you find out how to live your best life based on what you were put here to do. The reason for this post is not to make you believe what I believe. I think this book is great. At times some of the questions and comments are quite heavy and hard to comprehend. It has many bible verses and if any of you have read the Bible you will know how confusing it can be. What I like about this book, is that is has many chapters and each are quite brief and recaps at the end of the chapters. I find it easier to read a book if the chapters are shorter. I'm the type of person that wants to start something and get it done, which is one reason I have a hard time with blogging. I want to post everything for the next blog post as soon as I get the rubric. Letting things linger drives me crazy! With shorter chapters I can stay focused on the certain part of the book better for those minimal pages than if it dragged on for 20 or more. 

      The second thing I like about it is that it gives recaps. This is like having a discussion in class after having a class read a few chapters. You don't talk about every detail about the book, but rather the important parts. At the end of this text, it has a point to ponder, a verse to remember and a question to consider. It makes me feel like I got what I needed out of reading and let's me ponder about what just went through my mind and what I should do with what I just read. I think this is something I could do everyday in my future classroom. I should leave students thinking about a topic, remembering something important and considering a question that deals with what we spent the class time doing. 

     I'm not far into the book, but so far I am really enjoying it. If any of you are interested in this type of reading, I recommend you go to the book's site to learn a little more about it. 

Foot: Firestone Assignment

            The assignment in class got me thinking about our tutoring experience and multiple modalities. At the time I could not come up with anything that would fit in that category. It did not help that I only met with my student three times and I even went the extra day. Things were a little confused, and so I got to work with two other girls as well. Now that I have had some time to think, I have came up with a few instances that multiple modality was brought into the tutoring experience.

            One of the girls that I tutored got her phone out during the session to call home and ask her folks if she could stay for the after school tutoring. I don’t know Firestone’s policy on cell phones, but I was kind have squirming in my seat because I was afraid that she would get in trouble. No one even saw her, so I didn’t have to worry about that. Another instance was when I was working with my student and for this blog post I will call her Sherry. One of the writing prompts asked about a time when the student had learned more outside of class than during the actual lesson. She related a time when her softball coach taught her about force. He told the athletes that the more force they put into throwing the ball against the wall, the harder it would bounce back. This instruction outside of the classroom made her understand about force more than her teacher instructing the lesson.

            The one-on-one part of the tutoring was very successful. I think one thing that the students needed was that one-on-one attention. It was not the most fun for them and many times my student just looked at me and I could read her eyes, saying she didn’t want to write anymore or just wanted a break. While I do think they learned a great deal, I think there are other ways that they could learn the same material.

            One problem that my student had was with identifying certain words. This is something that they will encounter in their daily lives forever. I think that looking at a magazine or a newspaper that interested them more would have made them more intrigued. When you are reading about something that you are interested in, you are more likely to figure out the missing part. Perhaps if I got a Sports Illustrated magazine and found passages with relatively hard words, then she would want to figure out the definitions. Her interest in sports could relate to a lot of other instructional approaches. Sherry really enjoyed writing and spent time outside of class doing it. What I think was hard for her was to come up with ideas about some of the topics. Some of them were quotes by famous inventors or philosophers and they did not seem to resonate well with Sherry. I believe that if she had the chance to write about her love of softball or how much participating in a sport teaches you, then she wouldn’t have a problem with writing the essay.

            Another problem that reoccurred was telling the tone of the author of a passage. Almost every time this question came up Sherry was debating between two answers. This is something that a book might not come right out and say. The student may need to analyze the text to come up with the author’s attitude toward it. A great way to implement tone in a lesson would be to use movies. Students are almost always jumping at the sound of seeing a movie. You could watch a movie in a classroom and have certain students focus on different characters and identify that characters attitude throughout the whole thing. Then students could share with the rest of the class what they came up with.

            Practicing for the Ohio Graduation Test is no way fun. It’s necessary, but most of the information is dry and leaves the students wanting to take a nap. I know of a good grammar website that allows you to take a quiz and then tell you if it’s correct and why or why not. We used this website in one of my classes and it was a lot easier for me to concentrate with it than listening to the professor speak the whole time. A final instructional approach I could use in my classroom that includes multiple modalities would be to allow students to pick among a list of television shows and have them watch that show for homework. Then the students would have to complete a list of general questions that you formed. This would teach the students that they can’t just watch the beginning of the show or the end and expect to be able to answer all of the questions. This is the same way with reading a selection. Students need to read the whole thing and often they might need to read it a second time. If you teach students that they can miss something the first time they watched it and let them know that you might have to watch the whole thing to be able to make inferences, they might be able to align that more with a book and the same processes that go along with it.

            As I said above, the OGT is no fun. There is clearly a link missing between teaching students and assessing them. I can honestly say that half of the things they ask on there you don’t use again. You can be a genius, but not a good test taker and thus what the OGT results says defines you being able to graduate. This is unheard of, yet it’s the way for American high schoolers. As we continue to try to get the people in power to see our side of these assessments, we will have to continue to try to prepare students for them. Teaching to the test is one of the lamest excuses I have heard. There were classes in high school where my teachers didn’t even bring up the topic of the OGT except only to say that we would be taking it in the future. Those teachers taught better without mentioning it than the ones that just try to cram it in your brain. I would think that the men in charge would realize that we continue to give and take these assessments, yet our country is still behind others. Is there not something wrong with that? Perhaps we need a new way to assess students!

            As you can probably tell, this is a very frustrating topic. It’s not that I don’t want to keep students accountable, but that the American way is not fair. I wish I could get it through to people that have not spent time in a classroom or taken these tests themselves that it’s not helping our country. Until that time comes, I would gladly use multi-modal literacies in my classroom to help prepare for the standardized tests. I would be willing to use any of the ideas I mentioned above that I could have used with my tutoring student in my own classroom. Newspapers, magazines, movies, and televisions shows, if used in the correct manner could be great tools instead of a test packet.

Foot: Online Articles- Part 2

Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom

            A very interesting article that I believe would have a lot of appeal to middle and high school student these days. It showed how you can incorporate many lessons in a game. I liked Salen’s comment on how segregated traditional classes are. She said, “You go to a math class, and that is the only place math is happening, and you are supposed to learn math just in that one space.” This gaming idea makes so much more sense, when students are able to learn math in more than just one setting of fifty minutes.

            Also gaming allows a lot of things that a traditional classroom deters. In a regular class students just want to learn the material and take the test and pass. In a gaming environment, the students don’t necessarily mind about failing at first. Ntiedo Etuk said, “Failure in an academic environment is depressing. Failure in a video game is pleasant. It’s completely aspirational.” Students want to become masters in the game world and aren’t as embarrassed because they are determined to capture perfection.

Publish or Perish

            Everyone wants an ipad! It was no surprise that Apple is knocking off many other businesses since coming out with the ipad. It has a lot more qualities than the older Kindle. It will, though, cut down on real bookstores. I think that is something that a lot of us are concerned about. We’re going to be English teachers, so a lot of us would rather have the actual book in our hand and because e-books are becoming so popular, about 40% of users using them, regular books may soon become extinct. This leads me to wonder about our jobs as future teachers. We are so worried about the latest technology advancements and being the first to try them out, but could we be buying into something that will leave us jobless in the future? Technology is good, but it can only go so far in my terms. I’m afraid that bombarding our students with games, blogs, Nings, Facebook, ipads, and simulation is only going to leave us on the outside looking in, in the future.

Foot: Waiting For Superman

     This weekend I watched the movie Waiting For Superman. It is about education reform and I would like to call it more a documentary than a movie. I was expecting for it to be like Freedom Writers, but it was not. Instead, it followed the lives of about four student's whom were trying to get into the best school's so they wouldn't end up as drop outs. I hope every single person watches this movie, so they can realize how unfair the education system is to students. It is not right that students have to wait in fear for their name to be called out of the lottery. There were schools that had over a thousand applications to get in, only to accept like 60 students. Some of the parents didn't even want to take their children to the lottery because they didn't want to see how they would react if they didn't get accepted.

     This movie actually made me want to cry. A mother was spending $500 a month for her daughter to go to a decent school, a boy moved away to a boarding school, so he could have a future and parents were willing to drive an hour away just for education for their child. There is something wrong with this picture and we need to fix it. But how can we fix it when no one is willing to listen to us? Students are suffering and the government is just too into themselves to look how others are affected. I encourage you all to watch it. It will be showing this weekend, March 11 and 12 at the Kiva!

Below is a clip from the movie.

Pytash: Jago Ch. 6

Lesson Design for Classical Literature

I felt like a student in Ms. Jago's classroom, trying to digest The Odyssey for the first time. I have never read this novel before and had to stop many times throughout chapter six to try to recollect what was happening. When Jago was talking about the lesson studies in Japan, she talked about them having a national curriculum. This is something that I wish the United States had because then I wouldn't have to feel like I was still in middle school trying to figure out what she is talking about throughout this whole chapter. On page 112 she talked about how she expected that student's had some experience with the Greek gods, but they don't always. I am her nightmare student. We talked about Greek gods my sophomore year, but never after that and truly I don't remember a thing I was taught. Lessons vary on the region and school district you go to. It's so frustrating to me because people talk about books like everyone in the whole world has read them and I haven't even heard of them. Perhaps if we had a national curriculum, then I wouldn't feel so much in the dark. 

Jago talked about the Writing Project and how "[her] writing group helped [her] see that with attention to detail [her] errors could be easily corrected" (99). This is something that could be incorporated in schools. Teachers expect different things out of students each year and when they don't have what he/she expects they go home thinking they're a failure. Why couldn't the school have the mentality that the Writing Project had and show the students that they can easily fix their mistakes and will be set to go? 

I took the lesson design for The Odyssey step by step. If we were going to study The Odyssey then I would have jotted down a lot more notes, but a lot of the things I wrote down was to remind myself the gender of a god or what happened previously, so I can apply it to the next paragraph. The character chart she suggested to students was a great idea. There are so many people to try to remember that it's best to write them down, so you can see who is who and how they are related to the other characters. Also, the map would help me personally because I'm a visual learner and I can't read something and understand it or try to keep it all in my brain. 

This story is an epic and I enjoyed the epithets and epic simile section because that is not something I had learned before. Allowing students to create their own versions of these will make them feel connected to the text. There is only so much you can do with the text itself, but I think it leaves a barrier between the child and the text. If the child can use what they learned in the text and apply it to something else, then that is true understanding. 

As always, I questioned her section on homework. She said, "Some teachers try to solve this problem by carving out class time for reading, but even one day a week or fifteen minutes a day will decrease the time you have for discussion and interaction by 20 percent" (Jago 130). Last semester we just learned the importance of silent reading and how it is rarely done in classes and students need to continually read to benefit from it. I think it's important to allow students a little bit of time in the classroom. If not, then they will think it's just read the book at home and then drill me in the classroom. What if the students are having trouble with a specific section, are you just going to say "we don't have time for that because we need to have a discussion?" I would hope not. Instead I would hope you would guide the student through the section and then offer them to read it over again and then have the discussion. Reading at home is essential, but not allowing time in class for the students is like saying silent reading is not as important as our discussions and I don't think Jago would agree with that because without reading you can have no discussion.

I believe the expert group assignment is what we will be doing with The Great Gatsby. Students can gain confidence through mastering just one chapter of a text. That chapter might be difficult and might place the student above their Zone of Minimal Effort, but with the help of their peers they should see that they are capable of what they previously thought was impossible. Combining multiple minds, offers many viewpoints and ideas to lead a discussion.

Pytash: Jago Ch. 4

How Stories Work

We probably learned about literary elements in grade school, but they continue to be just as important and at times deceiving today as they were back then. On page 61, Jago had a list of the mostly W words that lead to figuring out the literary elements. Who-> characters, Where and When -> setting, What, Why and How -> plot, So what-> author's purpose and theme. This would be a good chart to put up in the classroom, so students can always have reference to it when reading a book. Freytag's pyramid is another chart that could be posted in the room. It might help students identify the part of the book they are reading. Knowing where the section of the story is on Freytag's Pyramid could help them in determining the author's tone and purpose at some circumstances.

"Effort imprints the reading on students' minds" (Jago 67). Student's seem to remember stories that took them more effort than those that were a breeze. This could be like people remembering bad things more than they remember good things. It takes more effort to solve a hard or bad situation than an easy one, where practically no effort is needed. Helping students reach the steps to understand a more complicated novel would guide them to use those steps later in solving another complicated novel. Rather than just telling them what's happening, you will let them learn themselves, so they will be able to apply it in the future.