How Nonlinear is Too Nonlinear

Hello all,

So, I've been sitting here catching up on some reading in Dr. Kist's book, The Socially Networked Classroom, and took special interest in an activity outlined on pgs. 17-19. This activity discusses the way that sometimes readers tend to read a text in a "nonlinear" fashion; sometimes jumping around a text from the beginning to the end, then back to the beginning or the middle, etc. Anyway, the idea of doing this is to get students thinking about their own reading habits and the benefits of sometimes reading nonlinearly. The activity used to demonstrate this is having students arrange themselves in order of their birthdays without talking. Coincidently, I just did this task in another class this past friday.

The idea/question that I have about nonlinear reading is this: Can you have students read an entire book, assigning chapters in a random order? What I don't really know is if this activity would be counter-productive to the goal of doing the activity described in Dr. Kist's book. Here's another question I have to ponder... by assigning students chapters to read in an order that seems random to them, can you teach them anything about the pro's and con's of reading linearly and nonlinearly? I imagine that my idea for adapting this assignment may do more to create a disdain for nonlinearly reading since it probably wouldn't make sense to the students why it is that I was having them read this way for an entire novel.

Anywhoo, any of you out there in the blogosphere- feel free to let me know what your thoughts are on teaching an entire novel in a nonlinear fasion.

-Sam

One More Go-Round on the MultiGenre Autobiograpy

Hello again,

I just wanted to touch base on the MultiGenre Autobiography assignment one more time to talk about some things that I didn't mention in my last blog post. It occured to me to discuss briefly my thoughts on using this assignment with my future classes. This an assignment that I will most definitely like to use with my students of the future. It is a great way to get students involved and serves the purpose of getting students to know one another and start building community. I realized from what I saw of the other presentations that we are not all different from one another. Sure, we all have very different, and distinct choices in entertainment, but I also saw a lot of repetition in the movies, music, and TV shows that we liked to watch growing up. Perhaps students in a high school classroom doing this sort of assignment would find that they and their classmates share more commonalities than they thought, and this could be huge in fostering new friendships!

Now for the foreseeable (sp?) undoing of this assignment. I would imagine that this assignment may be difficult to facilitate for reasons such as: students not having steady access to computers/internet, helping students with technical difficulties, listening to students excuses of how they can't get it done because "XYZ" didn't save, and so on. Yet, I still think that this is an assignment that could be a ton of fun for students, and I see it as being a wonderful community builder exercise.

Until next time, stay classy San Diego!

-Sam

Reflections: An Analysis of My Multi-Genre Autobiography

Hello again to all of you,

Today's topic is all about ME!!! Muhahahaha!!! Well... kind of, anyway. I've just finished my multi-genre autobiography for Multi-Modal class. This assignment required us to compile a collection of medias that catalog our progression through "pop culture" and other societal factors that have shaped who we are today.

The most interesting thing that I found about this assignment was the amount of reflection that was needed on my part to complete the assignment. It is easy for us to forget all the things that we loved growing up, at least for me it was. Yet, this assignment made me dive deep into the memory banks to uncover things that I hadn't thought about in years, literally. For example, up until recently I had forgotten just how much I used to love the Power Rangers. Is that important to you? Probably not. But for me, Power Rangers used to be a pretty big deal!

So, hopefully tomorrow everyone will get a kick out of seeing just how much of a goof I used to be, and in ways- still am. Good luck to the rest of you as well. I know that this project turned out to be much more time consuming than I had orininally anticipated. So, if you read this today and haven't finished up yet (this is to my fellow procrastinators), Get Busy!!!

Was There Immigration Control in the Land of Oz...?

Hello all, I hope everyone's enjoying all the fresh snow we've gotten. So, I've been thinking about the activities we did this morning in Multi-Modal class. The activity where we grouped up according to the character type we identify with most... brilliant! I really enjoyed that activity and think that by getting students to relate to a character, possibly multiple characters, teachers should have much greater success getting students to enjoy what they are reading, and relating to the condition of the characters in the story. Also, it was kind of fun to see who related most to what characters from The Wizard of Oz. Yours truly is the Tin Man.

Secondly, the immiration selection simulation is a very in depth, higher-level task when you really get to thinking about it. This group task calls for thoughtful communication and many of the verbs that you only find on the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. This assignment requires a lot of Evaluation (prioritize, assess, discuss, debate, decide, select, rate, etc.). This assignment also got me reflecting alot upon myself. It definitely serves as a big eye opener in recognizing and addressing some of your own prejudices, and hidden biases when your asked to decide something as big as who deserves to gain entry into the U.S. This is a great thought provoking activity.

Well everyone, until next time, enjoy the snow!

-Sam

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Hello again everyone. Let me begin by admitting that last weeks blog entry: Little Brother, Oh Brother was indeed a little harsh. I can't say that I dislike the book, because that wouldn't be true to say. The only thing about this book that doesn't appeal to me is the idea that Marcus and his friends could possibly whind up in the situation that they did. I imagine that the DHS is just as terrible and ruthless as described in the text; I just don't believe that they are so dumb that they can be out-maneauvered by a couple of teenagers.

None-the-less, Doctorow has done a good job of swaying my opinion of his writing back into his favor with his writing on pgs. 235-238. I must admit that that was some pretty powerful writing. I especially like the reference made on pg. 235 to the right of the people to overthrow a tyrannical gov't. as outlined in the Constitution of the United States. There are many parallels that can be established between the state of oppression San Francisco is left in under the rule of the DHS and the actual reality of our country, post 9/11. We as a society live in a nation where our rights to freedom of speech and privacy are being invaded by the gov't. by such legislation as the Patriot Acts (2001). The main point that I guess I'm trying to segway into is this: in an effort to stop terrorism and keep it's people safe, the DHS has in fact become the terrorists, insighting just as much terror and fear as the terrorists responsible for the bridge bombing. The one thing that makes them even worse than typical terrorists is this: once they have a reason to take more control and rule through fear, the gov't. is never going to let that power go. They will forever continue to insight fear and doubt in the minds and hearts of it's citizens until ever last person has submitted to their will. That is, until someone such as Marcus and his group of rag-tag patriots, and real people in our society, stand out against the injustices being committed by the U.S. gov't.


What Doctorow is saying vicariously through Marcus about the reality of the DHS, and ultimately the federal gov't. in our country, on pg 237 is very accurate in my opinion. But that is just one man's opinion. Here's to you Doctorow! Good work.

-Sam

Little Brother... Oh Brother!

As I read Doctorow's, Little Brother, I can't help but be irritated by the amount of spelling and grammatical errors that I am finding throughout the text. I wish I had marked one example in particular when I first read it, but unfortunatley it has been lost to the pages of black ink from which I refuse to tediously scower in search of one ridiculous error. Regardless, if all of you out there in the blogosphere are willing to take my word for it I will tell you this: The word "talking" should not be misprinted as "taking" in more than one instance. It should not even happen once in a text in this day and age. None-the-less, this is not where my grievances with this book end. I have found thus far that while the idea of being wrapped up in an unfortunate event such as a terrorist attack is very plausible. And dealing with the ever-tightening kneuse of "Big Brother" slowly constricting it's ever-vigilent grip on society is a topic that has been around for a long time; including classic canon such as George Orwell's, 1984. In my opinion, this book takes the idea of one kid being singled out as the "rebel who must challenge the status quo" way too far. I understand that it probably appeals to readers to imagine themselves in the shoes of the main character, fighting the establishment and saving us all from Big Brother. Seriously though, come on!!!

I find it very unlikely that Jolu would ever get hired into Spleen-net at the age of twelve, or that the DHS would spend their time tracking a couple of kids with laptops. This makes the DHS look very naive and foolish in their methods, something that i highly doubt is the case.

But, whatever Doctorow... Call it how you see it. Just don't expect me to buy what your selling!

-Sam

Little Brother #1 (pg. 1-103)

I am very excited because next week there are a couple of potential block-busters hitting the big screen. The best part is that they release on my Birthday. I intend on seeing The Wolfman when it hits theatres. The trailers for this movie look very, very exciting. Also, I like the fact that the Wolfman in this movie somewhat resembles the original wolfman portrayed by Larry Talbot in the 1941 release of The Wolfman.

-Sam