Multimodal Teaching Unit
Background
This assignment is for a GSW 1120
composition course. Students come into
first-year writing courses with a variety of backgrounds and personal
experiences that make up their literacy narrative and, because of this,
students don’t all learn the same way. I
think learning about students’ unique experiences can be extremely beneficial
to knowing how to teach them, help them learn and revise, and conference with
them one-on-one. A person’s literacy
narrative can be influenced by many factors including geographic location,
ethnic background, culture, religion, career and academic experiences, and
more. It is important to consider each
of these things when constructing a literacy narrative of one’s life so as to
get a bigger picture of how a student has come to learn and develop their
skills as a reader/writer. Having each
student develop a literacy narrative in GSW 1120 will not only help their first-year
writing instructors know how to better teach them, but it will help them to
have a better understanding of their identity as an academic. This literacy narrative could also be used in
other courses or in tutoring situations where the instructor’s/tutor’s
understanding of a student’s background could lead to a more productive
teaching session.
For the purposes of this
assignment, a literacy narrative is an exploration of how a person comes to
read and write.
Overview
The development of the literacy
narrative project will take place over the course of three weeks (with student
presentations taking place in the fourth week).
Each week, you will be asked to focus on one of the following aspects of
your literacy development:
Week
#1 – Geography
How has where you live/lived
contributed to your literacy development?
Week
#2 – Culture/ethnicity
How have your literacy experiences
been effected by your culture and/or ethnicity?
Week
#3 – Other factors (religion, job experiences, schooling, etc.)
Think about other important factors
in your life. Has your religious
background had an impact on your literacy?
What about your job experiences?
What was your academic environment like growing up (public school,
private school, homeschool, etc.)? How
did your schooling experiences impact your development of literacy? What other unique factors of your
life/upbringing contributed to your literacy?
Week
#4 – Presentations (see below)
Assignment
You will be focusing on these factors each week and will be using them to create individual installments that will then make up your complete literacy narrative project at the end of the three weeks.
For Week #1, you will find an image
of a map. You can scan an actual map or
find an image through a Google search.
Next, you will use an app or program on your computer or phone to mark
the places you’ve lived or traveled to that have had an impact on your
literacy. The map will be accompanied by
a brief alphabetic description of the places you marked and why they are
important to you.
For Week #2, you will be creating
an alphabetic script (around 500 words) about your family’s cultural/ethnic
background and how it has contributed to your individual literacy
development. You will then use the
script to create an audio or video recording of you sharing your
experiences.
For Week #3, you will choose your
own modality to discuss the other factors that have contributed to your
literacy. If you chose to do an audio
for Week #2, you can do a video for Week #3 and vice versa. You could also choose to use a social media
site like Instagram or Twitter or create a blog post; the choice is yours.
For Week #4, you will give a 7-10 minute
presentation (accompanied by a visual aid like a PowerPoint or Prezi and excerpts
from your literacy narrative project) about what you learned throughout the
process of discussing your literacy development. These presentations will take place throughout
the week and you will be assigned a presentation day (either Monday, Wednesday,
or Friday) by me.
You will be given some class time
each week to complete these elements, but the majority of your work will take
place outside of class. We will also
have time each week for small groups where you will share (if you are
comfortable) aspects of your literacy narrative and your experiences with the
modality for that week. When all
elements are complete, students will email me their documents/links for
review. This assignment will count for
points, but it will not be “graded.” The
purpose of this project is not to be assessed, but rather to help you and your
instructor better understand how you learn based on your background and past
experiences.
Unit Schedule
Date
|
Activity
|
Monday
|
Discussion: What is
a literacy narrative?
Group work: Students
will discuss how they learned to read and write and what has contributed to
their “literacy journey.”
|
Wednesday
|
Discussion: How
does geographic location impact literacy development?
Group work: Students
will discuss how they think where they were born (or where their parents were
born/grew up), where they grew up, and where they live now impacted their
literacy.
|
Friday
|
Discussion: Working
on the “map” aspect of literacy narrative project.
In-class work:
Students will find a map or plan to scan one into their computer and
start thinking about how the places they have lived have impacted their
literacy development.
|
Monday
|
Discussion: How
does culture/ethnicity affect literacy development?
Group work:
Students will share (as much as they feel comfortable) the ways they
feel their cultural and ethnic background has affected their literacy
journey.
|
Wednesday
|
In-class activity:
The instructor will share several multimodal literacy narrative
samples as examples for students to consider/follow as they are constructing
their own multimodal literacy narrative projects.
|
Friday
|
Discussion:
Preparing the script for the cultural background aspect of the project
and how to use various audio/video programs.
In-class work:
Students will work on developing their script and start thinking about
which program they’d like to use to do their audio/video recording.
|
Monday
|
Discussion: What
other factors contribute to one’s literacy development? Think about religion, gender, race, social
class, academic and work experiences, etc.
Group work: Students
will share (as much as they feel comfortable) the ways they feel these other
factors have affected their literacy journey.
|
Wednesday
|
Discussion: Discuss
the various options for completing the third component of the literacy
narrative project.
In-class work:
Students will experiment with audio, video, social media, etc. and
decide which option they would like to pursue.
|
Friday
|
Discussion:
Preparing the third component of the literacy narrative project and
considering the many life experiences that can contribute to one’s literacy
development.
In-class activity:
Students will work on developing their third component of the literacy
narrative project.
|
Monday
|
All students will give a 7-10 minutes presentation
(accompanied by a visual aid like a PowerPoint or Prezi and excerpts from
their literacy narrative project) about what they learned throughout the
process of discussing their literacy development.
In-class activity:
Student presentations
|
Wednesday
|
In-class activity: Student
presentations
|
Friday
|
In-class activity: Student
presentations
|
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