Carrie Baas
TE 804
THINK Proposal
January 25, 2008
THINK Proposal
There were a number of different teaching aspects I wanted to focus on when I was first thinking about what to do for my THINK. However, I decided to focus on aspects of technology and how they can improve the teaching of two canonical texts: Macbeth and Lord of the Flies.
Recently, my two eleventh grade English classes made web pages to showcase personal narratives that they wrote and provide podcasts either discussing the project or sharing a bit about how the writing process went for them. While I was going to leave the web site and move onto the Macbeth and Lord of the Flies unit without using it, I realized that I could use it for the THINK Project. I would like to experiment with integrating this web site into both of these units, exploring cool ways we can use the site (and other forms of technology along with it) and showcase our work in class, hopefully sharing it with others (parents, friends, other teachers, the outside world, etc.). These groups would serve as an audience for this project, along with my future potential employers, as I would like to make the class web sites part of my teaching portfolio/list of accomplishments.
In this THINK project, I will hopefully be able to share how I taught both the Macbeth unit and the Lord of the Flies unit using technology; primarily our class web sites. I will show how the use of a web site can be carried throughout several units to provide cohesiveness and routine in a class. In addition to providing cohesiveness and routine in the Macbeth and Lord of the Flies units, the use of technology will do several other things for my students’ learning:
§ Create a real and relevant audience (parents, other teachers, the internet network, etc.) for the projects and writings we complete
§ Increase motivation because of this real and relevant audience who may be viewing their work
§ Recognize and utilize the natural skills of my students through using mediums they are familiar with (technology, or more specifically, podcasting, blogging, etc.)
§ Appeal to numerous learning styles (visual, auditory, etc.)
§ Increase participation and understanding of the texts through activities my students are familiar with (technology, computers, etc.)
o These texts, particularly Macbeth, are difficult texts for many students. By using accessible and familiar activities to facilitate learning, my students will better comprehend the text they are reading. For example, in order to examine character transformations in Macbeth, my students are creating daily “Character Blogs” from the perspective of their chosen character. Most students are familiar with online blogging and journaling and using this familiar medium to closely analyze character transformation is much more effective with my demographic and age of students then more traditional character analysis methods.
In the end, I would like for my final product to take the form of an English Journal article, where I will speak about what I did and how it worked for both my students and myself.
In order to execute this plan, I will have to plan both the Macbeth and the Lord of the Flies units meticulously, making sure we have built in time to work with our web sites. I will plan units that will challenge students to create texts that we can put on our web site for others to see. Hopefully I will be able to tell if I have done a good job by measuring the success of these units in class, the learning and enjoyment of my students, and my ability to share my experiences with others in the article I write.
THINK Update – February 8, 2008
After posting my original proposal, Mike asked how using technology to teach Macbeth and Lord of the Flies could increase student learning and improve the unit academically. He suggested that I focus on these aspects of the use of technology in the units, instead of only technology’s organizational benefits and “fun factor”. In doing so, I came up with the following ways the use of technology in these units will benefit my teaching and my students’ learning. These are added to the above proposal, but to reiterate, the integration of technology into two traditional and canonized units will:
§ Create a real and relevant audience (parents, other teachers, the internet network, etc.) for the projects and writings we complete
§ Increase motivation because of this real and relevant audience who may be viewing their work
§ Recognize and utilize the natural skills of my students through using mediums they are familiar with (technology, or more specifically, podcasting, blogging, etc.)
§ Appeal to numerous learning styles (visual, auditory, etc.)
§ Increase participation and understanding of the texts through activities my students are familiar with (technology, computers, etc.)
o These texts, particularly Macbeth, are difficult texts for many students. By using accessible and familiar activities to facilitate learning, my students will better comprehend the text they are reading. For example, in order to examine character transformations in Macbeth, my students are creating daily “Character Blogs” from the perspective of their chosen character. Most students are familiar with online blogging and journaling and using this familiar medium to closely analyze character transformation is much more effective with my demographic and age of students then more traditional character analysis methods.
I am actually teaching the Macbeth unit right now, so I have already started the Character Blogging with students. This is a project where students write blogs from the perspective of either Macbeth or Lady Macbeth throughout the course of the novel. Students will publish these blogs first on a Wiki and then on our class web page. The purpose of this assignment is to reap the above benefits and also to get students to see how the two main characters in Macbeth transform throughout the play.
While I am already doing some of the teaching I am completing my research on, I have several other steps I need to work toward and complete for my THINK:
§ Early February – Look at and analyze English Journal article PDFs from Mike and try to figure out what information English Journal looks for in articles they select for publication.
§ Look at EJ “call for articles” to get more information on submission dates/time frame
§ February – Talk to other teachers regarding their use of technology in the classroom (Does it work? What have they used it for?, etc.)
§ Late February – Talk to students about their experiences with technology
§ February/March – Teach my mentor (Tracey) how to integrate some of the technology I used during Trimester II into her Trimester III classes.
§ March – Analyze my use of technology in the Macbeth and Lord of the Flies units
o Analyze benefits to students and their learning
o Analyze benefits to my teaching
§ March – Conduct research on benefits/cons of using technology in the classroom
§ March – Conduct research on teens and technology
§ March – Conduct research on the importance of cohesiveness and relevance in teaching
§ March – Write EJ article, submit to Mike for editing, comments, etc.
§ March/April – Prepare for TE 804 presentation
o Handouts (Lesson plans, integration of technology, benefits and suggestions)
o Poster
o Show websites (?) – PowerPoint with internet access for presentation
Because of the major time crunch I am not experiencing, I may write conduct this research and write the EJ article based on the use of technology in Macbeth (which I am currently teaching) and the Personal Narrative project (which I just finished teaching). We will read Lord of the Flies at the end of the trimester and may not have a lot of time to include technology as I would like to. However, I feel that focusing on technology use in the Personal Narrative unit (web page and podcasts) and Macbeth unit (blogging) will make for a great article.