I haven’t played video games in years, but this past Christmas I received an old Sega Genesis and a few of my favorite childhood games.  Even before this module’s reading, I was thinking of picking up my controller and playing some of my old favs during our social distancing.   Now, I’m going to spend this rainy weekend recapturing my youth.  By the way, yes, at 36, my very limited video game knowledge revolves around Toe Jam and Earl, Earthworm Jim, and Zombies Ate My Neighbors.  I started to think about the judgement if I put up on this academic blog these silly gifs and images; however, when I looked at these three games next to each other, one commonality jumped out at me–humor.  All three of these games made me laugh.  They weren’t stress inducing or competitive at all.  I could just be goofy alongside these awkward characters.  I loved collecting ship pieces as an alien rapper, whipping enemies with my worm head,  and  throwing forks at zombies to rescue my neighbors.  I had fun, and more importantly, I laughed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After reading James Paul Gee’s article “Good Video Games and Good Learning,” I understand why I enjoyed these terrible 2D  games so much.  These SEGA games allowed me to take on a new identity; I didn’t have to be the serious student. They offered me interaction (these games predated even dial-up internet); I could communicate with the characters in a virtual way as I tried to make decisions in this alternate world. Most importantly, it showed me the power of storytelling, and I wonder in part if it prompts some of my creative writing tasks in my own classroom.

My brother was addicted to video games too, but he is younger than me so his video games had better graphics.  In the 90’s, my parents were so worried about the time we spent playing video games.  “Idiot” was the child slang of choice around that time thanks to Ren & Stimpy, and my parents capitalized on this cool phrase by warning us of becoming “vidiots.”  Well, the warning stuck.  I mean I still remember it vividly as I’m typing this response.  From a young age, I was warned about the dangers of video games and those adult comments stigmatized video games up until now.

During quarantine, my son and daughter have been able to play video games with friends and family.  Though I don’t usually partake, I do listen.  I hear my son who is typically reticent negotiating plans and advocating for himself.   These tasks don’t happen in the “traditional” classroom.  My daughter is role playing and creating short stories based on the premise of MarioKart.  I know most of my mommy friends are telling their kids to get off of the gaming system, but I’m seeing a ton of benefits especially now that I see what traditional learning offers them at the elementary school level first hand (my own teaching and their schooling is going on simultaneously at the makeshift computer lab set up in our dining room).  Unfortunately, I worry that–in a broad sense–video games have been perceived negatively; it would be such a challenge to get parents and administrators on board with incorporating video games in our curriculum (though I don’t see how an elective like that wouldn’t blow up…).

In our current situation, my classroom looks so different, and I’m actually beginning to be grateful for the opportunity to feel once again like a first year teacher.   I’m reassessing who I want to be to my students during quarantine all day long, and I want to capitalize on the very costly digital platforms (now free as a result of COVID19) that can help our students tremendously if we had adequate funding for technology.  My most recent task mimicked the points that Gee talks about in his article.  Today’s 30 minute writing lesson first sent students on a 360 degree tour of London (So many of my students were bummed about losing the spring break of their senior year, so I planned a virtual spring break complete with a tour of [and a viewing of Hamlet as well] the Globe Theater).  They had to reflect upon the rainy Saturday night and the crowds of people.  Afterwards, I asked them to write a poem/short scene about the experience.  Wow! The responses were great (see below). Each student was able to adopt a new perspective and customize his/her/their experience with the 360 to fit his/her/their liking.  Afterwards, the students produced their own pieces of writing.  Though virtual reality via Youtube is nowhere near as complex as what a videogame is, and though virtual reality doesn’t give a student all the Gee says a video game can give a student, the assignment still afforded them the opportunity to role play and produce.  Now, I will use Gee’s pillars to better plan my technology-based lessons.

 

SAMPLE RESPONSE: 

          “You’re celebrating? In this weather?” She shrugged her backpack onto her shoulder, tilted her head enough to shake the hair out of her eyesight. “Believe me congrats kid but,” then she jabbed a thumb to the direction of the street. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there.” 

          He shook his head like a mad man then regained his composure as if realizing where he was. “No time. Next deadline is soon.” He laughed under his breath at her expression. “I know you want to argue Jess but it isn’t as if I’m going for a picnic. A stiff drink at Al’s and the party’s over.” With that, he pushed to the glass door, smiling as millions of water droplets made their way onto his specs. 

       New York City in the rain was like any other city in the rain. Grey, angry and busy. But New York City in the rain at 9 pm at night was another thing entirely. 

       Mothers with strollers took their time, tour guides were louder and the tail lights of cars almost looked like stars if you squinted just enough. Puddles looked like small ecosystems, glinting light from the streetlamps scattered about each corner. Frankly, it was still grey, angry and busy. And no doubt was he was gonna toss these clothes immediately into a plastic bag when he got home. But who could resist the almost movie-like romance of NYC at night? He’s lived there for 15 years— the romance was practically dead by this point— but it was a night and a night off with a promotion. He was no tourist and he had no desire to become one but damn it all if even an old fogie like him couldn’t appreciate his home turf’s charms. 

 

This article inspired me to think about projects I could assign to address some of the skills the Gee identifies as not being addressed in the common classroom.  Beyond just assigning what a board game might look like based on a situation of a character, I’ve come up with two broad ideas:

1. Simplest idea with least amount of technology: Have students select a perspective in a text’s fictional world.  Then, have the students bring the perspective to life through creative writing exercises.
2. More technology required: Using WeVideo, I can ask the students to create a visual or auditory “live perspective” through the life of the a character.  If you’ve seen the Watched Walker, this is what I’ve have in mind for a visual perspective. 

Gee says that “customized curricula in school should not just be about self-pacing, but about real intersections between the curriculum and the learner’s interests, desires, and styles.”  To that end, I created a senior final project for my students this year about life in quarantine complete with many choices to access the learners’ interests, desires, and styles (podcast, vlog, literary composition, musical composition, parody, artistic piece, photoessay).  To keep the tasks somewhat consistent in terms of grading and expectation, each student will also be asked to submit a 750+ word response; this response asks the students to explain their creative choices as they worked on the project and each choice’s intended effect on the audience (asking them to think about the effectiveness of their choice in communicating a message).

Eventually my students will receive one-to-one technological devices (our district started rolling out one-to-one chromebooks to 6th graders), I will move the students from writing exclusively in their black and white composition notebooks to creating final pieces to include in a digital portfolio.  The opportunities that technology presents to reach different interests makes the shift an easy choice.  They can submit alternative creations inspired by their writing but not necessarily typed documents or slideshow presentations.

 

**CURRENTLY ACCEPTING ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR OTHER GREAT PIECES OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY!**

Coincidentally, I think I assigned a form of remediation to my classes on Monday.  College Board’s Springboard program for grade 12 requires visual literacy that students have–up until this year at least–not been accustomed to learning or using.  the program asks them to understand visual symbols and choices in space/layout to make an argument or develop a point of analysis.  To that end,  we analyze art and then we analyze literature with similar choices in symbol or structure.  On Monday, I asked students to analyze one of three selected Salvador Dali paintings.

For the sake of time, I’ll focus my discussion on one of Dali’s first paintings, the last one in the sequence entitled “Young Woman at a Window” (1925).  Now, in my class up until this point, we’ve studied the window as a symbol as a psychological symbol.  We’ve talked about how that symbol intrudes on most creative forms (windows in books, poems, movies, tv shows).  We’ve read Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and spent a full class period reading into the window scene of that story.  We’ve spoken about both voyeurism & the gaze as well while reading Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit. We’ve looked at how the window plays a role in our visual narratives as well.  I’ll let you take a look at some of the scenes we’ve examined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, back to my assignment, using what we’ve spoken about in class and using Dali’s artwork, I asked the students to write an ekphrastic poem.  Here is an ELL student’s poem (she’s only been in the country for about 6 years).

 

Looking out at the sea

The boats float by all day

With people on them

Enjoying the sun and the sea breeze

The waves are crashing 

And seaweed tumbling

Seeing the world pass by 

Was like days passing

To see you coming and going

I wait with silent passion

For one sign from you

To join the others

 

So, when I read about remediation, I thought, “Well, ekphrastic poetry has to be a form of remediation…right?”  My student takes one medium, understands the rules of that medium, and repurposes its form to make something new.  In both pieces, we understand isolation and alienation, and we see the voyeurism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, so there’s my anecdote to understand the theoretical.  I still have one question though: is remediation also when museums post interactive/zoom-able versions of the painting since that fulfills an unkept promise of the first medium?  Now the art is accessible to all?   Now we are also able to see all the minute details of a piece as we interact with it? By changing the form, the audience changes (more people have access to the painting) and the experience changes (we can view it in the privacy of our homes or in an academic setting for discussion).

Now as for hypermediacy, wouldn’t the second Dali painting from above (Modern Rhapsody) be a great visual example?  or Psycho? We watch the eye watching something else, and then as a result, we remind ourselves that we are guilty of the same thing?  So, this brings me to an analysis of one of my guilty pleasure tv shows, You.  In the show you watch him watching “her” (whoever the her is at that moment).  It’s the same premise as Psycho…through Joe’s obsessive tendencies, we see our own but we are reminded that we are only spectators though the camera moves from Joe’s perspective to a more objective perspective throughout the episodes.

via GIPHY

Even the title is an example of hypermediacy:

PERSON 1: Hey, what’ve you been watching lately?

PERSON 2: You.

I think I’m getting the idea, but I’d love validation on this.

 

 

 

Onto the remediation…A few years ago, I was obsessed (as obsessed as Joe from You) with a show called Penny Dreadful.  It was perfect miniseries for a horror/drama junkie and an avid reader like me.  I read Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray yearly with my AP Literature classes, and for me, a world where Dorian and the Creature coexist was heavenly. Though the characters had an original in the class Gothic novels of yore, the storyline was innovative.  Based on the idea of remediation, because these famous fictional characters’ storylines are repurposed, the novels are reanimated for a new audience.

 

These past two weeks have been a blur, and I now find myself homeschooling a first grader and a fourth grader while shifting to a new form of education making sure I don’t do anything that I don’t overstep the technological boundaries set forth by my district.  So, I had a vision for this assignment that I will still try to accomplish in the coming days.

To begin, in the first few weeks of my English 12 course, I have my students create a photo essay.  This photo essay is essentially a story of his/her/their life set to music.  I’m assuming based on the readings for this module that I was assigning a sort of digital narrative.  The pictures must weave together to create a story and the soundtrack must evoke a mood.  Based on Darren Chase’s elements of storytelling worksheet, the students must develop a point of view and make a realization about their lives.  There is almost always emotional content.  The sound establishes the emotional component.   There is a certain economy taken into account for the assignment too because I ask that minimal words are used and that only truly powerful images are used to streamline the storytelling (I would assume that I’d received 47 puppy pictures if I didn’t make that stipulation).  My goal in assigning this is to make a connection to help them brainstorm for the college essay they will write in only a few short weeks. I usually show my students these videos   to start. 

I think I love digital storytelling…like before this module or even this class.   I started creating videos using iMovie in 2017, and these videos have replaced the photo albums of yore.  Here was my first attempt at a digital narrative–it’s long and rambling, but my daughter’s spooky story (1:30 ish) is the best:

Using the suggestions from some of the selected reading this week, I will be uploading my digital narrative:  Turning 36 in Quarantine.  For an ENFJ like myself, quarantine is frustratingly challenging.

 

SIDENOTE:

Though unrelated to my post for this module, I was intrigued by the Unfiction video and automatically though of Netflix’s Bandersnatch.  The work of fiction worked to become a work of unfiction.  A quick reddit search will show the lengths the online community went to to prove the unfiction of Bandersnatch true.  PS The coding language was beyond me, but I did find that amount of dedication fascinating.

 

It’s undeniable that inequality persists in American storytelling.  Our new high school curriculum [one made by big business] attempts to explore this inequality.  There is even a unit on feminist criticism chock full of stories and films to explore (Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour,” My Fair Lady, Pygmalion).  I wanted something more modern, so I substituted the pre-scripted lessons for ones my own, ones that explored Oates, O’Connor, and Atwood.  We  looked  into modern issues that affect female empowerment and opted for more controversial topics.  I even had the students explore films using the Bechdel test.   For anyone who is not familiar, I’ll briefly outline it below.  Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist who grew to fame from her cartoon series, Dykes to Watch Out For.  One cartoon in particular explored feminist film theory and grew to create a three-question test to expose the slanted storytelling in American film.

 

Some people have used to this to put together real data, and the results are astounding.  Women have little voice in our filmmaking.  This point only further justifies work like Hidalgo’s.

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Female_and_male_characters_in_film.png

 

In researching talking points for this blog post, I stumbled upon this evaluation (below) for films and have since used it to create a new assignment for my seniors.  I also used it to prompt my discussion of the film.

 

 

I chose to analyze Pretty in Pink for three reasons–(1)  Andie Walsh is one of my favorite female characters in film, (2)  it passed the Bechdel test, and (3) it was available on Amazon Prime.

The opening sequence of moving images sexualize the teenage girl (Molly Ringwald).  we watch her put on her tights and zipper up her skirt flashing a little bit of her lacy pink underwear.  If the goal was to show her love of fashion and the color pink, many other options could exist (think opening sequence of Clueless with Alicia Silverstone) only to move to a shot of her in a submissive role; she functions as her father’s alarm clock and servant all at once as she pours him coffee, wakes him up, opens his blinds, and reminds him of the basic functions of an adult ( showering, job interviews).  The first two minutes and forty-five seconds of the film have locked our female protagonist into a doomed patriarchal role.

Even when we buy into a sincere moment between father and daughter at 3:45, watching him commend her for her creativity and drive in the fashion world, he quickly follows it up with a mocking comment about ruffling his white tank.  Underhanded from the get-go, John Hughes does not give his Andie Walsh anywhere to move in this patriarchal suburb. She becomes the victim of the male gaze in the opening sequence of images walking into the school where first Blane and then Duckie validate her existence through their eyes.  The viewer does not see Andie’s experience as he/she/they would be able to see it while watching a film  directed, produced, and edited by a woman like Camera Obscura.  

Shortly thereafter, the female characters in the classroom (peers and teacher) combine to create an awful commentary on women.  The teacher–talking about the male politicians in charge of running the country and the decisions they made–fails to connect the information to these female students in an inspiring way.  As she drones on, the blonde female students exchange snide comments and dirty looks, completely disengaged from the weighty information being discussed. 

The film does not suggest that women are powerless.  Take the TRAX manager, Iona. When Andie sees Blane, Iona yells at her male partner over the phone: “I cook for you, I do your laundry, I sleep with you, now you want a ride to work?” Sure, Andie’s father needs to see “the woman about the job,” Iona is the manager at TRAX, and the social studies teacher is a woman. Yet, the women in Pretty in Pink (regardless of the facade of power) still exist and struggle in a world dominated by men.

Andie’s mother–the one the father says “split”–most likely leaves as a result of the suburban patriarchal oppression, but through this male conversation between Duckie Dale and Jack Walsh, she is vilified by the chain-smoking, beer-drinking unemployed father.  Andie’s mother is not without fault, to abandon a child is a difficult act to forgive, but I mention this scene as a way of illustrating how confining the social expectations of Hughes’s Chicago suburb is: rather than help her daughter manage the struggles of growing up in suburbia, she leaves.

Even in Andie’s pseudo-happy-ending, we see evidence of Hughes’ chauvinism.  Andie gets a happy ending that will–on the surface–stop the bullying and lead to self-acceptance.  However, I venture to say that upon closer analysis, the ending potentially move her into a new wealth bracket since her father (the only other option for financial freedom) cannot do so.  This story in effect is no different than Cinderella really.  Andie is her father’s daughter until she is Blane’s girlfriend.  Her happiness and fulfillment is connected to Blane’s acceptance and validation of her.  This assignment helped me to see that the Bechdel test can provide false positives.  Not only are Hughes’ women confined in traditional, submissive roles by men (Jack [as father], Steff, and Blane), but his women also create pain and misery for the poorer men who pine over them (Duckie and Jack[as husband]).  Marx wouldn’t be too happy with this ending either.

In my version of the ending, Andie would make the dress to wear to prom, look at herself with self acceptance in the mirror, and then dance the night away with Iona: a true tale of female empowerment.

After I analyzed this film, I thought about other recent films I’ve watched: Us and Parasite.  Though these films show women in a more positive light, they are still bound by a financial system that does not allow them true freedom.  They do not accurately tell the story of the female experience the way Hidalgo suggests.  Moreover, the crew (thanks to IMDB) does not have adequate female representation to even suggest this misrepresentation.  I now feel more able to teach feminist film theory to my classes of seniors to show them the depth what needs to be down in American film to truly tell the story of the female experience.

Last year, after hearing the students buzz about the post-AP Lit test memes, I began incorporating memes into my Google Slides presentation to help bring laughter into relatively serious lessons.  The memes were posted on the SmartBoard as the students walked in, and inevitably, the students were talking about the daily meme before the bell rang.  I loved having class begin before the bell actually rang. By the end of the year, when my seniors were counting down their last few classes, I assigned them a brief task: to make 10 memes about our class and the literature we discussed. Here was one example.  I was shocked by the willingness to work on the assignment and–moreover–impressed by what they revealed about their takeaways from the class. So, this year after a full length text, I ask them to spend about 10 minutes to create a meme about the piece.  I then use those memes to discuss the meaning of the work as a whole.  This educational shift has brought me a lot of joy. Below are two students’ memes from a 10-minute meme activity I did with the class after reading Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit.

In such a short assignment, the students were able to show me their level of understanding.  I found that the payoff of this assignment was far greater than a question about characterization.

As I culled through through the sources this week, I  became particularly fascinated with the Google Trend’s Search Interest on the Know Your Meme website.   I’ve linked two memes that spurred me to consider the patterned interest in memes.  Why are some  short-lived in popularity ? Why do others recur in different conversations over the years?  Why would a Trump meme spike in popularity for just a single day?  Why would a meme about the improper order of toppings on burger emojis repeatedly pop up over a two year span?  Isn’t a post about a president’s feelings toward members of our military more important than a post about emojis? My exploration of the site began to spur in me this question: Do memes spread knowledge and inspire change or do they destroy potentially powerful conversations about real issues by limiting them to a laugh?

Enter the discussion of Violentacrez in this article.  Violentacrez, a single man with a sick online presence and an even sicker following, reminds us of the dark side of online anonymity.  Though I at first saw memes as a unifying force on social media (something for us to commiserate about or something that makes our emotional state universal), after reading this article I saw the potential risks of the meme.

Before this week, I had only thought of the meme as a form of humor, a unifying form of mindless laughter to joke about the nuances of everyday life–I had no idea that the meme was something so profoundly important to our cultural identity.

It has its own language (e.g.,  visual template, ‘image macro’ or ‘stock character macro’).  It has given us all a laugh provided discourse on racism and other divisive and destructive issues.  I had never seen the Successful Black Man memes, and as I researched them after reading Milner’s article, I was introduced to the dark side of the meme, the side that –as Milner said– reinforces oppressive ideologies and represses minority value in the discourse.  How could people be so okay with this form of hate speech?  Because they are just trolls?  Because they have online anonymity? I have of late seen many memes that highlights the ever expanding division in our nation’s politics and I worry about their effect on the upcoming election.  Look at this meme that Trump shared in December.   Memes like this one have the power to persuade–not only does the dark coloring makes the viewer feel an imminent threat, but the language itself is threatening. How can a viewer not feel threatened and then ultimately believe that this president could help them?  I can understand how someone who doesn’t read the news and make his/her/their own decisions could accept this as the truth.  Could memes be the digital form of propaganda? I guess my fear stems from the term Poe’s Law.  Online it is very difficult to understand a person’s tone.  Poe’s Law originated from a discussion about creationism on a forum.  Nathan Poe said: “Good thing you included the winky. Otherwise people might think you are serious.”  Poe’s seemingly flippant comment reveals much truth: it has become so difficult to decipher what is parodied and what is honest.  It feels like it’s become trendy to become so vocal about one’s prejudices.  Because memes are typically anonymously created (perk for the trolls out there) and can be so easily shared, I worry about the meme’s potential to worsen the American divide.

PS. The upvotes on Reddit (karma points for posters) discussion sounded like a premise straight out of BLACK MIRROR.  

via GIPHY