ENGL 235 Blog Posts

 For this unit, we covered several articles on getting students interested in reading, including using video book trailers to entice potential readers.  The first article is called "The Digital Age Booktalker: Student-Created Digital Book Trailers." This article talks about the value of book trailers, and not just to those who watch them. When students create their own book trailers, they are able to turn the book and its impacts on them into their own presentation, emphasizing on the parts, plots, and characters that stood out to them and impacted them the most, allowing a form of reflection upon finishing a novel. The author talks about using the free website Animoto to create slideshow videos with music that students can use for a plethora of activities, especially beneficial for book trailers. The author walks the reader through a lesson plan using Animoto in the classroom, including the necessary preparation and steps to make sure it has the intended impact on the studen...

 This was a short unit, covering 3 readings addressing podcasts and other audio-based assignments and their benefits. The first article is by Deirdre Faughey, titled "Can We Do This?": Cocreating Curriculum with a Twenty-First-Century Mindset. This article talked about opening up classrooms to the 21st century, in embracing technology and gadgets, and having students do projects and assignments using this technology. The teacher/author talks about their fear of having the students do a final paper on Romeo and Juliet, which they had just read, because she thought that the students would be half-hearted about it. She instead chose to introduce the students to podcasts, and expose them to the value of audio recordings to organize and present information for an audience. She shared examples of podcasts with students, talked about music groups and other relevant topics that would engage the students and help them see the value in podcasts. She then provided the students with plan...

Unit 6 covered a lot about students and their voices, being able to convey what they mean to on a platform that provides feedback and reception, as well as knowing how to properly pass the specific messages in the manner that will guarantee the best reception and feedback that they are looking for. In the first article of this unit, title Looking for Evidence, the author speaks about the value and importance of students learning how to differentiate between fact and opinion, and how valuable of a skill this is for students. As well, the author talks about the importance for students to be able to tell the difference between persuasion and argument, and to be able to create their own persuasions and arguments, both written and orally. They describe the 3 elements of argument, that being the claim, evidence, and reasons behind it, as well as the author or speaker value of knowing alternative or opposing claims, understanding opposing views to their argument and the source of these views....