Unit 6

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. The author describes the differences between argumentative and persuasive essays/presentations, listing side-by-side comparisons of the features, tones, uses, and actions in each. The teacher/author ends the article talking about a Public Service Announcement (PSA) project that they have their students due, walking the reader through the introduction, process, and final aspects of the project. They include examples of what tools students used with their projects, as well as general rubrics and goals that the students are expected to follow. This is a very valuable article, not just because it talks about argumentative papers and presentation styles, but because it discerns between argumentative and persuasive, breaks down the differences side-by-side, and talks about their individual values for students and people in general. I could easily implement the exact same PSA lesson plan that was used with my own students, and can certainly base entire units off of a project like that which covers many different standards using a plethora of multimodal tools.

The second article of this unit is titled "Can we blog about this?": Amplifying Student Voice in Secondary Language Arts. This article, written by Christina Melly, talks about the value of blogs for students, of getting their voices heard and interacting with others in a way which they're already used to thanks to social media. She talks about how valuable blogging is for students within the classroom, how it improves their perceptions of themselves, increases peer feedback and interactions, and gives the students real opportunities to write for real people, not just to be graded by a teacher. The author then talks about how she breaks down her blogging assignments and lessons for her students, from pre-blogging planning structures to during blogging habit development, as well as after blogging portfolio creation. She wraps up this walkthrough by emphasizing heavily on the reflection aspect of blogging and this assignment in general, for both the students and herself. I really enjoyed this article and its provided lessons as well, especially the fact that the teacher worked alongside her students with her own blogs. There's something special about the teacher doing the same project as the students, not simply being the assignment instructor and grade provider. It goes to show how future teachers such as myself shouldn't distance ourselves too far from the students, but to remember to stay actively involved with the projects and to work alongside the students, not just by leading them or directing them.

The last article of this unit, titled "Convince Me!" Valuing Multimodal Literacies and Composing Public Service Announcements, is similar in impact to first article that we covered in this unit. It has a heavy emphasis on utilizing PSA's in the classroom to help students learn how to appeal to different rhetorical content, target specific audiences, and gets the student committed and engaged in their lesson and the topic that they choose to use. The article also addresses the value of utilizing multiple modes of composition in the classroom and how it benefits both students and educators. Just like the previous articles, this one also provides an in-class application lesson for teachers to use, including a general prompt for students, and also gives tips and tricks for teachers who are new to using multimodal composition, such as starting small, going low-tech, working collaboratively, and inviting experts to help with lesson planning and instruction. This article further educated me on the values of utilizing multiple multimodal technologies within the classroom, and providing even more examples of lessons and activities that I can do with my students. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am downloading all of the articles from this semester to use when planning my own units out. I could easily create an entire year's worth of lessons by adapting these to my own standards and intentions for my classes.