I teach 9th and 10th grade Language Arts at PACT Charter School in Ramsey Minnesota. The town is located 30 miles from Minneapolis, yet many of the students who attend the school come from various towns surrounding the school. PACT’s mission statement is as follows:
Partnering together as parents, students, and teachers:
1. To Prepare students for college and life-long learning through a combination of rigorous core academics and innovative teaching methods.
2. To Promote strong moral values thereby developing considerate, responsible citizens who contribute to society.
3. To Pursue a community atmosphere of mutual respect that will cultivate a positive outlook on school, family, and life.
PACT, a k-12 school, is in its fourteenth year. There are a number of students at PACT who were at one time home schooled. There are a handful of students whose parents are employed at the school, creating a very homey and familial atmosphere. Also PACT requires parents and families to volunteer a set amount of hours each school year. Most parent volunteers serve as classroom helpers in the elementary side of the building. Another arena for parents to participate in the education of their children is to participate on a school committee. The school has 15 active committees of which I have listed below. (There are several which meet together such as Elementary Steering and Secondary Steering.)
• PACT School Board
• Building Committee
• Budget & Finance Committee
• Elementary Curriculum Committee
• Elementary Steering Committee
• Enrollment Committee
• Extracurricular Committee
• Fundraising Committee
• Joint Elementary and Secondary Steering Committees
• Long Range Planning Committee
• Personnel Committee
• Sec. Curriculum Committee
• Sec. Steering Committee
• Special Ed. Advisory Committee
• School Improvement Team
• Student Council
• Transportation Committee
• Tehcnology Committee
Teachers are required by contract to attend two of the committees; each meets monthly.
While the school is public and practices open enrollment, there is a strong importance placed on upholding moral values (as stated in the mission statement). There is no affiliation with any sect of the Christian church, yet it’s easy to sense a “Christian agenda� upon conversing with certain committee members/administrators/teachers. Also there are many students at the school who are open about their Christian faith. There is little, if no, diversity in religion.
The demographics of the school: The majority of my students are Caucasian, middle class, suburban students. There are several families who have emigrated from the Ukraine and Russia. While these students speak fluent English, most use their native language at home. Economically speaking, there is a mix between blue-collar and white-collar families sending their children to PACT.
PACT Charter School’s Presumed Attitude Towards the Value of Media Studies
Currently at PACT there is an elective for keyboarding. This is not a required course, yet it is the only course that remotely falls into the category of Media Studies. I participate on the Secondary Curriculum Committee and as a member I know that there is a desire to make keyboarding a required course and to also implement it from the elementary up into the secondary grades. I agree completely, yet keyboarding alone will not give PACT students the information they need to take in, interact with, and produce media.
PACT Charter School employs two media specialists who specialize in the maintenance and updating of the schools technology. These two employees are very knowledgeable and would be excited to integrate more technology into our school setting.
The idea of media studies as its own individualized class is almost out of the question at PACT. The electives for the next 5 years have been established and approved at the December Secondary Curriculum Committee meeting. Changing these electives would throw off scheduling for multiple classes, including Art, music, band, choir, Spanish and keyboarding. Logically then, media studies would have to be incorporated into the core classes.
Due to PACT’s unique curriculum approval policy (curriculum is reviewed and then voted upon by the committee) it may be difficult to have materials approved for a course such as media studies. Not because of explicit or questionable content, or because of the fears of irrelevance, but due to the constant updating and changing information in the media studies field. I would be completely willing to work around that and push for media studies regardless.
Below is a portion of the school approved 9-10 Language Arts syllabus:
Course Description:
Language Arts 9/10 is a broad-based class designed to help students become dynamic communicators, creative thinkers, and avid readers. Students will continue to develop their grammatical skills and will put those skills to work in composition assignments. Literature that inspires, entertains, and teaches valuable life lessons will be introduced with the hope that students will learn to love literature and reading in general.
There are three basic components to the language arts program:
1. Grammar and Writing -- Understanding the terminology of grammar and the basic sentence structure is crucial to good writing. Grammar is the mathematics of words. Understanding how each word functions within a sentence allows the writer to know whether the word is in the right place and if it conveys the appropriate thought. Students will gain a working knowledge of grammatical terminology, basic sentence structures, and correct punctuation. The grammar and writing portion of this course will be interspersed within the other units in the class.
2. Whole class reading -- Certain literature is foundational to our understanding of our country and our world. In order to give students a common literature background, we will cover certain texts as an entire class.
3. Choice reading – In order to allow students more choice in their reading, there will be 4 opportunities for choice reading this year. Different projects, papers, and oral presentations will be used to assess choice book readings. Students will be expected to read outside of class. While there will be opportunities for in class reading on specific days, students are responsible for making sure reading assignments are completed on the day they are due. Students should ALWAYS bring their choice books to class.
The Language Arts curriculum is focuses mainly around reading classic literature. My reading material for the year consists of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Crucible, and Romeo and Juliet. The students also read 4-6 “choice books� per year (these must be approved as well).
** It is also important to know that the school has and A and B year schedule. This year is a b year. Next year I will have my current 9th graders as 10th graders. Because I teach each student 2 years in a room, then next year I will be on an A schedule and teach the A year curriculum (books include The Pearl, Our Town, and Henry V).
Rationale for Media Studies at PACT Charter School
PACT Charter School’s mission states that as a school we will “Prepare students for college and life-long learning through a combination of rigorous core academics and innovative teaching methods�. Today’s world is full of media. Parents, teachers and children are each consuming types of media that were non-existent just a few years ago. Technology is continuing to expand into new aspects of our daily lives. Today’s students are digital natives, having grown up in a world that runs primarily on multiple forms of mass communication. PACT Charter School should be aware that, as Richard Beach states, “the curriculum framework itself needs to be transformed in ways that recognize the centrality of media/digital illiteracies in student lives�. (Beach 8). By making changes to certain aspects of the Language Arts curriculum at PACT, we can better prepare our students.
There has already been concern expressed by all parties that many of the students in our school are unable to critically analyze. This has come up at several of the past curriculum committees. What I’m proposing today is a relevant and realistic way for us to help our students analyze the information that they receive. We’ve always said that it is important for our students to think for themselves. Let’s use media studies to give them that opportunity.
By including aspects of media studies within the Language Arts Curriculum students will:
-Think critically about the vast amount of information available on a daily basis
-Produce and understand texts
-Bridge technology use at home to classroom use
-Analyze social and cultural constructions
-Create an understanding of their individual cultural identities
Current Curriculum (9-10 grade level)
Course Outline
Week 1: Introduction
• Development of goal statements
Weeks 2-9: Speech Unit
• Interviews and Introduction Speeches
• Demonstration speech
• Informative speech
• Storytelling
Weeks 10-15: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Weeks 16-18: Short Story Unit
Weeks 19-22: Research Unit
Weeks 23: Symposium
Weeks 24-29: The Crucible
Weeks 30-34: Romeo and Juliet
Weeks 35-36: Poetry Unit
Weeks 37: Wrap up
Proposed Curriculum (9-10 grade level) I think it best to start off small. By reworking specific units so that students are introduced to the idea of media studies, we can allow our teachers time to become more knowledgeable and more confident with the idea of media studies.
My proposed curriculum then focuses on the Romeo and Juliet Unit (p.s. I’ll be teaching this at the end of March and early April of this year)
Because many of the students are already familiar with the story line of Romeo and Juliet, this seems like an ideal place to start.
For this unit students would start by learning different film techniques. They view clips of the same scene from several different film versions of the play. They would be able to identify the film techniques and decide if the scenes from the different movies worked the same, or in different ways. We would talk about which scenes were more effective at portraying the main ideas of the play.
We would move from main idea/plot into theme. How the world around us can shape how we act and how we feel about others. Examples: Romeo and Juliet influenced by family disputes. We could then talk about what influences in our world shape our views…oooo and move into a discussion about the bias of the media. This could then potentially move into several different writing assignments.
Options:
1. Critically analyze a type of media that has influence on your life
2. Looking at sources for research paper. How do we know if a source is credible?
3. a Critical analysis of the play itself…….