Rationale for teaching film, television, or media studies at South High School
Amid pressure from the state legislature to improve scores in reading and writing, the Minneapolis Public Schools district has revised its language arts curriculum by replacing current best practices with more traditional pedagogical methods. This decision flies in the face of research suggesting that inclusion of varied media studies within the context of such a curriculum improves student learning by creating meaningful, interactive, and authentic learning experiences. While the school board remains skeptical of the benefits of media studies, we contend that it would be foolish to argue against the use of varied media studies in a language arts curriculum.
Currently, the language arts curriculum, in addition to the greater culture, of South High School is greatly supported by varied studies in media. The school’s Curriculum Guide claims that the vision of South High School is to “ensure that all students learn. [South High School] support their growth into knowledgeable, skilled, and confident citizens capable of succeeding personally and professionally, in the 21st century." Student exposure to various media can create meaningful spatial associations with the material being learned – students are more likely to have enduring understandings if the activity of learning is authentic and novel. Also, succeeding personally and professionally in the 21st century will be a challenge for any young person who cannot “read" and interpret a wide variety of media resources.
Without question, a strong language arts curriculum centers around critical analysis of cultural artifacts (traditionally, within the realm of print media – poetry, short stories, novels, plays, speeches, essays, etc.). The inclusion of audio-visual materials provides richness with any study of these media, and foster improved enduring understandings. The inclusion of film studies in an English curriculum is not surprising, as films relay narratives in intriguing, meaningful ways that can be “read," and critically assessed. The course “Black American Voices" includes a study of various musics created by African Americans. Within journalism studies, it’s clear that this field of expression is no longer limited to print, film, or tv media; in fact, most popular journalism renders itself irrelevant without offering online accessibility to their ideas. Neglecting to study online journalism sources in this course would do a disservice to these students. Also, according to the Curriculum Guide, the “Mass Media" course “[explores] factors influencing the creation and distribution of media messages, and [considers] the effects of media content on audiences and social institutions." As students are bombarded with messages from a variety of media, encouraging them to accept ideas at face value, educators are forced to counter these messages by teaching critical thinking skills that can help them sort the wheat from the chaff.
As suggested earlier, the culture of South High School is strengthened by a greater inclusion of various media within the curriculum. Within South High’s Media Center, students have access to computers (with Microsoft Office programs), books, magazines, as well as the Media Center Catalog, and several on-line resources. By exercising multimedia awareness, students can enrich their studies, respond to a variety of perspectives presented in various media, as well as developing unique presentations of their work. Through study of images and narratives in popular culture media in the Liberal Arts Small Learning Community, students can make connections among ideas present in ancient and contemporary cultures. Similarly, within the Open School Small Learning Community, students can utilize various media that is authentic to their experience, and that inform their interest in given current events and critical issues. Furthermore, within the Community Education program offered by Minneapolis Public Schools, South High School offers cultural studies courses whose purpose is to “discover other people’s experiences, customs, and religious viewpoints"; without question our culture values the ways ideas, customs, and narratives are shared, in addition to the fact that these ideas enrich and inform our experiences.
Personal Note on CI 5472:
Hopefully, this course will show me a variety of ways to incorporate new media studies into the language arts curriculum I plan to teach, without sacrificing the academic integrity that I strive for in my teaching.