Literature Review
EDUC 450 – Inquiry Seminar I
This was one of the projects that I completed during the first of three courses I took at UBC in the area of teacher inquiry.
According to UBC Website, there are three learning outcomes that are intended to be engendered in Inquiry Seminar I:
My professor for this course described the final project for this course as something that would look like the beginnings of a Masters Thesis. We were expected to identify a question or problem that we would like to explore, address the importance of what we are researching, and engage in a review of some of the literature that addresses our area of inquiry.
This is what I submitted as my final project for this course.
Question/Problem:
How can incorporating other art forms support the way students learn in an English Language Arts Classroom?
Context, Significance, and Literature Review:
The literature I have come across seems to support the idea that inter-arts learning can enhance student engagement and student understanding in the English Language Arts. In fact, many of the authors I have looked at view it as a necessity in modern classrooms because students live in a world where they will be expected to be able to engage with multiple texts (not just printed media).
In their article, “Intermediality: Bridge to Critical Media Literacy,” Pailliotet, Semali, Rodenberg, Giles, and Macaul argue that intermediality “is foremost critical media literacy” and that “the contemporary environment in which we and our students live involves many literacies; the average child spends 5.5 hours daily engaged with varied print and electronic media...Leading educators...have recognized the need to address these new, changing literacies through critical media practices...At the dawn of the new millennium, intermedial teaching emerges as a response to critical media literacy, serving as a bridge between existing and future practices (Pailliotet, Semali, Rodenberg, Giles, and Macaul, 208-209). This text was published in 2000 and the data they are using was produced in 1999. Thirteen years later, we are still having this conversation; in public schools we are still primarily assessing student engagement and comprehension of printed text when the printed text only represents a fraction of the spectrum of media that our students engage with and use to make sense of their world.
Albers and Harste argue in their article, “The Arts, New Literacies, and Multimodality,” that “in light of this changing world of texts and the diverse student populations, there is a need to redefine literacy. We must ask ourselves, what are the everyday literacies that learners bring into the classroom? How can I value and integrate these literacies into my own practice? By keeping these questions in mind, we create space in the English language arts classroom to not only redefine literacy but also make it more relevant to more students than ever before. The result may contribute to a more critically literate citizenship and a more just and equitable world” (Albers and Harste, 8).
Many of the sources I have looked at argue that integrating other arts (I focused music and visual art) can enhance a student's understanding of the texts they are studying.
In terms of visual art, Albers argues that “as we learn more about other forms of literacy and, specifically, the visual arts, we equip students with an awareness of yet another symbol system. Cultivation of this awareness is essential if we are to break through elitist and singular interpretations of where meaning lies, what meaning is, and who can be named as meaning makers. Exploration in the visual arts offers us a way to better understand culturally inscribed meanings, a capacity to critique these meanings, and an appreciation of our day-to-day encounters with art” (Albers, 348).
In 2003, Tim Duggan did his doctoral thesis on the use of music in the high school English/Language Arts classrooms in South Dakota. His findings concluded that “when music is incorporated into instructional strategies, teachers indicate a high level of satisfaction with the results...The most successful use of music in the high school English/language arts classrooms in South Dakota is to enhance students’ comprehension of literature...[and] the second most successful use of music in the high school English/language arts classroom in South Dakota is to inspire students to write” (Duggan, 111-113). In the conclusion to his thesis, he proposes the following concept:
"Try to go though a day without hearing music. It is nearly impossible to avoid music, and particularly music that, through the marriage of sound and language and images, attempts to convey a message. Television has a continual soundtrack for mood and theme, introduction of characters and scenes, and most ubiquitously, selling of products. Can a person be defined as literate in modern society if he or she cannot identify how music creates and reinforces messages? Radios blare, buildings have their own soundtracks, and subcultures of American society have their musical icons, who influence children in ways that make many adults uncomfortable. What is certain is that those adults have their own musical icons who were influential in their youths" (Duggan, 117).
Methodology:
I will be focusing my research in the following areas:
1. "New Literacy/Media Literacy/Multiliteracies."
The term “new literacy” has come up frequently in my research and I find it being used in conversation with (and interchangeably) with “digital literacy” (which has more to do with the use of technology in the classroom), “media literacy,” and “multiliteracies” (which is more inclusive of referring to the arts as a type of literacy that can be taught and applied in an English Language Arts classroom). This conversation also includes the idea of “transmediation” which generally refers to using one media to enhance the understanding of art (ie. drawing a picture and then using that picture as a point of reference for an essay). This part of my research will mostly involve unpacking these terminologies and examining them in conversation with each other and see where they support the idea of an inter-arts classroom.
2. Music and Literature.
This part of my research will primarily focus on the use of music to enhance learning in the English Language Arts classroom.
3. Visual Art/Film and Literature.
This part of my research will focus on the use of visual art/film to enhance learning in the English Language Arts classroom.
Annotated Bibliography
In this article, Albers and Harste discuss how literacy is being redefined in the twenty-first century and the artistic approaches teachers can take to integrate those new literacies into the classroom so it better reflects the way students learn by engaging with various media.
In this article, Albers explores how an artistically-enriched learning environment not only enhances the experiences of students in the English Language Arts classroom but is also necessary for students to develop their artistic intelligences so they can further appreciate and understand the other artistic layers in the literature that they are studying.
This was Connel-Ross's thesis for her Master of Arts in Teaching. In her thesis, Connel-Ross addresses how ekphrasis can be utilized to engage students in creative writing. She provides the rational behind this approach as well as a number of lesson plans that introduces these concepts to the students. While this is primarily directed towards middle-school students, I feel that these lessons and concepts can be adapted to suit a secondary English classroom.
This text addresses the idea that the future of English Language Arts as a discipline relies on teaching practices that reflect the changing literary landscape where our students find themselves. Although this text primarily focuses on technical and digital literacies, there are a few chapters that address the concept of "multiliteracies" and teaching our students to engage with meaningful content in a variety of ways.
This is a very useful text that discusses how reading and writing skills can be integrated throughout the curriculum and the benefits of a cross-curricular approach to English Language Arts education.
In his doctoral dissertation, Duggan explores the ways English teachers in South Dakota utilize music in their classrooms. He discusses the extent in which English teachers use music in their classrooms and the successes that arise from it. His findings show that those teachers who used music in their classroom found the most success when they used it to enhance students' understanding of literature and when they used it to inspire their students to write.
In this article, Elridge describes how the Hunter College faculty, Lincoln Center Institute personnel, and the teachers and administrators from East Harlem Community School District Four explored the development of the literacy skills of inter-city students through the use of the arts.
This text illustrates the experiences in three urban high school classrooms where teachers integrated hip-hop music and spoken word poetry into their English Language Arts classrooms and the successes that these teachers had in having their students critically explore the controversial themes associated with that genre.
This is a piece of writing that was produced at the 2012 International Conference on New Horizons in Education. It discusses the positive findings in using music, film and culture in a college English/Literature class. They observe that "[the students] seem to be eager to analyze the culture--as well as the linguistic--aspects involved, which makes their learning (and our teaching experience) more rewarding. Therefore, we believe that the challenge of using different media in the classroom is essential: the classes become livelier and the students do participate enthusiastically" (1259). Although this approach is directed towards a college class, I think these approaches could appeal to a high school audience as well.
In this article, the authors argue the importance of teaching critical literacy skills to our students. Even though the research is a little dated (from 1999/2000), the fact that our students live in a multimedia world is a reality that we must face teachers to help our students develop the necessary skills to engage with their world.
This was one of the projects that I completed during the first of three courses I took at UBC in the area of teacher inquiry.
According to UBC Website, there are three learning outcomes that are intended to be engendered in Inquiry Seminar I:
- an understanding of teaching as a moral and intellectual activity requiring inquiry, judgement and engagement with multiple others—students, parents, colleagues, scholarly community.
- an appreciation of the importance of research in understanding curriculum, teaching and learning.
- a desire to engage in one’s own educational inquiries—to become students of teaching.
My professor for this course described the final project for this course as something that would look like the beginnings of a Masters Thesis. We were expected to identify a question or problem that we would like to explore, address the importance of what we are researching, and engage in a review of some of the literature that addresses our area of inquiry.
This is what I submitted as my final project for this course.
Question/Problem:
How can incorporating other art forms support the way students learn in an English Language Arts Classroom?
Context, Significance, and Literature Review:
The literature I have come across seems to support the idea that inter-arts learning can enhance student engagement and student understanding in the English Language Arts. In fact, many of the authors I have looked at view it as a necessity in modern classrooms because students live in a world where they will be expected to be able to engage with multiple texts (not just printed media).
In their article, “Intermediality: Bridge to Critical Media Literacy,” Pailliotet, Semali, Rodenberg, Giles, and Macaul argue that intermediality “is foremost critical media literacy” and that “the contemporary environment in which we and our students live involves many literacies; the average child spends 5.5 hours daily engaged with varied print and electronic media...Leading educators...have recognized the need to address these new, changing literacies through critical media practices...At the dawn of the new millennium, intermedial teaching emerges as a response to critical media literacy, serving as a bridge between existing and future practices (Pailliotet, Semali, Rodenberg, Giles, and Macaul, 208-209). This text was published in 2000 and the data they are using was produced in 1999. Thirteen years later, we are still having this conversation; in public schools we are still primarily assessing student engagement and comprehension of printed text when the printed text only represents a fraction of the spectrum of media that our students engage with and use to make sense of their world.
Albers and Harste argue in their article, “The Arts, New Literacies, and Multimodality,” that “in light of this changing world of texts and the diverse student populations, there is a need to redefine literacy. We must ask ourselves, what are the everyday literacies that learners bring into the classroom? How can I value and integrate these literacies into my own practice? By keeping these questions in mind, we create space in the English language arts classroom to not only redefine literacy but also make it more relevant to more students than ever before. The result may contribute to a more critically literate citizenship and a more just and equitable world” (Albers and Harste, 8).
Many of the sources I have looked at argue that integrating other arts (I focused music and visual art) can enhance a student's understanding of the texts they are studying.
In terms of visual art, Albers argues that “as we learn more about other forms of literacy and, specifically, the visual arts, we equip students with an awareness of yet another symbol system. Cultivation of this awareness is essential if we are to break through elitist and singular interpretations of where meaning lies, what meaning is, and who can be named as meaning makers. Exploration in the visual arts offers us a way to better understand culturally inscribed meanings, a capacity to critique these meanings, and an appreciation of our day-to-day encounters with art” (Albers, 348).
In 2003, Tim Duggan did his doctoral thesis on the use of music in the high school English/Language Arts classrooms in South Dakota. His findings concluded that “when music is incorporated into instructional strategies, teachers indicate a high level of satisfaction with the results...The most successful use of music in the high school English/language arts classrooms in South Dakota is to enhance students’ comprehension of literature...[and] the second most successful use of music in the high school English/language arts classroom in South Dakota is to inspire students to write” (Duggan, 111-113). In the conclusion to his thesis, he proposes the following concept:
"Try to go though a day without hearing music. It is nearly impossible to avoid music, and particularly music that, through the marriage of sound and language and images, attempts to convey a message. Television has a continual soundtrack for mood and theme, introduction of characters and scenes, and most ubiquitously, selling of products. Can a person be defined as literate in modern society if he or she cannot identify how music creates and reinforces messages? Radios blare, buildings have their own soundtracks, and subcultures of American society have their musical icons, who influence children in ways that make many adults uncomfortable. What is certain is that those adults have their own musical icons who were influential in their youths" (Duggan, 117).
Methodology:
I will be focusing my research in the following areas:
1. "New Literacy/Media Literacy/Multiliteracies."
The term “new literacy” has come up frequently in my research and I find it being used in conversation with (and interchangeably) with “digital literacy” (which has more to do with the use of technology in the classroom), “media literacy,” and “multiliteracies” (which is more inclusive of referring to the arts as a type of literacy that can be taught and applied in an English Language Arts classroom). This conversation also includes the idea of “transmediation” which generally refers to using one media to enhance the understanding of art (ie. drawing a picture and then using that picture as a point of reference for an essay). This part of my research will mostly involve unpacking these terminologies and examining them in conversation with each other and see where they support the idea of an inter-arts classroom.
2. Music and Literature.
This part of my research will primarily focus on the use of music to enhance learning in the English Language Arts classroom.
3. Visual Art/Film and Literature.
This part of my research will focus on the use of visual art/film to enhance learning in the English Language Arts classroom.
Annotated Bibliography
- Albers, Peggy, and Jerome C. Harste. "The Arts, New Literacies, and Multimodality." English Education 40.1 (2007): 6-20. JSTOR. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
In this article, Albers and Harste discuss how literacy is being redefined in the twenty-first century and the artistic approaches teachers can take to integrate those new literacies into the classroom so it better reflects the way students learn by engaging with various media.
- Albers, Peggy. "Art as Literacy." Language Arts 74.5 (1997): 338-50. JSTOR. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
In this article, Albers explores how an artistically-enriched learning environment not only enhances the experiences of students in the English Language Arts classroom but is also necessary for students to develop their artistic intelligences so they can further appreciate and understand the other artistic layers in the literature that they are studying.
- Connel-Ross, Brenda Kay. Ekphrasis: Putting the Art Into Language Arts by Drawing on Art and Visual Representation to Teach Writing. Diss. The University of Texas, 2006. Ann Arbor, Ml: ProQuest Information and Learning, 2007. Print.
This was Connel-Ross's thesis for her Master of Arts in Teaching. In her thesis, Connel-Ross addresses how ekphrasis can be utilized to engage students in creative writing. She provides the rational behind this approach as well as a number of lesson plans that introduces these concepts to the students. While this is primarily directed towards middle-school students, I feel that these lessons and concepts can be adapted to suit a secondary English classroom.
- Courtland, Mary Clare., and Trevor J. Gambell. Literature, Media & Multiliteracies in Adolescent Language Arts. Vancouver: Pacific Educational, 2010. Print.
This text addresses the idea that the future of English Language Arts as a discipline relies on teaching practices that reflect the changing literary landscape where our students find themselves. Although this text primarily focuses on technical and digital literacies, there are a few chapters that address the concept of "multiliteracies" and teaching our students to engage with meaningful content in a variety of ways.
- Dornan, Reade W., Lois Matz. Rosen, and Marilyn J. Wilson. Multiple Voices, Multiple Texts: Reading in the Secondary Content Areas. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1997. Print.
This is a very useful text that discusses how reading and writing skills can be integrated throughout the curriculum and the benefits of a cross-curricular approach to English Language Arts education.
- Duggan, Timothy J. Uses of Music in the High School English/Language Arts Classroom in South Dakota: Teacher Perceptions and Practices. Diss. University of South Dakota, 2003. Ann Arbor, Ml: ProQuest, UMI Dissertations, 2004. Print.
In his doctoral dissertation, Duggan explores the ways English teachers in South Dakota utilize music in their classrooms. He discusses the extent in which English teachers use music in their classrooms and the successes that arise from it. His findings show that those teachers who used music in their classroom found the most success when they used it to enhance students' understanding of literature and when they used it to inspire their students to write.
- Elridge, Deborah. "Learning about Literacy through the Arts."College Teaching 48.3 (2000): 116-19. JSTOR. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
In this article, Elridge describes how the Hunter College faculty, Lincoln Center Institute personnel, and the teachers and administrators from East Harlem Community School District Four explored the development of the literacy skills of inter-city students through the use of the arts.
- Low, Bronwen E. Slam School: Learning through Conflict in the Hip-hop and Spoken Word Classroom. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2011. Print.
This text illustrates the experiences in three urban high school classrooms where teachers integrated hip-hop music and spoken word poetry into their English Language Arts classrooms and the successes that these teachers had in having their students critically explore the controversial themes associated with that genre.
- Padilha, Solange Viaro. "Interarts Studies in the English / Literature Classroom." Procedia: Social and Behavioural Sciences 55.2012 (2012): 1259-264.ELSEVIER. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
This is a piece of writing that was produced at the 2012 International Conference on New Horizons in Education. It discusses the positive findings in using music, film and culture in a college English/Literature class. They observe that "[the students] seem to be eager to analyze the culture--as well as the linguistic--aspects involved, which makes their learning (and our teaching experience) more rewarding. Therefore, we believe that the challenge of using different media in the classroom is essential: the classes become livelier and the students do participate enthusiastically" (1259). Although this approach is directed towards a college class, I think these approaches could appeal to a high school audience as well.
- Pailliotet, Anne Watts, Ladislaus Semali, Rita K. Rodenburg, Jackie K. Giles, and Sherry L. Macaul. "Intermediality: Bridge to Critical Media Literacy." The Reading Teacher 54.2 (2000): 208-19. JSTOR. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
In this article, the authors argue the importance of teaching critical literacy skills to our students. Even though the research is a little dated (from 1999/2000), the fact that our students live in a multimedia world is a reality that we must face teachers to help our students develop the necessary skills to engage with their world.
Musical Essay on The Picture of Dorian Gray
EDUC 451 – Inquiry Seminar II
This is was the project that I completed for the second course I took at UBC on teacher inquiry.
According to the website, there are three primary opportunities that are to guide teacher inquiry in this course:
The professor who instructed our cohort asked us to create some sort of creative, practical application that we could use to connect our question from Inquiry I to our teaching practice.
This is what I submitted for my final project for this course:
Introduction and Explanation of Purpose
I have chosen an area of inquiry that I am incredibly passionate about, both as an educator and an arts advocate. I have always felt that we as educators are forced to neglect the artistic merits of the literature that we are studying in favour of the skills that we are mandated to teach our students (critical-thinking, essay-writing, spelling/grammar, literary devices, etc). The result is that we are forcing our students to dissect these works of art like dead animals and they end up losing the original context and meaning of these pieces as works of art. I feel that bringing these artistic conversations into the English Language Arts classroom will make the material more interesting and meaningful for the students and increase their understanding of the art pieces of which they are learning. My research has strongly supported this approach.
My inquiry project will consist of two musical "vignettes" that are written in the sonata form. The pieces will consist of more "traditional elements" of music as well as components derived from the manipulations of visual representations of The Picture of Dorian Gray into musical pitches that will then be integrated into the music I am composing. I chose the sonata form to be the framework of my pieces because the structure, size, and function of the sonata form and the formal five-paragraph essay are comparable in many ways. My audiovisual artifact will be accompanied by an artist's statement summarizing my research and explaining the aforementioned connections.
This is was the project that I completed for the second course I took at UBC on teacher inquiry.
According to the website, there are three primary opportunities that are to guide teacher inquiry in this course:
- to engage in teacher inquiry around a theme, a particular curriculum emphasis or an educational issue of one’s choosing.
- demonstrate understandings acquired during course work and develop deeper understandings of a particular area of educational study.
- begin to make links between one’s inquiry topic and one’s practice as a beginning teacher.
The professor who instructed our cohort asked us to create some sort of creative, practical application that we could use to connect our question from Inquiry I to our teaching practice.
This is what I submitted for my final project for this course:
Introduction and Explanation of Purpose
I have chosen an area of inquiry that I am incredibly passionate about, both as an educator and an arts advocate. I have always felt that we as educators are forced to neglect the artistic merits of the literature that we are studying in favour of the skills that we are mandated to teach our students (critical-thinking, essay-writing, spelling/grammar, literary devices, etc). The result is that we are forcing our students to dissect these works of art like dead animals and they end up losing the original context and meaning of these pieces as works of art. I feel that bringing these artistic conversations into the English Language Arts classroom will make the material more interesting and meaningful for the students and increase their understanding of the art pieces of which they are learning. My research has strongly supported this approach.
My inquiry project will consist of two musical "vignettes" that are written in the sonata form. The pieces will consist of more "traditional elements" of music as well as components derived from the manipulations of visual representations of The Picture of Dorian Gray into musical pitches that will then be integrated into the music I am composing. I chose the sonata form to be the framework of my pieces because the structure, size, and function of the sonata form and the formal five-paragraph essay are comparable in many ways. My audiovisual artifact will be accompanied by an artist's statement summarizing my research and explaining the aforementioned connections.
My Composition Method
My musical compositions began with Finale NotePad. It is a free version of the Finale line of music composition software and while it doesn't offer as many specific composing tools as I'm sure its full version would, it did the job. The use of this software allowed me to compose the piano parts of my composition without having to use an actual piano (it would have taken me FOREVER to learn how to play the parts I wrote).
I chose the keys of A Major/F# Minor (and keys that are closely-related to these) as the "reference keys" for my pieces. As I mentioned in class, I have always felt that the key of F# Minor is the "dark, yet pretty" key which I felt was reflective of the character of Dorian Gray; he was simultaneously beautiful and ugly. To this end, I felt that I used the major keys in my pieces in almost a deceptive way; it sounds happy and full of promise but in contrast with the content that is introduced in the minor keys it is almost impossible to believe.
To compose the second "layer" of my pieces, I began with two visual representations of Dorian Gray: one of when the painting was beautiful and one of when the painting was ugly and corrupted.
I chose the keys of A Major/F# Minor (and keys that are closely-related to these) as the "reference keys" for my pieces. As I mentioned in class, I have always felt that the key of F# Minor is the "dark, yet pretty" key which I felt was reflective of the character of Dorian Gray; he was simultaneously beautiful and ugly. To this end, I felt that I used the major keys in my pieces in almost a deceptive way; it sounds happy and full of promise but in contrast with the content that is introduced in the minor keys it is almost impossible to believe.
To compose the second "layer" of my pieces, I began with two visual representations of Dorian Gray: one of when the painting was beautiful and one of when the painting was ugly and corrupted.
Once I had the images, I cropped and isolated the aspect of the image that would be featured in the composition (I will use Dorian Gray's mouth as an example).
I used the "tri-tone" editing option to break the images down into the three colours that would be represented in the images.
I then uploaded the pixelated/tri-toned images into a program called "Colour Tones". It allowed me to apply a tone to each colour represented in the image. These tones were the "bleeps" that you hear in the pieces.
I also used "half-toned" versions of the "tri-toned" images; the black areas of those images shaped the data that I put into the tonematrix (which produced those "bell sounds" that you hear in the pieces).
I then combined all these sounds in Audacity and then manipulated them into the final pieces. When I initially completed the project, I had to post it to a "UBC Blogs" site (which is WordPress based) which didn't seem to support the audio files I had made, so I created a MySpace account to post my final pieces, one modeled after Dorian Gray's mouth and one modeled after his hands (but both using the same process).
1. Dorian Gray's Smile
2. Dorian Gray's Hands
**Disclaimer**
Although i do have a bit of a background in music, and I did take a couple of post-secondary courses in "contemporary music composition," I by no means claim to be an expert in music composition. The primary purpose of this project was to illustrate the potentials for this medium, not to make a statement about my expertise in music composition.
Please don't judge my pieces too harshly.
1. Dorian Gray's Smile
2. Dorian Gray's Hands
**Disclaimer**
Although i do have a bit of a background in music, and I did take a couple of post-secondary courses in "contemporary music composition," I by no means claim to be an expert in music composition. The primary purpose of this project was to illustrate the potentials for this medium, not to make a statement about my expertise in music composition.
Please don't judge my pieces too harshly.