Article Groups Rocked It

All of the groups were extremely informative, and raised some really interesting points. The first group was the Adolescent Identity and Literacy group. They talked a lot about how our identities form at a young age, and we spend most of that time in school. Therefore, school is an integral part of shaping our identities. They also talked about devaluing the individual by disallowing some forms of expression in school. Franzo, however, asked a really quite interesting and thought-provoking question about when it is appropriate to stop seeing school simply for the sake of education. He questioned whether school was really the place for allowing freedom of individualism in children (i.e. wearing clothing outside of the dress code). I have to say, I was wondering the same thing (much less eloquently than the way he phrased it), but I was glad that he raised that point. The group did an excellent job of addressing it with the point that children spend most of their time in school and in school functions, so it’s the bulk of their lives. They have to develop individually there. I also thought their activity was creative, though I didn’t have any social media of my own to look at.

Following the Adolescent Identity group was the Hip Hop and Literacy group. Their presentation was exciting and nuanced. They talked about the perception that hip hop doesn’t have a real place in the “literary world.” This group did a fantastic job of keeping our attention and explaining how hip hop and rap are just as rich in content as poetry. I really liked the deconstructing of rap lyrics to identify poetic forms and terminologies. They kept us thoroughly entertained with their musical interjections, all the while explaining how each song utilized various literary conventions. That was an eye-opening experience!

The gaming group was also really interesting. Having zero experience with video games, I was interested in learning how they would apply it to literacy. I really enjoyed the mission they sent the groups on, as well as watching people play games while it was explained that games create a space for low risk learning. This was something that my own group (make/hack/play) found to be beneficial for learning. I also liked that they explained the opportunity for creativity and problem solving as well as maintaining levels of focus and attention. It was a great presentation, and I can’t wait to see how it is integrated into Maker/Ignite Night!