Foot: Great Films and How to Teach them, Chapters 1-4

         Cinematography used to be a love of mine. In high school, I took a film study class, and I absolutely loved it. Sitting around, watching movies all the time, it was a dream come true for me. So, I thought that reading this book would only deepen my affection for films. I think it is important to use film in a literature classroom, because let's face it, people sometimes end up watching the movie without even reading the book. How many of you have watched, To Kill a Mockingbird (To Kill a Mockingbird photo), Lord of the Flies  (Lord of the Flies photo), Pride and Prejudice (Pride and Prejudice photo), and etc.? Ever seen a movie or television show where the students are supposed to read a book, but they are rent the movie instead? I think that is what is wrong with society today. Instead of using films as companions to books they are used instead of books.

           I think this is a real tragedy, and reading the first chapter of this book confirmed my irritation with the film industry portraying books. Overall, I would say I am enjoying this book immensely, and have already looked through the study guides in the back of the book about some of my favorite films of all time and how to teach them.
           The first chapter really upset me. Although it was interesting to read, and taught me a lot about books and movies, I didn't like quote  by Keith Cohen, "the contours of modern narrative would not be what they are without the precedents set by movies," (Costanzo, 14). I do not agree with this statement because I would like to reverse it. Films wouldn't be what they are today without literature.
           Reading along the other chapters, I believe that it was stated that almost half of the world's movies are made from literature. I find this good evidence to defend books when it comes to this argument. I know that the context of the quote is talking about how writing styles have changed so drastically for modern writers, but I don't believe that.
            If the classics weren't so visually comprehended by readers, I don't think that they would be classics. It is important to me to make this argument because I don't think that it is fair to say that film-making is the sole purpose of why authors' styles have changed over the years. Reading books from the 1800s and earlier, some authors were using film like techniques before motion pictures were even popular or being produced.
           Charles Dickens' books are known, (in my opinion), for his use of appearances and details about setting, scenes, and people. That hasn't changed that much in the last centuries. I also think that it should be taken into account that technology has also played a role in how author's pen books these days and their style. Most author's in the early 1800s and or didn't have computers to spell check, and couldn't just delete a word and add more. It would take ages to go through their manuscripts and change details and spelling of words and having to transcribe them on different paper or parchment.

Foot: Hate List and pleasure reading/watching

So last semester in our Teaching Reading and Literature class with Dr. Pytash, I learned about so many books that I wanted to read. Recently, I picked up the book "Hate List" and I have to say it is probably one of my favorite young adult literature books that I have read. In a nutshell, it is about a girl Valerie, whose boyfriend, Nick, shot people at their high school and the people he shot were on Valerie's hate list. She feels like it is all her fault, as well as grieving over the loss of her boyfriend. Nick was the only person, according to Valerie, that understood her.

It also makes me think about the Columbine shootings and the other school shootings that have occurred. When I was in high school, I wouldn't say I was extremely popular. I wouldn't say that I had a ton of really close friends, or just one group of people that I hung out with, but I do know people who were like that. I remember going to school and watching as my fellow classmates would pick on someone, yell at them, and call them bad names, and just tease them. I did nothing. I didn't stop it from happening, and I didn't usually participate in the teasing, but it happened. Now looking back on that, I just can't help but feel like if a shooting happened at my school, how much of it would have been my fault? I wasn't mean to anyone in high school, unless I was angry with them, and I tried to include people, but still it is a scary notion to think about how just one joke from me could push someone to put me on a hate list, or to commit a school shooting. I would definitely use this book in my classroom, because I think that a lot of teenagers don't really understand what their words and actions can make someone feel. Years from now, people will forget about all the mean thing they said to someone in high school, but those people who were bullied or teased will never forget it. I haven't finished reading it yet, but I think this book should be used in the classroom so that we can prevent these kids from ending up dead or in jail for murdering their classmates.

Foot: The Socially Networked Classroom

When I first started reading this book, I thought it would like like every other book that was written by one of my professors; boring and useless. In my experience with books likes these I tend to just not care what they say want to use them in the classroom, because I don't find them up-to-date or currently what is necessary. I am happy to say the Dr. Kist's book is not like those other books that I have read. I was a little bit surprised to see that we were actually using some of the strategies from the book in our own Multi-Modal class. It's really exciting, and such an easy read. Going over some of the activities for a low tech school, I realized that I may not actually work in a school that has a lot of money and technology. Having some of these projects and strategies will help students stay connected and in the know about technology and how to use it.

My favorite strategy in this chapter is that one we are using the Multigenre Autobiography.  Now, I am have been working on mine for a couple weeks. I've been compiling photos and music clips, and even some video clips to show what books, movies, tv shows, magazine, and music have made the most impact on my life. I think this is a really good project to have students participate in, because it is what they are interested in. This way, teachers will get to know their students, and their level of reading as well as their likes and dislikes. Students will not find it boring to do, because it is about what they like and have influenced them . That is the best part of this project I believe. I believe you can also use this activity to introduce books and other types of media that are going to be in the classroom the entire year. I think it is definitely important for all teachers who use this method, also make one of their own. Students want to feel connected to their teachers in some way, even if they don't know it. I really hope that I will be able to incorporate this into my own classroom once I become a teacher. I'm still working on reading the rest of the book, and I'm excited to see what other methods and strategies I can use to make my classroom a more Multi-modal one.

Foot: An Oral History of the Internet

Though this article was nine pages long, I found some of the information really rather intriguing. It is called, How the Web was Won and it has really fascinating facts about the internet. For one thing, I didn't know that the internet was technically founded in the 1960s. I thought that it didn't get started, or even thought about until the early 1990s. I also didn't know that Microsoft wasn't the first company relating to computers. I found it extremely fascinating to read about how the all the people that have put their brains to making the internet what is is today.

I started to think about how this affects me, and other people around the world. It made me think about how the Egyptian authorities basically shut down the internet in the past couple of weeks because of all the protests going in. How is it even possible to shut down the internet to an entire country? The only thing I really wanted to know more about is how they keep the internet running without crashing because of all the people using its services? I think it is amazing how far we have come from the beginning, but I thought the article droned on about unnecessary details. I would like to know more about how the concept of an internet came about, and how hard it was to get it up and running. Plus, all the computer speak was confusing me quite a bit. Half of the terms they were using, I had never heard about. The article didn't do a very good job at  explaining what the terms mean. I think I grew up in a very computer orientated world, but I still have no idea half of the things that goes into keeping the internet working how we want it to. It's mind boggling.

Foot: History of Facebook Article

When I started reading this article I actually laughed a little bit. I had seen the movie, The Social Network, earlier this year, and the entire article chronicled events exactly as the movie had. I thought it was funny, because it was like reading the script to the movie. The movie was excellent and has been nominated for a lot of awards since it's debut to the big screen, and I actually loved it. To think that some person could just make an entire site up while they are intoxicated and upset is mind boggling.

Facebook has been a staple in my life since my senior year of high school. Before that time, I had heard nothing about it. My older cousin had a facebook but said that you had to be a college student to use it. I couldn't wait until I went to college, just to use this site. The funny things is, until that year Myspace had taken up a majority of my life. I grew up in a household that had two computers. One for my dad, and the other one for the rest of the family. I was on the computer for hours after school had ended, doing homework, talking to my friends through AIM going into chat rooms, and all that social networking stuff. When facebook came out, I thought it would be awesome. I could connect with other people from my college, and other colleges around the country. The article talked a lot about the personal choices that Mark Zuckerberg made when creating facebook. He angered a lot of people, and has been sued and in legal battles for most of it's success, and he is only 24 years old. I don't know if I would be able to do that sort of thing, to cheat people out of something they may or may not have come up with, but when I started using facebook none of the legal stuff came to my mind.

Using it today, I sort of laugh to think how it originally was. Now it is just a bunch of people whining about their lives, and posted drunken pictures of themselves. Before people under the age of 17 could have a facebook I think it was tons better. Now there are just games, and advertisements, and twelve year old girls asking me to be their friend, when before I think it was used more as a networking site. To keep in touch with your fellow classmates after you had moved on to a career and life. I may be wrong, but the article really showed just how simple it is to make a website that has an entire country clamoring to use it.

Foot: Little Brother

So while reading this book, I couldn't help but become really angry. I was thinking back to when September 11th happened, and how the entire world was paranoid that the government was snooping into people's privacy by taping every phone in the United States. I found this book to be extremely interesting though, because of all the technology use. I couldn't believe how this could actually happen. It is scary to think that our children can use the internet to start a movement that is anti-government, but I liked it a lot. When I was 17 and in high school, I didn't really even think about rebelling against something that I didn't agree with. We are taught at such a young age to obey all the laws and to respect authority, but our country is founded on different opinions and freedom.

What really struck me was when Marcus quoted the Declaration of Independence. IT made my heart swell with pride, and a little bit of guilt, because I didn't recognize it when it was first stated. I think this book has a very good grasp on how reality is like today. The internet is really taking over and keeps the world connected to each other, it is a little bit scary. While reading this book, it made me think of  the conflict in Egypt, and the latest videos Cairo Video. I have keeping up with the conflict there, and the video evidence coming out of there is remarkable. This book also made me think about George Orwell's 1984. It is one of my favorite books about big bother watching, and I think these types of books remind all of us that if we don't like something the government is doing we have the right to stop them.