Originally published in 2012<\/em><\/p>\n Like thinking, reading in the 21st century is different than in centuries past, endlessly linked in an increasingly visible web of physical and digital media forms.\u00a0So in this context of media abundance, what does the modern, 21st century reader look like?<\/p>\n There is an art and a science to media design.<\/p>\n Media (singular medium<\/em>) refers to the\u00a0intentional communication of a thought or idea. In this way, tweets and novels are both media, as are poems and interactive timelines, websites and short stories, paintings and graffiti, speeches and YouTube videos.<\/p>\n The differences between these media lie in their purpose and audience, duration and intensity, tone and structure, along with countless other obvious and less-obvious components that can be artfully manipulated in matters of design. One of the most visible transitions to a \u201c21st Century\u201d Reading and Writing curriculum (or, as we consider it,\u00a0authentic curriculum<\/em>) involves an evolution of the perspective of media.<\/p>\n Media is, and always has been, central to an Reading-Writing curriculum. Moby Dick<\/em>, The Road Not Taken<\/em>, To Kill A Mockingbird<\/em>, etc. These are often referred to as \u201ctouchstone\u201d texts that can act as anchors for so much.\u00a0An initial, basic recommendation then would involve how teachers select that media that ends up center stage in so many lessons and units.<\/p>\n This is important to clarify: the media is the star here, and an educator\u2019s goal is to support students in processing that media: identifying, analyzing, evaluating, revising, re-purposing, and so on up Bloom\u2019s ladder. (We\u2019ll skip, for now, the potential for learners to be in control of the media they consume.) Beyond that basic, tell-me-something-I-don\u2019t-know recommendation to be intentional in choosing powerful, relevant, and \u201cfertile\u201d media, there must first be a necessary paradigm shift in how we consider the term media.<\/p>\n Moby Dick, while neither dead nor irrelevant, lives in a new context. As a text, it is timeless, and\u00a0has a place in a Reading\/Writing\/Literature-based curriculum. But in new forms, with new support systems,\u00a0and new circumstances.<\/p>\n MEDIA AS A TERM<\/strong><\/p>\n When computers first entered mainstream (back when Radio Shack was selling\u00a0Tandy computers for $8500), the term \u201cmulti-media\u201d surfaced. As opposed to the single-media of a text-only novel, now text, sound, images, and video could be combined and manipulated in new ways. Somewhere along the line, however, Reading\/Writing\/Literature stopped simply leveraging these classic texts, but seemingly became owned by them. (What happened to the idea of separate literature, composition, or even logic classes\u2013not necessarily full-on triumvirate, but in that direction?)<\/p>\n Class reads of Fahrenheit 451 transitioned into Literature Circles reading The Giver<\/em>, book reports melted into PowerPoint presentations or even web quests, but the central kernel was still a text written generations\u2013even centuries ago\u2013in a form by people from a time much different than the one learners use information in today.\u00a0This is not to say that such media are impotent, but merely<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>out of focus<\/strong><\/em>, and so must be leveraged in new ways while seeking out relevance with an innocent audience disconnected from its forms, its structures, and its media \u201cpatterns.\u201d<\/p>\n Changing forms of media are a byproduct of rapid technology progression, and this is certainly the case over the last 25 years. In the last 5 years, the emergence of social media has added an additional wrinkle (and countless teaching opportunities) to the mix, yet with these transitions and this constant evolution, the red herring here involves the misleading concept of technology. We will have a look at the changing media forms, especially the phenomenon of social media in a separate piece, but for now consider that technology is a tool that enables new forms of media to evolve, challenge our collective creativity, and push the boundaries of idea exchange forward.<\/p>\n However, it is simply that\u2013a tool. While it is tempting to become enamored with the glamour of the tool itself, it is the cognitive and creative work and design that really demand our attention as educators. If mankind walked away from technology tomorrow, to maintain\u00a0authenticity<\/em>\u00a0in learning would require adapting our curriculum, our instructional strategies, and so on to eliminate technology; rather than teach technology then, we teach with technology.<\/p>\n That is to say, educators use technology because those we wish to educate use it, which brings us to the idea of schema.<\/p>\n Media as Schema<\/strong><\/p>\n There are staggeringly interesting philosophical treatises and cognitive psychology analyses from Kant to Piaget that deal with the concept of schema. A (sometimes frustratingly) ambiguous term (that Marzano addresses briefly in \u201cThe Art and Science of Teaching,\u201d (p. 59-60),\u00a0schema<\/em>\u00a0refers to a cognitively native framework for making sense of ideas; that is, roughly put, existing \u201cstuff in our head\u201d helps us to make sense of new stuff. (A tangent concept is one of prior knowledge.) That is, we cannot make sense new ideas unless we can assimilate them with what we already know\u2013by observing, analyzing, merging, comparing, contrasting, categorizing, relating, or otherwise forming some relative\u00a0relation<\/em>ship.<\/p>\n In this way, a square helps us understand a rectangle, Cat in the Hat<\/em> providing a sort of early framework to help us make sense of Flannery O\u2019Connor\u2019s Everything That Rises Must Converge<\/em>. This constructivist line of thought reveals that, at least to some degree, learners continually build on existing ideas through the aforementioned observing\u2013>relating process, even when ideas and concepts may seem divergent (verbs and allegory).<\/p>\n So what does this have to do with media and ELA? Simply put, we\u2019ve gotten behind the curve in terms of how we view media, and, on a broader scale, how we view the purpose of English-Language Arts.<\/p>\n In Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking<\/em> edited by Art Costa, Barry Beyer contributes:<\/p>\n \u201cBecause thinking skills are tied closely (in learner\u2019s minds) to the context or content in which they are first encountered, their application is not readily transferred to the other, especially remote contexts or content.\u201d (398-399)<\/p>\n Beyer goes on to discuss the practices of \u201cContinuous Bridging\u201d and \u201cDirect Transfer.\u201d Here, Beyer is trying to underscore first\u00a0transfer<\/em>\u00a0as a pedagogical reality, and then finally begin laying the groundwork for teaching students so that they are able to do it themselves. While this is part and parcel to all learning, formal and informal, it relates to our concept of media in English-Language Arts in that we often ask students to \u201cwalk too far\u201d in this \u201ctransfer.\u201d<\/p>\n Why not \u201cdwell\u201d in their native media? If we can for a moment resist making this a generational argument where we browbeat texting and cell phones and glorify novels, but rather, in the ultimate \u201cmeet them where they are,\u201d rethinking and re-approaching roles so that students don\u2019t have to radically repackage information that they learning in school on a daily basis to make it relevant to their personal lives. Admonishing that a student learn math so that they can \u201cbalance their checkbook\u201d is a vacant argument.<\/p>\n Moby Dick\u2019s themes of introspection, intellectual struggle, and religious doubt are all indeed relevant if we can just give them a chance. So then, we may consider Moby Dick a single image in a rich tapestry, rather than a single image and a single goal. In this way teachers can use the interdependence of all media forms to their advantage\u2013one form to illuminate another,<\/p>\n Structure. Theme. Bias. Syntax. Diction. Author position. Supporting evidence\u2013all universal components of media design.<\/p>\n And we should do this not simply because teachers can then use these forms to trick students into learning what we want them to, but because we\u2019re actually teaching what matters.\u201dTeaching What Matters\u201d by Silver, Strong, and Perini remains what should be considered a seminal, prefacing work on all matters of curriculum mapping and instructional design.<\/p>\n That is, we can support students in identifying media forms and structures, concepts of audience and purpose, thesis and thesis development, language choice, tone and mood\u2013all classic literary tenets\u2013but rethink our how we use the concept of media to make that happen.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/flickering-brad-ipad.jpg\"\/ "\\"flickering-brad-ipad\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/flickering-brad-ipad.jpg\" "\\"flickering-brad-ipad\\"\/")
<\/a><\/figure>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/flickeringbrad16.jpg\"\/ "\\"21st-century-teaching\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/flickeringbrad16.jpg\" "\\"21st-century-teaching\\"\/")
<\/a><\/figure>\n