Recently in Teachers Strategy Guide Category

Reading in a Participatory Culture: Teachers' Strategy Guide Update

Take a look at this quote from Colin Martindale, in an article called "Biological Bases of Creativity":

"It would seem that creative productions always consist of novel combinations of pre-existing mental elements.... To create, then, involves the realization of an analogy between previously unassociated mental elements."

I love this quote because it emphasizes the role of appropriation in the creative process. It's something we're thinking about a lot as we develop our first teachers' strategy guide, called "Reading in a Participatory Culture."

NML Blog - Update - Teachers' Strategy Guide

How can one media be seen to influence another? This week, I'm looking at this issue for our Teachers' Strategy Guide for the unit "Adaptations and Translations." This unit focuses particularly on the transmedia properties of both Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, and a modern theatrical remix of this story, "Moby Dick: Then and Now" created by the Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket, RI. In general, the NML skills (as discussed in our NML whitepaper) we are focusing on in this unit are appropriation and transmedia navigation.

What's in style? Moby Dick and Appropriation Pranks

So, this first part's no joke... This weekend, I was talking to one of some of my old Teach For America friends about our Moby Dick  Teacher's Strategy Guide. They were really excited about the prospect of having a set of activities that brought the new media literacies into the English classroom. Of course, my science teacher friend was wondering about when we'd have something for them. I told him that the best things come to those who wait...

What does this have to do with pranks?