We believe that the New Media Literacies need to be integrated across the curriculum - not as an added-on subject, but as a paradigm shift in how we teach and think about traditional school content. Each discipline needs to take ownership of those skills which are central to doing research in their area: science may want to take up issues of visualization and simulation; literature issues of appropriation.
To offer a model for how these skills might be better integrated into the curriculum, we are developing a series of teacher strategy guides which we hope will inform and inspire teachers working in that field, sparking further experimentation and innovation.
Reading in a Participatory Culture
Our first Teachers' Strategy Guide: Reading in a Participatory Culture, offers strategies for integrating the tools, approaches, and methods of Comparative Media Studies into the English and Language Arts classroom. The guide is intended to demonstrate techniques which could be applied to the study of authorship in relation to a range of other literary works, pushing us to reflect more deeply on how authors build upon the materials of their culture and in turn inspire others who follow to see the world in new ways.
All the lesson plans and related materials are available for download below:
GENERAL MATERIALS
PDF of Introduction to the Reading Teachers' Strategy Guide
PDF of Full Expert Voices section
UNIT: MOTIVES FOR READING
UNIT: APPROPRIATION AND REMIXING
UNIT: NEGOTIATING CULTURAL SPACES
UNIT: CONTINUITIES AND SILENCES
Mapping in a Participatory Culture
The Mapping Project is NML's newest Teachers' Strategy Guide, and is currently in development. This project will collaborate with social studies classrooms to look at evolving digital cartographies and the ways we, as a people, envision ourselves in the digital and topographic landscapes. We are excited to share our ideas and findings with the NML community online! Stay tuned!
