Critical Questions, Close Reading

Quote

"Cross-disciplinary integration can take many forms.  In some schools, students take American literature during the same year they take American history.  In other schools, students read words from 19th-Century literature concurrently while studying this historical period."  -- Chapter 3, pg. 49

I absolutely love this.  Maybe this is because I have both an English and Social Studies certification, but I've always loved collaborating and bringing the two subjects together to make things more clear.  I'm fortunate enough to be in a school where the teachers are willing to integrate and collaborate.  For example, right now I'm working with my Seventh Graders on Greek Mythology.  Since they learn World History in this grade, the Social Studies teacher is studying Ancient Greece with them.  So while he's talking about the history, I get to talk about the stories.  It's an excellent learning experience for the students, and helps them have a greater understanding for what their studying because they have context for both.

Media Message

Ship of Fools - The Boston Globe

Deconstruction

1. The author is a columnist for The Boston Globe, and clearly someone who does not agree with what the Sunderland's let their daughter do.  The purpose of this article was for the author to express her opinion on this topic.
2. She uses a lot of loaded language in this article.  Words like "protecting", "dangerous", and "responsibility" help draw the reader's attention to what the article is saying.  If someone has heard the story, and holds the same opinion as the author, these words will attract them and make them continue reading.
3. This is an opinion article.  Those who feel the same will agree, while others might disagree.  Depending on where they stand when starting to read this article, they'll either agree, or they might become angry.  This event caused a huge debate, so there are many different viewpoints of what happened.  Those who might be on the fence, or without much of an opinion might be swayed by reading this.
4. The value of protecting your children and taking responsibility for their actions is huge within this article.  The question for this event, throughout every article has been "should the Sunderlands have let their daughter attempt this?"  There are debates of whether it was neglectful to allow this to happen and other such values.  There is also only one point of view in this article:  the authors.  She is clearly against allowing this to happen, and doesn't offer an argument for the other side.
5. The other side of this argument is omitted, but there is also an interesting discussion absent too.  It is mentioned briefly that Abby's older brother attempted, and succeeded, this very same feat.  There is no discussion of whether he should have been allowed to do this, only that she shouldn't have been.

My students actually read and deconstructed this article, as well as a news article and a couple of videos on the subject as well.  This story and the other were in our textbook, and I embraced the opportunity to give them a media literacy lesson.  There are a number of things that this lesson did for my students.  Firstly, it reenforced some ideas that were represented in a short story we read by giving them a real life circumstance where a rogue wave caused a shipwreck.  Secondly, we did some activities on fact and opinion, and what the difference is.  We also discussed loaded language and what words were present between all the different articles.  This also lead to a discussion of connotation, and whether these "loaded" words made the articles and videos positive or negative.