One of the perennial rites of literacy learning in our classrooms is study of the novel. If done right, this proves to be an enlightening, enriching growth experience; one that not only results in important, standards-based literacy learning, but realization of that Holy Grail literacy goal, lifelong readers. Importantly, current novels have their characters using technology, the kind that today’s students are much impacted by and fascinated with. This represents an opportunity that today’s literacy teachers really should acknowledge and rise to.
Many students do not immediately connect with novels
as a print genre precisely because they enjoy getting stories and information
from multiple digital and online sources. Were teachers of ELA and Literature to
present, and highlight how, novels have an increasing number of pivotal text
mentions of varieties of the technology that are the crux of students’ everyday
lives; things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, texting, and more, their students
would engage with the text deeply.
Further, in today’s world, one in which technology allows for fake news and viral rumors, such as the announcement of Tom Petty’s death hours before its occurrence, students, as connected, global citizens, need to become informed and alert about the degree to which intensive use of technology can have both positive benefits and sadly, if used without reflection, may cause irreparable damage. In short, today’s students must develop Digital Text Mindfulness.
Further, in today’s world, one in which technology allows for fake news and viral rumors, such as the announcement of Tom Petty’s death hours before its occurrence, students, as connected, global citizens, need to become informed and alert about the degree to which intensive use of technology can have both positive benefits and sadly, if used without reflection, may cause irreparable damage. In short, today’s students must develop Digital Text Mindfulness.
Through study of novels in which technology plays a role,
students may better analyze their own personal tech use and begin to consider
the extent to which that's positive or can be harmful to them and to their
peers. Likewise, through identifying an author’s use of descriptions of
technology and its uses and impacts within a novel’s text, students who relate
to and are familiar with this area, are afforded a vehicle to deeper engagement with and better
understanding of many worthwhile, current. novels.
An increasing number of key works for children and young
adults, works published by respected authors and widely used in classrooms
grades 3-12, now include extensive references to the digital technology impact aspects
of contemporary lives; including those of elementary school kids. Texting, email, Facebook posting,
video conferencing, and other common technology practices have changed not
only childrens’ and adolescents’ academic lives, but their personal lives as
well.
Reflecting on these technology-based impacts to personal,
social, and family life can be described as the practice of Digital Mindfulness;
that is, students, as readers and
citizens, reflect on instances of technology use that appear in the print text
of studied novels they can examine their consequences in their own personal
lives. This examination can contribute to
their comprehension of the narrative story, as well as beyond it, to seize
control over digital communication in their personal lives.
In what ways is this so? Think about making friends and keeping a
friendship going, or ending it with a blow-out fight, the stuff of middle and
high school life. Currently, this social
rite of passage is handled, even by elementary children, through practices like Facebook friending and unfriending, exchanges
of email, and electronically swapped ‘selfie’ images. Think of how Facebook and
the capacity to upload videos taken with a cell phone can impact body and
social image conscious kids. Importantly, these realities translate to an
opportunity for ELA teachers to ask students to read a chunk of fictional text
and note the mentions of digital technologies and social networking which are used to drive
the plot and add details to the characters.
Following this, students are asked to reflect how these author craft details inform the plot and in what ways the character’s use and valuing of digital resources positively or
negatively impacts the character.
Following this, students are asked to reflect how these author craft details inform the plot and in what ways the character’s use and valuing of digita
Teachers can
then have students reflect on how their personal, daily use of digital devices
and networks impacts their lives as students, friends, family, and community
members. This very compelling and motivating reading focus or “frame” for close
text analysis is instantly owned by students, since by using it, they metacognitively “mind”
their own use of technology and
then transfer this awareness to how
literary characters use their devices.
Unfortunately, while the vast majority of today’s students use technology in the ways described above, few of them reflect on how embedded and significant it is in shaping their social, academic and family lives. How can literacy educators focused on inculcating student digital text reference mindfulness cultivate such reading habits and awareness about their own use of digital devices and platforms? Prior to students beginning the study of technology embedded novels, teachers can craft an introductory discussion designed to focus students on how digital communications impact their lives. Among the possible prompts to foster this discussion are:
- How do you use devices and text, video, and audio communications during school day, lunch, and at home?
- In what ways do the texts, photos, videos, and audio communications you receive or send affect your friendships or your family life?
- In what ways is your socializing or chatting or being with friends and family made different (by using technology) from being together face to face in the same place physically?
In addition to this informational approach, the
literacy educator can also have students frame arguments for and against
practices like distanced friending, collaborative gameplay, exchange of photos,
and social media posting.
Those teachers who find these reflections on technology
use resonate strongly in their classroom may want to go beyond a single discussion or writing activity. They can help students start a web site or a
blog detailing ways they use technology
as part of their lives. These can function as a growing repository of reflections, memoirs, and
arguments, examining how technology changes everyone’s social interactions and
family lives; a way to be mindful of the positive aspects of those changes and
to lessen the negative ones. It can help them become more sensitive to
potentially emotionally hurtful exchanges on Facebook or Tumblr or Instagram
which can have dangerous ripple current effects.
Once a degree of mindfulness has been inculcated
about technology use in their own lives, students can next begin to apply this
awareness to their study and appreciation of the novel. If the novels include technology
that impacts the modern lives of their characters, kids’ understandings will be
enriched by reflecting on how it impacts their own lives.
To start,
generate a focus task – a focus question or theme given to students beforehand
that supports their close reading for certain details. Challenge students from
elementary to secondary grades to read texts with technology in mind by
offering them such prompts as:
-
When
you read the assigned excerpt of this work, make specific notes of the various everyday
technology devices or tools which the key characters use as do you in your
daily life.
-
For each instance of technology use you list, detail the key character or
plot event it figures in and how using it affects that plot event or that
personality.
This type of prompt will target student reading for
special domain academic vocabulary
and for ways in which the author crafts the text for a specific purpose to comment on how technology affects key character lives and actions. Have the students also comment reflectively on how the story plot or character’s life or condition would be different if the use of digital media, social networking and communications tools had not to come into play.
and for ways in which the author crafts the text for a specific purpose to comment on how technology affects key character lives and actions. Have the students also comment reflectively on how the story plot or character’s life or condition would be different if the use of digital media, social networking and communications tools had not to come into play.
This type of a target focus certainly sounds good,
but are there actual texts studied by elementary and secondary students that it
applies to? Yes, there are many! We can see examples of author use of technology
as part of the narrative in elementary level books in which texts are sent or read
by child protagonists, even young ones, using cell phones or emails. We
find this in various key works including: Wonder, Auggie & Me,
Liar
and Spy, When
You Reach Me, and Listen Slowly.
In them technology is used in pivotal
plot devices and influence kid protagonist character lives.
Series such as The Hunger Games,
Divergent,
and the Maze Runner are set in worlds with very recognizable expanded technology use
that certainly reflects what is available and observable in 21st
century young reader’s lives and to some extent offers authorial perspectives
on misuse or malign use of these technology tools or social network
possibilities. Lauren Myracle’s book,Ttyl (Talk to You Later), published
in 2011, is the first solely messages narrative written for school
students.
Classics of high school English courses such as Brave New World and 1984, I, Robot, The Martian Chronicles,
The Illustrated
Man, and Fahrenheit
451 join contemporary 21st century works like Boot Camp, All
American Boys, The Hate U Give, Everything,
13
Reasons Why, and Picture Me
Gone to highlight how ‘big brother tech’ (e.g. video spy cams and street
captured incident videos) can impact the course of character lives and plots.
Of course, again, beyond engaging with the text of
the novel to be mindful of these deliberate craft insertion technology
references by authors, students can be challenged to think about how, minus the presence of this technology, the story would unfold. They can develop their
own “de-tech” versions of it without the technology, or perhaps with the identical
technology available, but with alternative outcomes. They can also add to or develop
a new site or blog and share their views of the technology importance in the
work and how that technology plays out in their own actual lives.
The use of technology tools and social networking by
child and adolescent characters in late 20th century and millennial
literature can be the portal for more than just mandated close text analysis
for special domain words and (technology use) as plot devices. Students can
search digital resources, including print newspapers, for parallels to note events
or tech uses in real life, particularly those that affect peers. After reading the digital text references in
their fiction narratives, students can go online to identify news stories in
which uses of digital resources play out with deadly results. Indeed, many novels such as Hate U Give, 1984,
All American Boys, How It Went
Down, and others are ripped from ongoing headlines and reflect the impact
of digital devices and networks to escalate tensions and violence.
The approach need not be limited to tech embedded
child and adolescent texts only. A
thought provoking activity might be for students to creatively develop tech-embedded
versions of classic literature such as Charlotte’s Web or A Wrinkle in
Time or The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn; or even update prescient Walt Whitman‘s Crossing Brooklyn
Ferry or Harper Lee’s To kill a
Mockingbird with commonly available technology and analyze how that
technology would alter the plot and message of the work.
A book of particular interest here is Wonderstruck, which deals with the history of technology, presenting such facets of it as sound versus silent films and the use of polaroids in the 1970’s. How would this magical story be altered if its two set narratives were moved ahead 50 years and included use of different technology? Classics that are ‘Tech Updated’ by students would challenge student thinking about plot, structure, message, and envisioning different outcomes using technology; a model of creative reading, writing and technology investigation owned by students as proactive readers and digital citizens.
A book of particular interest here is Wonderstruck, which deals with the history of technology, presenting such facets of it as sound versus silent films and the use of polaroids in the 1970’s. How would this magical story be altered if its two set narratives were moved ahead 50 years and included use of different technology? Classics that are ‘Tech Updated’ by students would challenge student thinking about plot, structure, message, and envisioning different outcomes using technology; a model of creative reading, writing and technology investigation owned by students as proactive readers and digital citizens.
Digital Text Mindfulness not only fosters and enhances
close text reading and reflection, but in encouraging students to focus on how
the everyday uses of available technology figure in plot and characters’
lives, they are given a valuable opportunity to develop mindfulness about how
their own uses of technology may impact their personal lives for better, and
for worse. Thus, by making an effort to keep up with and highlight an important
development, the act of studying the novel is given new life and meaning in its
timeless function of shedding light on our lives.
Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute,
now replicated in 145 schools including the Manchester Charter Middle School in
Pittsburgh. She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators
Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies
developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. roshchaya@gmail.com
