Loving your blogs!

Hi Everyone
I have been visiting your blogs this morning - and am loving it. You are by far the most multimodally experimental group of student bloggers that I have worked with... yet!
Anyway, the opera is not over until the fat lady sings as they say... so I will continue watching and see you for some popular culture next week.

Welcome to the blogosphere!

Dear All
Congratulations on joining the blogosphere. Beneath this post you will find two posts from Victoria. These explain how to engage with your next two sessions!

FIRST though... As promised I am posting a task that you need to respond to in your groups. Please can you make your contribution by posting it to your new group blog. You will need to email Vic and I the link to your blogs so that we can comment!

Now that the administrative business is over, let's get to the interesting bit! I would like you to read Pahl and Rowsell's discussion about 'Reading Paths' in relation to multimodal texts (2005:35-36). As they explain, we are socialised to read different types of text in different ways, according to the types of text that our cultures make available to us. Currently, many of the children that we will work with in schools will be used to screen-based texts that are read in very different ways to a conventional storybook.

For your task, I would like you to carry out the 'reading path' activity described on page 36. I have summarised it below for you in case you don't have access to the book.
1. Visit an exciting/funky website
2. Chart how you navigate through it
3. Make a note of your path and where it led you
4. Then look at the pages in greater detail
5. Analyse where written text sits and what visuals do
6. What is the logic behind your reading path
7. What compelled you to move to another page and did you return to the original one
(taken from Pahl and Rowsell, 2005:36)

For your post I would like your group to describe the logic behind your reading paths and reflect on the implications for teaching children to read, e.g what strategies may you need to employ in school when working at text level?

Please limit your post to no more than 300 words.
Please include a link to the website.
Please include at least three images - of your group; of screen shots; of anything that is acceptable!
Please be responsible bloggers as described in the module overview!

Good luck!
Clare

Consumer Culture podcast

Please listen to the next podcast for EDEN207 here. The audio track accompanies the slide handout you will have picked up from Jenny Dick.

Note that there is an activity to do before you attend Clare's next session. You are free to do it individually or in small groups. Bring your thoughts and comments with you to the next session.
Have fun!

Critical Literacy Podcast

Hi all,
This is where you get the podcast for the EDEN207 lecture on Critical Literacies. Click on this link to listen to the podcast to accompany the slide handout you collected from Jenny Dick.

If you're feeling more adventurous and have broadband access, you might like to try the movie version.

Once you're listened to the podcast/movie, there is an activity to complete - you will have received the activity sheet from Jenny when you picked up the slides.

Additional reading: This article outlines some of the ways in which critical literacy may be taken up in the classroom. For those of you who would like to think the issues through a little more, have a look at this piece by Comber and Kamler - they note the contested nature of the term 'critical literacy'.


Blog comment - Based on the activity you did following the critical literacy session and your subsequent reading and thinking, why do you think the term is contested? And, is this a good/bad thing? Also, in your blog entry, you may wish to comment on the relevance of critical literacy for the types of classrooms you envisage yourself working in.