Swanepoel3241’s Weblog

Title: Like a Snake as Literary Elements
Objective: To demonstrate how literary elements are found in pop-culture, and what they add to advertisements such as Burger King’s triple whopper.
Procedure:
Briefing on literary elements [10 minutes]
– Have the students name different elements and devices that they are familiar with
– Have they seen these elements in everyday life? If so when?
– Do they find the devices relatable? Would they pick up on them?
– How do the students think literary elements enrich literature?

Viewing of Burger King’s Like a Snake Advertisement [5 minutes]
– Have the students watch the first time around, then take notes the second time.
– Make sure that the students are looking at the specific literary elements.
– Facilitate their findings if they seem to have trouble.

Group Work [30 minutes]
– Have the students divide into groups of five.
– Each group will provide a close reading of the commercial and its literary elements
What is the message conveyed?
Who is the message created for?
What do the literary elements say about the consumer/ product?
Do you buy the advertisement? Why or why not?

Debriefing on literary elements in pop-culture [10 minutes]
– Have each group representative speak on their findings.
– Have the groups come up with the same or similiar findings?
– Do the students seem to have a clear understanding of how the elements were
used?
– Facilitate any questions the students might have.

After today’s brief introduction to Internet Memes, I felt sad to think that people spend their time coming up with these Lolcats, hoaxes, or what have you. I do not see the point to them and i dont understand the effort that goes into them. It completely surprised me when half the class acknowledged that they knew what an Lolcat was- i had no clue!! And i mean absolutely no offense in this post. If anything, i am trying to rid my ignorance and the first step, i believe, is coming clean of my pre-judgements. Dont people have bills, children, spouses, careers, and friends to pay attention to? Rather than obsessing over intenet phenomena’s? I would be interested to hear from any of you who partake in this scene, so hopefully light will be shed on my ignorance. Is there more to it that i dont see?

 I wanted to post this video to share with the class a glimpse of what education in poverished areas look like. Being South African, it is my ultimate goal to return home and teach to the poor. Quality education in SA is only found in private schools, and unfortunately majority of the countries people cannot afford the necessary costs. The public school are poorly funded and as a result they lack effective education. Furthermore, the public schools are not safe enviornments for students to learn. Qualified teachers are usually afraid to step into the public schools due to violence, but if the government wont fund reformation then someone has to have the courage to step in for the students are South Africa’s future.

This past weekend i saw a doctumentary on ABC called iCaught. This program focused on how Americans are using things such as Podcasts and Blogsites for personal and professional use. A large section of the show was dedicated to exposing how troops in Iraq are using this technology. There was quite an uproar when soldiers began posting Podcasts and video’s for the world to see. As a result, the troops have been forbidden to post Podcasts or enter on sites such as Youtube, Facebook, or Myspace. Reasoning was that since the computers are government property, there should be a sense of professional use on them. The program then shifted to individuals who have infact made themselves famous through blogging. Perez Hilton leads this pack. He is a celebrity gossip bloggist and has now become such as famous and as wealthy as some of the people he writes about. iCaught was extremely interesting and i was glad to see that i could relate what we are learning in class to an outside program.

I am looking forward to divulging into the creative aspects of technology for our future class projects. I have iMovie on my computer but have never taken the time to “tinker” with it. Out of intimidation? Im not quite sure. I just assumed that it would take time and since i did not have to use the application i did not bother to check it out. Our class project gives me the opportunity to play, create, and evalute what i can do with technology. The more i complete the assignments for class, the more i realize how simple and efffective these applications are. For example, i find logging onto our class blog site much easier and more entertaining than logging onto Web-Ct for homework information.

Is it not sad to think that technology might replace the authenticity of books. Or will technology work along side books to further their depth and the depth of our students intellect? Interesting debate.

I encourage all my fellow classmates to look into how this one teacher from Athena High School uses blogs to share her classroom experiences. On her web-page, she offers her goals for her students, her assignments, her experiences, her expectations and her questions for other teachers. This site is a prime example of effective communication between teachers reginional and world-wide.

I am excited to begin this blogging adventure. While i might need help along the way, I do not find this course overwhelming. Rather, I feel as though this course will give insight to the latest-fashion in technology’s over grown world.