Jackson-Coe Confronting Apathy: Using Video and Audio Vignettes in Reading Classes

23/Th 8:00 AM Allen

Type_Presentation:         60-minute Concurrent Session

PresentationTitle:         Confronting  Apathy:  Using Video  and Audio Vignettes in Reading Classes

ProgramStrand_Primary:     College Reading

ProgramStrand_Secondary:   None

Presentation_description:

Engaging students through technology is effective; incorporating it into college reading classes is challenging.  This session will demonstrate how to use video and audio vignettes to improve student understanding of reading essentials, teach critical thinking skills that transfer to reading, and engage and motivate students.

Session_summary:

Technology can be an extremely effective way to engage students in learning, but incorporating it into a college reading class curriculum can prove challenging.  Students who are placed into a developmental reading class by means of a test score are often disgruntled at being told they are not good enough readers for college, and present themselves as being quite apathetic towards the whole "improve your reading skills" approach taught in some typical college developmental reading classes.  The question this session will attempt to answer is how to use technology, and specifically video and audio vignettes, to improve student understanding of reading essentials such as: tone, purpose, thesis and theme, opinion and fact, argument, and critical thinking.

Noticing that the students in my reading classes usually take a very passive approach to the very active reading strategies that I teach and try to reinforce throughout the semester, I searched for a way to involve the students at the beginning of class, as well as to increase the likelihood that students would attend and be on time not so much because of a class rule, but because of the interest.  The idea of using video and audio vignettes at the beginning of each class is to motivate and stimulate interest.

Participants in this session will experience an untraditional approach to teaching conventional reading skills.  Handouts asking students (session participants) to identify specific elements of each video or audio vignette will be distributed, and discussion will follow.  Suggestions of what vignettes are available via websites (youtube, npr, lincolncenter, etc.) will be shared.  In my classes, students are challenged to find vignettes they would like to share with the class, around which they can design a five minute "lesson" teaching or reinforcing a reading skill discussed in class, and participants in this session would be similarly challenged to brainstorm their own lesson after being presented with several examples. Transference of skills from the video and audio to written material will be discussed, as it is in class, and examples of essays, short stories, and poems will be shared (for example, "Greasy Lake," "Joyas Voladoras," "City out of Breath," "The Fireman," and Billy Collins' "Dear Reader" among others).

In my seven years as a college reading instructor, I have gone from using the traditional college reading textbook to using essays, short stories, poems, academic journals and textbooks, and library materials to teach the critical reading and thinking skills necessary for college students to possess.  Organizing key points, paraphrasing, and summary writing have become the focus of my reading classes.  Specific questions, made from a template of general questions (who is the author, what does the reader know about the author after reading this, why did the author write this, is it timely, what will you remember about this next week, and how has this changed you) help students learn how to connect with and discuss these many types of materials in meaningful ways. Engaging students with cd's, dvd's and internet resources seems a natural progression to helping students develop and achieve the objectives of my college reading classes.

PresenterBio:

Julie Jackson-Coe currently teaches two levels of developmental reading (credit and non-credit) in upstate New York at Genesee Community College full-time, and coordinates the reading program there. Previously she has worked at Niagara University as an academic counselor and tutor coordinator, and at GCC as a learning specialist, helping students with learning disabilities become successful college students.  She has a master's degree in learning and behavior disorders, with an emphasis on reading, and is planning on pursuing an MFA in poetry.