I still remember my senior year AP English class. I have long since forgotten exactly how much we read and what exactly we hashed out in class discussions, but I have still to forget the impact of the class as a whole.
I realized it for the first time as I went to the movies with some friends that senior year. I spent the entire time trying to turn off the literary critic in my head. “Good grief!” I thought, “I can’t even go to the movies any more!” My teacher had “ruined” any kind of seemingly brainless fun I thought I might be able to have. It was the same with music, commercials, sitcoms, billboards.
Now, at seventeen I couldn’t quite realize the gift that had been imparted to me through the passion of my teacher, but it has come into sharp focus as I seek to impart the same kind of critical thinking radar to my own students.
What am I passionate about? What am I curious about? And why are these things important? According to Thomas Friedman, “The winners [of the 21st century] won’t just be those with more I.Q. It will also be those with more P.Q. (passion quotient) and C.Q. (curiosity quotient) to leverage all the new digital tools to not just find a job, but to invent one or reinvent one, and to not just learn but to relearn for a lifetime” (2013). Passion and curiosity are difficult to measure, but we know them when we see or experience them, and as educators it is imperative that we know how to reflect on our own, as well as our students’, P.Q. and C.Q.
For myself as an educator, I am passionate about sharing this ability to read the world with my students, and to show them how this can both fuel and satisfy curiosity when applied. It all comes back to this notion that everything I see or hear or experience is something that could be understood more deeply. Things are never quite as they seem – there’s always something to discover if one would only dig! This, for me, is what “reading” really is. Sure it starts by looking past the letters to the words they represent, but it goes so, so much deeper than that. It’s being able to see what’s there, but also looking past the surface to try and discover what influenced the writing or what unintentionally was communicated.
Thus, I tend to be pretty curious about everything! Like a small child my favorite word is often “Why?” or “How come?” I can get into some pretty awkward social situations sometimes, but it’s worth it. This isn’t to say that I have time to investigate all the nooks and crannies of life, but I often wish I did. I try to read people, ideas, events, and pop culture – not always successfully, but I try – and this is what I most want my students to do as well. I want them to critically read everything with which they interact! In our modern world, technology has so interconnected us that it is both easier and more difficult to do this kind of “reading.” Easier in that we have almost instant access to just about anything in the world and tons of it for free. More difficult because with so much clambering for our attention it can be hard to focus on one thing long enough to think or even to identify reliable information.
I strive to impart a passion for reading everything by creating projects that push students to read both traditional and non-traditional genres, and expose them to lots of different online resources. Kids know all about how to use the web, but often they don’t know how to use it well. By giving them lots of guided access, I hope to teach them ways to reliably and safely use the Internet. Being introduced to Creative Commons through my CEP classes for MSU has been wonderful for this.
One example of such a project I’ve created is “Are We Beautiful?” which explores self-image in a photoshopped world. The project’s big, driving question asks “How does the search for beauty impact society and ourselves?” Through the project we answer this with an eye toward both ELA and Heath standards. We start by “reading” images and work our way to the formation of a history. We blend in videos, articles, and blogs, and then they go in search of their own information. All of this leads into learning about how to be a wise consumer of online sources. In the end, students have a choice about what to create as a final product – a letter to a magazine editor or the create of a motivational speech to 6th graders (in person or via YouTube). We research, draft, improve, and cite. Then they can send their letter or I work to coordinate either the in-person delivery to a class or the recording for YouTube if parental permission is granted. It’s amazing to see how the real world context does wonders for their writing about their reading! Asking students to create authentic and important products not only motivates them to take their work seriously, but it gives them practice being active agents in the world around them.
Here’s a small look at some of the bones of the project available to students through our online learning environment:
Working through this project, technology tools aid us in this process to collaborate and access material (got to love Google docs and YouTube), but at the end of the day our focus isn’t on the tools but on the thought process. Can they look at the highly edited world in which they live without being duped? Can they read between the lines? If they are going to be passionate people living successfully in the 21st century, they will have to be. Can they dig for answers past the surface? Can they locate reliable information? If they are going to be curious people living successfully in the 21st century, they will need to be.
As I’ve been mulling over these goals and how I attempt to achieve them with my students, this image (full res by clicking here) began to form in my mind. I hope it’s beneficial in representing what I have been attempting to explain about how I seek to transmit my passion for critically reading abilities.
(Thank you, once again, Piktochart!)
Whatever your passion is and however you choose to be curious about the world, may what you do infect others with a similar drive.
By so doing you’ll only be increasing your own!
That, at least, has been my own experience.
References
Friedman, Thomas. (29 Jan. 2013). It’s the P.Q. and C.Q. as Much as the I.Q. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/opinion/friedman-its-pq-and-cq-as-much-as-iq.html?_r=1.
The Ice-Cream Coffee Teacher 