molly+and+stacey

Reviewing the research questionnaires from Montgomery Blair High School

1. Variables and Concepts:

Media consumption and rate of use Reasons for internet use Potential civic engagement Family Involvement Smoking Rates/Reasons General media literacy Open ended questions measure students ability to engage in critical talk

2. Research Questions

What are the possible relationships between media consumption and the students' judgments about smoking? ---This could be an interesting topic in effects research. Are the students in media literacy better able to deconstruct advertising messages and in turn, less susceptible to smoking?

Do the student's enrolled in the media literacy academy engage in more critical talk than those in other academies? ---This would help understand the effects of media literacy education and also help Montgomery Blair High understand the impact of the media literacy academy.

Does family/home life influence the amount of media consumption? ---This is interesting because it could help make a case for media literacy at home as well as in school.

Generating Research Methods - Rheingold

Case Study: How does Rheingold's proposed curriculum support his statement, "moving from a private to a public voice helps students turn their self-expression into a form of public participation" (p.101)? Does Rheingold effectively create a "resuscitation of voice" (p. 106)?

Curriculum: Blogging exercises to develop public voice. Go beyond rhetoric and connect to role as a citizen in democracy. Find a "public" - a community of interest - and compose a blog geared toward them; utilize connective writing; analyze the logic of another blog post; finally, take a position on an issue that matters to you.

In our project, we would observe the classroom implementing this curriculum and use field notes and interviews to conduct a thorough case study. How will the teacher assess how well the students turn their private voices into public voices? What are assessment criteria? How does the teacher present "blogging rhetoric"? Is critical thinking present? What was taught in this class prior to this curricular intervention? How was civic engagement previously taught, and is there a difference due to this new engagement in blogging? How do the students understand public life - before and after? How does the teacher?

What is the level of engagement in this curriculum by the students? Rheingold quotes boyd in saying, "In order to engage in political life, people have to have access to public life first. Youth need publics - networked or physical - before they can engage in any form of political life..."