WARNING: Please read this for the trully rough draft that it is, this is all my ideas just poured onto a piece of paper, and will be refined as soon as I get the opportunity.
Digital Story Reflection
By creating digital stories of ourselves, I didn't just learn about my classmates but I learned more about myself as well, which is not something I was expecting. The digital stories created in class reflect the characteristics of Culturally Responsive Teaching by meeting the needs of student learning, building cultural pride, and identifying student interest to build a community.
In the large scheme of things this project designed an instruction appropriate for different learners. Each students has their own learning differences, and by creating the project it met many of our needs. To start it was artistic, so even those students who do not like homework will get more involved to be creative. Kinsthetic learners had the opportunity to actuallly “do” learning, while those with more writing and reading ability got to write the poem. Any student could be successful in the project because it was open ended. Clipart, family photos, and photo sites were all options in the design, and even those who don't write well could use the form to create a meaningful poem.
Cultural pride was another aspect of the project that fulfills the needs of culturally responsive teaching. I had the opportunity to see the connections between language, literacy, identity, and power first hand by watching my story and others. I had a voice, and everyone else had an equal voice regardless of personality or academic success. I had the opportunity to revisit my family history, and although I know it, I've never had to sum up who I am and where I am from into a 2-3 minute project. This project was more powerful than a biography, which I have written before, because it took abstract ideas and concepts that I believe in and made them clear for others to read too. Each of us had the opportunity to show of our own funds of knowledge.
Each digital story would not be complete without an audience to view the stories. By watching others stories it helped identify student interests and create community between learners. With everyone being transparent with each other about our backgrounds, it is hard not to find a respect for everyones way of life. I had the chance to relate to others, and connect with others in a different way than I had in the last four years of studying with them.
The end result was more than I expected form the start of this project, even watching it myself I learned something about me, and where I am from. For the students of our future classes they will already come with premade stereotypes of who they are based on assorted cultural deficits, but when creating something like this, its is hard not to see the cultural capital of their lives and where they come from through understanding and respect.
ARTICLES I WILL CITE
Culturally Responsive Teaching
Moll-Funds of Knowledge
NCTE-multi-modal literacies
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