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70
King delivering his speech, and followed the screening with a class discussion about
the content of the speech. Mr. Davidson distributed copies of an excerpt of the
speech he had copied from another website and the class read through the text line by
line and discussed its meaning. We began with this line: “And so even though we
face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American dream.”
The class had discussed figurative language only once or twice before
beginning this assignment, so decoding the language of the speech was Mr.
Davidson’s initial concern. For example, he asked students what it means that King’s
dream was “deeply rooted in the American dream.” They understood the use of
“rooted” to refer to foundational beliefs or knowledge, but had no idea what is meant
by “The American Dream.” I think both Mr. Davidson and I found this surprising, as
so many of the students’ families have immigrated to the US. So, we worked on
defining the American dream.
Mr. Davidson first asked the students “who were the first Americans?” The
answers ranged from the Native Americans (technically correct, but not what he was
looking for) to Abraham Lincoln, George Bush, Gabriel’s Grandma, and God. At
this point, Mr. Davidson, frustrated by the students’ flippant answers, changed his
method. Instead of asking the students to define the American dream, he first told the
story of how his family came to the US from another country, and then asked if they
had any ideas about what the American dream could be based on the story. He
acknowledged that most of the students’ parents had come to the US from another
Object Description
| Title | Kids as cultural producers: consumption, literacy, and participation |
| Author | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Author email | rherr@usc.edu; bhs@hri.uci.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Communication |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-25 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-17 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Banet-Weiser, Sarah |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Gross, Larry Seiter, Ellen |
| Abstract | This dissertation looks closely at the practice of digital media production within a group of special education students and their teachers. Using ethnographic methods of extended participant observation and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents, along with textual analysis of students' media projects, this work examines the types of learning that emerge from making media at school and the ways in which that learning relates to media and technology use in everyday life. Over the course of one school year (2005-2006), the students who are the focus of this dissertation undertook eight different multimedia production projects, ranging from designing PowerPoint presentations to digital video production and stop-motion animation. Through media production, the students found opportunities to practice traditional and digital literacy skills as well as to explore issues of identity and self-expression.; This dissertation provides empirical support for recommendations made by several media literacy scholars to include media production as part of critical media literacy curricula and contributes a unique case study -- one situated in special education -- to a growing body of work on digital literacy. Three interdisciplinary themes--consumption, literacy, and participation -- are used to organize the description and analysis of the students' media production activities. These themes connect the specific production that took place in the classroom to larger discourses about youth, media, technology, education, and access, working to complicate existing constructions of young people as either helpless victims of manipulative media or naturally savvy media and technology users. Instead, this research emphasizes that the relationships kids have with media and technology are complex, dynamic, intrinsically linked to their identities as consumers and participants in society. Media literacy is thus theorized as a tool for understanding and controlling consumption, participation, and the construction of young people as both current and future citizens. |
| Keyword | media literacy; media production; special education; middle school; digital media |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Coverage date | 2005/2006 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1674 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Stephenson-2393 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Stephenson-2393.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 75 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 70 King delivering his speech, and followed the screening with a class discussion about the content of the speech. Mr. Davidson distributed copies of an excerpt of the speech he had copied from another website and the class read through the text line by line and discussed its meaning. We began with this line: “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.” The class had discussed figurative language only once or twice before beginning this assignment, so decoding the language of the speech was Mr. Davidson’s initial concern. For example, he asked students what it means that King’s dream was “deeply rooted in the American dream.” They understood the use of “rooted” to refer to foundational beliefs or knowledge, but had no idea what is meant by “The American Dream.” I think both Mr. Davidson and I found this surprising, as so many of the students’ families have immigrated to the US. So, we worked on defining the American dream. Mr. Davidson first asked the students “who were the first Americans?” The answers ranged from the Native Americans (technically correct, but not what he was looking for) to Abraham Lincoln, George Bush, Gabriel’s Grandma, and God. At this point, Mr. Davidson, frustrated by the students’ flippant answers, changed his method. Instead of asking the students to define the American dream, he first told the story of how his family came to the US from another country, and then asked if they had any ideas about what the American dream could be based on the story. He acknowledged that most of the students’ parents had come to the US from another |
