Project 2: Friday Notes and Overall Theme

On Friday we collectively combined all of Ms. May's comments on our blogs about Project 2 and used them to define our argument and strengthen our topics relation to the texts read in class.

Our "Theme Notes" were as follows:

1. Students should have freedom to shape their literacies rather than being receptacles in which a teacher pour his/her topics.
2. Do required topics disempower literacy?
3. Do we ever act in society with complete freedom?
4. Freedom is a motivating factor for literacies.
5. Without student freedom and involvement, literacy loses its motivation for students.
6. What would be the benefits of a liberator classroom?

From this we obtained our overall theme- or argument. 

• The freedom to choose a particular topic to write about gives students the opportunity to shape their own literacies, encourages and motivates student involvement , and promotes creativity. 

So far, our general relations to the texts we have read in class are:

1. Hooks: She progressively frees herself from her past as she writes about it. By willingly choosing to write about her own past, she is motivated to learn from her own story. As she has trouble writing her own autobiography, she becomes more involved in simply understanding herself. Writing for hooks as an outlet for self change. 
2. Malcolm X: He became literate by choice. He then read topics of his choice and became a writer. Malcolm's situation motivated him to create his literacy rather than shape what he already had. 
3. Brandt: Teachers have the ability to inspire and enable student creativity as sponsors of literacy according to Brandt. Confining classes to a particular topic halts such advancements. 

Methodology:

     As stated in my previous blog post, we are doing our presentation via video. Kenny and Garrett have experience in that area. Each of us will touch on our theme notes in the introduction and throughout the video. Each of us will also give our own story on how we came to agree on this topic and why it is important to us. Garrett is going to discuss the relation to Brandt, Kenny will discuss Malcolm X, and I will discuss hooks. We will interview students and teachers about their views on our argument. Finally, we will  conclude our argument and state we have learned in our research.