Module 9 – Much Ado About K-12 Computing for Literacy Teacher Educators

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  Posted by Sara Vogel, PhD. (she/her) on June 14, 2023 at 2:06 pm

  After engaging with the Much Ado About K-12 Computing For Literacy Teacher Educators module here, reflect on these prompts by replying to this post:

  • What patterns in word usage did you observe?
  • What kinds of new questions about the text emerged for you?
  • Are there sections of the text you might want to re-read now? If so, what might you hope to learn more about?

• Jacqueline Darvin (she/her)

  Member

  June 18, 2023 at 7:20 am

  I chose to look at The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas on Plotting Plots and chose the words “love”, “hate” and “forgive” to look at their frequency patterns (screeen shot attached). I noticed a really interesting patten in that love is used far more frequently than hate and forgive appears the least of all. Addtionally, love is most prominant in the beginning, middle, and end of the text, hate fluctuates up and down and is the highest at the end, and forgive is rarely used, except at the 2/3 mark and again at the end. Seeing these words plotted in this way made me reflect back on the text and how it might be framed or reframed around the words “love” and “forgive” rather than “hate”, the word that stands out in the title. Also, It made me want to re-read the beginning, middle, and particularly the end so that I might learn more about the roles that these three words play in the text and how love/hate are mirrored/reflected throughout. I think the ELA teachers in my literacy master’s program would enjoy using the Plotting Plots resource, and I can see many possibilities for how I might use it in my classes and how they can use it with middle and high school students in their ELA classes! I am looking forward to the summer camp and exploring further! 🙂

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  Edward Birzin (He/Him)

  Member

  June 26, 2023 at 2:33 pm

  I looked at three texts that I studied in college, texts that always stayed with me and texts that I have brought to students. I looked at Moby Dick, Leaves of Grass, and Frankenstein. I tried many different words that I thought summed up the text, or at least words I thought were important for the text. With “Leaves of Grass” I used “human”, “nature”, “animals”, and “god”. I found that Whitman used “god” mostly in book 3 and book 26. “Nature” comes up often throughout all of the text, where ‘human” and “animal” are less frequently used. I find this fascinating because I always remembered the text as something that evoked animal and natural settings and feelings. I would like to re-read the parts where “god” is mentioned most, just to think deeper about what Whitman was writing.

  For “Frankenstein” I plotted the words “love”, “hate”, “human”, and “monster”. I noticed spikes for these words which made me think more deeply about the story. The word “human” spiked in chapters 4, 9, 16, and 21. That makes me wonder what is going on in those chapters, why did Shelley use that word in those places? I also notice “love” spiking towards the end, but also showing up throughout the novel. I do remember the monster going off with his bride in the end, but I think different tellings of the story (like in the movies and other popular culture) has the bride dying in the end. I forget if the monster found peace in the end of the story, or did he wander forever in the North Pole alone? This makes me think how this could be used in the classroom. I think this would be fascinating for a second reading of a text, where students after reading the text one time plug in the words they find sum up the book or are important to the text and then find exactly where those words are used and how the chapter works with the chosen words. Maybe by doing so students will get a deeper understanding of the text and also it could be useful for a written piece about the text.

  Finally for Moby Dick I plugged in the words “sea”, “ship”, whale” and “ahab”. There are all these spikes for “whale” especially in chapter 3 and in chapter 1. I wonder what was happening in chapter 3? Obviously the whale was Ahab’s obsession, but there were times when “whale” was not mentioned much, especially from chapters 95-130. I remember long sections of that book being dedicated to explaining the workings of the boat and life on the sea, which I imagine would be found in the chapters where “whale” is not found so frequently. I enjoy seeing the spikes in chapters 36, 100 and 132-136 because “ahab” and “whale” overlap at the same frequency. I wonder what was happening in those chapters? Were the two going head to head? Thinking about this leads me to also think about how students could use this and maybe a teacher could give words to look up and then ask students to re-read certain sections where the words overlap. We could pinpoint certain action by finding the overlapping spikes in frequency of words.

  I will say that even though I studied Franco Moretti’s work in my Master’s program I was never truly a believer. I think that was because I did not have access to the same super-computer I thought he was using. After tinkering with these novels I see the genius of Moretti’s approach more clearly.

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  Christopher M Aviles (they/them)

  Member

  June 30, 2023 at 4:26 pm

  I am going to go off the record with my response before answering the questions for this forum because I feel it was this moment that I understood CITE more tangible and what these artifacts and experiences could look like! This was my ‘aha’ moment if you will, I was so fascinated with the introductory video by Professor Tom Liam Lynch, I think listening to his ‘aha’ moment with literature and tech and how there is very much a direct connections and going through my own rabbit hole of listening to his videos (which are fascinating), I finally found myself understanding what and how this initiative could look like. It made me think of a world of possibilities!

  I am in no way an English major but really did value my experiences in English class during high school in which I critically engaged with some of the featured texts. Initially, upon entering this module, I found myself intimated and wondering did I choose the right one to explore. But I am ultimately so happy I did because of what I learned and got exposure to. I feel like Lynch is making a case for a world in which tech can help us better understand or provide a visual understanding of Literature for students who might need it! Students who might not understand literature because they have a science brain (and instead of outsourcing for someone to do their English essay or risking using ChatGBT to write an essay for them) can have a more nuanced way to engage with literature that will allow them to understand things better and actually engage in a Literature class.

  Now when it comes to the novel I chose to engage with using Plotting Plots, I chose Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A text I enjoyed reading in an AP Literature class in high school. I couldn’t think of words immediately but some began to pop into my head (it’s been years since I’ve read the book) but I began to think of words like monster, beautiful, good and evil and saw if they existed and to my look they did! I chose words that flight like opposites and wonder if that opposite meaning would exist graphically and they did! I found it fascinating to see a wondering of mine have graphical meaning (if that makes sense). I thought about how this would be a great conversation with students? I thought about how this graph could be used as a discussion point with students? On an AP test?

  Questions I am pondering about this text, given the graph:

  What might this show us about the author’s craft?

  What assumptions or connections can you make to pivotal moments of character development?

  How does this help us better understand each character? Or pivotal moments in the text?

  How does this support you in better understanding how language or use of words can create thoughts and assumptions about certain characters?

   

  I find myself definitely interested in re-reading the text more with a unique lens that characters to my interest. I chose this set of words and and can read this book from this frame of reference.

  I am even thinking about how we can create projects in which students can choose how they want to engage with a text of their choosing. Pick a book from a list, read the front cover and back over and cover page, hypothesize a word bank of adjectives or other words that may be present in the text, why were those chose, how might these words provide a frame of reference for this text, and after reading – what did we learn? Is there alignment? Did this support a better understanding of the novel?

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