"Stonewall Jackson Is a Unicorn" And "Dixieland DubStep": Creating Middle School Communities That Foster Multimodal Artistic Expressions Based on the American Civil War
Abstract
By taking primary resources from historical and cultural arenas surrounding the American Civil War, Middle School students can interpret the actual voices and perspectives from the 1800s. Combined with structured research and classroom discussion, the accessibility of multimedia creation technologies grants classroom communities an opportunity to create multimodal artifacts that are historically accurate and reflect the students’ own interests. The artistic results can range from installation art designs, stop-motion movies, songs, narrative fiction via comic book or film-making, performance – the possibilities are limited only by the creative environment fostered by their peers and instructor.
Aspects of this work are a part of every holistic reform phrase from personalization to project-based-learning but these are no mere “projects.” These creations serve as snapshots of modern cultural and social trends used to express and explain cultural and social issues of the past. They are also lens that can be used to understand comprehension and possibly measure the very abstract concepts that standardized tests are attempting to do in California.
The Broadway musical, HAMILTON, is nothing more than a variation of the work described above that I have been doing in classrooms of all sociocultural and socioeconomic levels for years. However, to allow for the creative to be as much a part of the conversation as standards it takes more than access to an iPad. It takes a learning space that fosters communal and individual student expression so that they learn as much about themselves and their own abilities as they do about exact details of the Battle of Shiloh.
Presentation Description
If the American Civil War were fought by opposing armies of My Little Pony unicorns to background music inspired by the Foo Fighters then you might have an idea as to how student interest can get them invested in academics. But first you have to figure out how to create the community that supports them to do so. From Anime to iMovie, Student expression via multimedia projects can reflect more than just facts about the Battle of Antietam.
Keywords
US history, Arts, Humanities, Multimedia, Multimodal, Personalized, Blended, Student-Interest, Project-Based, Social learning, Community building, Middle school, Adolescence
Location
Forsyth
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Johnson, William Beaumont, ""Stonewall Jackson Is a Unicorn" And "Dixieland DubStep": Creating Middle School Communities That Foster Multimodal Artistic Expressions Based on the American Civil War" (2016). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 41.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2016/2016/41
"Stonewall Jackson Is a Unicorn" And "Dixieland DubStep": Creating Middle School Communities That Foster Multimodal Artistic Expressions Based on the American Civil War
Forsyth
By taking primary resources from historical and cultural arenas surrounding the American Civil War, Middle School students can interpret the actual voices and perspectives from the 1800s. Combined with structured research and classroom discussion, the accessibility of multimedia creation technologies grants classroom communities an opportunity to create multimodal artifacts that are historically accurate and reflect the students’ own interests. The artistic results can range from installation art designs, stop-motion movies, songs, narrative fiction via comic book or film-making, performance – the possibilities are limited only by the creative environment fostered by their peers and instructor.
Aspects of this work are a part of every holistic reform phrase from personalization to project-based-learning but these are no mere “projects.” These creations serve as snapshots of modern cultural and social trends used to express and explain cultural and social issues of the past. They are also lens that can be used to understand comprehension and possibly measure the very abstract concepts that standardized tests are attempting to do in California.
The Broadway musical, HAMILTON, is nothing more than a variation of the work described above that I have been doing in classrooms of all sociocultural and socioeconomic levels for years. However, to allow for the creative to be as much a part of the conversation as standards it takes more than access to an iPad. It takes a learning space that fosters communal and individual student expression so that they learn as much about themselves and their own abilities as they do about exact details of the Battle of Shiloh.
