Tuesday, June 19, 2018

High School Summer Reading 2018


Who? All West Boylston High School students in grades 9-12.

What? The podcast Serial, Season One (12 episodes). It's Baltimore, 1999. Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior, disappears after school one day. Six weeks later detectives arrest her classmate and ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. He says he's innocent - though he can't exactly remember what he was doing on that January afternoon. But someone can. A classmate at Woodlawn High School says she knows where Adnan was. The trouble is, she’s nowhere to be found…

When? Summer of 2018. Be prepared to discuss Serial when we return to school in the Fall.

Where? Anywhere! See below for how to access Serial.

How?
  1. On the web, via Serial’s official website or a cloud podcast player: https://serialpodcast.org/season-one or shortorange.com. Written transcripts are available via the official website.
  2. On your iPhone or Android, using one of the following apps: Stitcher, Speaker Podcast Radio, Podbean, TuneIn Radio, or any other app you prefer.

Why? In light of the Common Core State Standards' shift toward the use of nonfiction, podcasts provide a unique way to build critical thinking skills while adhering to state standards. Common Sense Media cites a host of other benefits gained through listening to podcasts, including: boost learning, reduce screen time, go anywhere, cost nothing, and get two thumbs up from kids!
Michael Godsey cites additional benefits in his 2016 Atlantic article, saying “perhaps most satisfying to me, they [his students] were engaging in adult conversations with teachers, parents, and administrators who were listening to the same podcast.” In another Atlantic piece about “the podcast brain,” writer Tiffanie Wen quoted Emma Rodero, a communications professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, as saying that “listening, unlike looking at a written page, is more active, since the brain has to process the information at the pace it is played.” In the same aforementioned Atlantic article, Rodero explained: “Audio is one of the most intimate forms of media because you are constantly building your own images of the story in your mind and you’re creating your own production … and that of course, is something that you can never get with visual media.”


We’re mixing things up a bit this year! Listening to a story and reading a story do have lots of similarities. There are also lots of benefits to listening, including the fact that research shows students can listen to content two to three grade levels higher than they can read. Listening is also a huge part of the Common Core and a standard that we under-utilize. Serial will be a means to an end, and students who get invested in this story will have lots of opportunities to read and further their knowledge, whether it is the long Reddit strands, follow up interviews, or other crime non-fiction stories, there are lots of places we can point our readers to.



No comments:

Post a Comment