Production 4 VB

What is ‘embodied inquiry’ (Doerr-Stevens)? What literacies and competences are enacted through the process of embodied inquiry and making? And what do the authors mean by ‘messiness’ – and what are the opportunities and possible impacts of the process (described) for deeper/interdisciplinary learning?

Embodied inquiry is the process of inventing and innovating a media project as students continue to develop this media project. It is through this engagement with the project that students start to reposition themselves from students to ethnographers, as they gather data through field observations and/or interviews. Moreover, this repositioning was evident in the multimodal design process of expressing their ideas through videos, images, music, and words (Doerr-Stevens, 2017, p. 57).

When students were engaged in the making of their project, they are able to deepen their understanding of the topic that they focused on, as well as deepen their interest. This process encourages several literacy and competences such as: research methods (gathering data through field observations and interviews, analyzing and making sense of data, and figuring out the implications after the analysis), philosophers (what did students realize by the end of their project), being socially responsible citizens (how can they change the community or world they live in), learning about documentaries (before even creating media projects, their teacher taught them about documentaries), learning to analyze nonfiction and writing narratives, and more! There are so many competences that arise from the media production.

The messiness explains the back and forth and shifting of perspectives that a student might encounter during the process of creating and making their media project. For example, Erin originally hated going on the bus based on preconceived notions, but after riding the bus and making field observations, she realized that the bus rides are a point of connection between strangers, friends, and that she could learn a lot about people and lessons (Doerr-Stevens, 2017, p. 59). Another example is when Chandra was editing her media project and decided to do a back and forth between two different interviewees, as if they were in conversation with each other. It was during the editing process, not so much the field observations, where she had a shift in perspective of city buses (Doerr-Stevens, 2017, pp. 60-61).

In addition, it’s the constant revision of the project that may make it seem messy. Sometimes, when students are engaged in a huge project of their choice, they need to re-examine what they have done so far and edit or revise certain aspects…they might even decide to change the whole project altogether! This is actually what is happening in our own course with the Adventure Projects. Professor Kurt said that the proposals are not just something to be handed in on one occasion, but something that we will find we might have to or need to revise over time. This process is organic in production and actually relates and connects to many of our readings thus far.

This relates to the other reading for this week as Young (2011) talks about the significance of creating a product that is meaningful to the students. Students were more likely to be motivated and dedicated to creating a quality product if they knew it was going to be shared not just with the teacher, but with others in the class, school, and community (p. 7)! Since the interest and excitement is there, students are more likely to want to learn how to use the digital tool(s) and their features properly and appropriately. Furthermore, I am reminded of the Indigenous Knowledge and the Story of the Bean article by Brayboy & Maughan (2009). They talk about the methodological structure of teaching students how to plant a seed (following a science lab report), where students blindly copy step by step procedures on a page and submit that page (p. 8). By allowing students to be immersed in multimodal experiences, they break free from the structuredness (I don’t think this is a real word haha!) of Western Knowledge Systems. An applicable example I can think of is in a mathematics program. I don’t want to see students memorizing the steps to solving word problems they’ve seen before—I want them to use the tools and building blocks from their previous experiences in mathematics to find a solution to rich tasks which are meant to meet different learners’ needs at different times. This may mean that students would often times be posing their own problems, are allowed to share the different methods and responses (there may be different starting, middle, and end points to a problem), are encouraged to be creative and imaginative in their application of knowledge, etc. (Piggott, Rich Tasks and Contexts). Additionally, there is a connection with multimodal experiences to multiliteracies, as both create the conditions for learning that foster the ability for an individual to navigate and thrive in the different social worlds that they will be involved in, by collaborating and negotiating with those who have differing interests and values than they do (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009, pp. 173-174).

This also relates to something that I’m trying to teach my students—about editing and revising your work constantly. They are working on writing their own remixed version of a classic fairytale, but I tell them every class, if they are finished, not to submit it until the due date. I tell them this is because at the moment they might not be able to critique their own work because of writer’s block, or because they have been working on it constantly for a while. Sometimes they need fresh eyes to see what needs to be changed, or sometimes a thought might occur randomly throughout the day, while they are walking home from school, or showering, where it might change the direction of their story completely.

Giving our students opportunities to investigate and be immersed in multimodal experiences, to revise, to edit, to create, to add sound, etc. means that students will be engaged in deeper learning. The students mentioned in the Doerr-Stevens (2017) reading all had some shift in perspective or thinking about what they thought they knew about the world around them (p. 61). Similarly, if our students continue to engage in this multimodal design process then they will be critical thinkers and responsible citizens as they become open to the intricacies of this world and learn about and develop a passion for social justice issues going on in their community, nationally, and globally.

References

Jones Brayboy, B. M., & Maughan, E. (2009). Indigenous knowledges and the story of the bean. Harvard Educational Review, 79(1), 1-21.

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An international journal, 4(3), 164-195.

Doerr-Stevens, C. (2017). Embracing the Messiness of Research: Documentary Video Composing as Embodied, Critical Media Literacy. English Journal, 106(3), 56.

Piggott, J. (n.d.). Rich Tasks and Contexts. Retrieved February 7, 2020, from https://nrich.maths.org/5662

Young, J. S. (2011). The Pedagogy of Production: Investigating What Works for Teaching Media Literacy.

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