News Anaylsis

Kare 11 6 o'clock News

6:00-6:05 Many "lead" stories
MPLS homicide
Scott Taylor/pool safety
Drunk driver hits squad car in St. Cloud
Puppy save woman from burning house (no joke!)
Fishing opener date and guidelines changed
MPLS firefighters collect fro Salvation Army

Commercial 6:05-6:08
The Apprentice
Dateline
Jewelery
Kare 11
Audi
Bakers Square
Idaho Potatoes
Medtronic

6:08-story about a bear

6:08-6:10 Sven's science question

Commercial 6:10-6:13
Medtronic
Herbergers
Empire Carpet
Menards
Lexus
Ribnick Furs
Herbergers
Kare 11

6:13 picture of bald eagles

6:14-6:17 weather

6:17-6:22 sports

Commercial 6:22-6:25
Mazda
Comcast
Arby's
Toys for Tots
Entertainment Tonight

6:25-6:27
Toys for Tots

I am a fan of Kare 11, even before I "married" into the family. My cousin works on the production of Kare 11's evening news and her father is local celebrity Bobby Jensen. That being said, watching this 30 minutes of news was not very informative and kind of boring. (Sorry Bobby!) All the interesting, lead stories of the day were boiled down into headlines and sound bites, all taking about 5 minutes to deliver 8 stories. I understand that they cant possibly report on every news story in depth, but the rest of the show was silly stuff. For example, a kid asking Sven a science question. They took up 2 minutes and even had graphics to explain how hot it gets on the sun. Thats almost 1/2 the time they spent on all their lead stories combined. The picture someone sent in of bald eagles. It was a cool picture, but I didnt need to spend a minute listening to Mike and Sven talk about it. Weather and sports received about the same amount of attention and took up the second half of the program. All and all, I get more information from listening to MPR on my way to work every morning and usually just watch the local news to see what the weather is going to be like. In fact, my husband will watch just to catch them running a ridiculous story and then call his dad to share in their disbelief. (He would have liked both the bald eagle and the bear story on this night's show)

Grading Criteria

One thing I think students often forget is what the real purpose of a project is. They get caught up with the requirements, like the things they can count-3 pages, 10 examples, etc. But they lose track of what teachers really want, a demonstration that they learned what was taught. The part they should spend the most work and time on is the part that really proves the student understood the concepts. Rubrics I think sometimes actually add to the confusion. Don’t get me wrong, it is very helpful to have a list of what needs to be completed, but if they are only concerned with collecting the parts and not connecting them, well then the project is pretty meaningless. Anyway, I think it is worth talking about with a class. Tell students that the rubric is just that a checklist, but the real test (so to speak) is have you proved to me you know what you are talking about. Hopefully by mentioning this throughout all projects it will eventually stick. Anyway, here is the grading criteria we felt were important for our project.

1. Subject Knowledge

(Show what you know about the 60’s)

2. Technical Requirements

(15 images, 2 songs, 2 video clips, 2 written texts)

3. Organization

(Does the project flow?)

4. Creativity/Design

(Have you thought about the way it looks to a viewer?)

(Is it easy to follow your train of thought?)

5. Depth & Breadth of Project Content

(Show that you learned the enduring understandings of the unit)

6. Oral Presentation Skills

Music

Just like everyone else I can’t pick one favorite band because there are so many bands that I love. And on top of that, the bands that I currently don’t have in my rotation, I can’t forget because they remind me of a time and a place when they were played over and over again. I will always have a soft spot for Ben Folds 5 and Soul Coughing because they remind me of my freshman year in college and when I first met my husband. In high school there were several songs that got y group of friends totally shaking and I will always run to the dance floor when I hear the Real McCoy’s “Come and Get Your Love”. Fountains of Wayne and Built to Spill remind me of my semester in Italy and the long train rides up and down the Italian coast. (Also so crazy techno songs I don’t even know the names of from the discos we frequented) When I was growing up I lip-synced to the Supremes and actually belted out Aretha and road trips were filled with Beatles anthologies. I did my power point on The New Pornographers and Arcade Fire, because I have been listening to their latest albums lately, but I can’t say they are my utmost favorite, because I don’t have just one.

Satire

The genre that I selected was satire. Sketch comedy will dabble in satire but also draws on other things to create comedy, such as re-occurring characters that are constantly put in uncomfortable situations, impersonations and just plain weirdness (also a favorite of mine). I would have to say the big 3 of satire (for me at least) are South Park, The Daily Show and Colbert Report. These shows are so clever and never fail to make me laugh. Unfortunately, many students also love South Park, but for completely different reasons than I do. The satire is usually lost on them and what they are left with is the idea that ugly generalizations about groups of people are not only OK but funny. They don’t pick up on the sarcasm and they don’t usually have the background knowledge needed to understand the points being made. Satire is a great way to voice dissent and criticize important and seemingly untouchable figures of power.

Using media in the classroom

Since I dont teach English, I dont teach about literary techniques or themes. And I probably wouldn't show the film adaptation of a novel unless it had some sort of historical relevance. I think social studies teachers are infamous for showing movies all the time, and while I try not to fall into that stereotype, there are so many nice, historical movies that fit into just about any curriculum. So outside of just showing a historical movie so students have a sorta visual of that time period, here is another idea. I was thinking today as I re-read an excerpt from Machiavlli's, The Prince, which we will be looking at in a couple weeks, that the whole "it is best to be loved and feared but if you can't be both, be feared" thing reminds me a mob boss. I thought that maybe we could watch a scene from a mobster movie or The Sopranos and then have them compare and contrast the philosophies behind both "characters". How does each make their decisions? What is important to each figure? Why? How do they interact with others?

The boys wear girl pants....not that there's anything wrong with that

There is a trend at my school that for some reason really intrigues me. I don’t understand it. The kids call them “Emos” which is short for emotional. At first, I thought maybe they had replaced the marginalized group of other emotional students, the Goths, but we still got some of those and they are not friends with the Emos. This clique or community of teens seems to stem from a particular style of music, (similar to Goths) but I think it would be interesting to study what other characteristics they share, such as family, socio-economic background, other hobbies, birth order(!?) anything really. Emo’s have a similar fashion esthetic and appearance, and, for some reason, are the targets of a lot of animosity from their peers. I wonder why? I know that teenagers are desperately trying to define themselves during this period of their lives and like the kids in the other cliques, the Emo’s aren’t that different, yet they still fascinate me. I recently helped one of my students (not an Emo) put on a concert for charity and 2 of the bands featured drew a big Emo crowd. I watched dumbstruck, at 3 dancing boys and began to wonder what else do they do? (I mean the dancing was really strange, a lot of failing and kicking and then pacing- so what other strange things do they do and more importantly, where did they learn it and why do they do it?)

I would want to interview the students and observe the activities they participate in, such as concerts, hanging out time, parties (a side note many Emo’s are often Straight Edge, which means they do not use drugs or alcohol). I would want to talk to their parents, other students in the building and staff. I would want to research about the bands they follow and interview them. Some challenges would be the students themselves, would they be able to be “real”. Teenagers, more so than adults, are ultra concerned with how their image so that would influence how they interacted with the interviewer. Another challenge is making it seem interesting to other viewers. I might be totally alone on my fascination with them. Also, adults might find the subject matter a little self-indulgent or trite. I mean they’re teenagers after all, who cares, right? They will grow up, figure out who they really are and then be mortified by their high school antics like the rest of us. Teenagers by design, are meant to be dramatic and so a documentary on this teen sub-culture might be a bit too much.

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