New Literacies Project Reflection

I must say that I really enjoyed completing the New Literacies Project. I chose to focus on emotional literacy because throughout my life I have been an extremely emotional person and it would have been beneficial for me as a student to be able to share my feelings without anxiety in the classroom and also have my teachers and peers understand my feelings and emotions. My aim for this project was to discover how to incorporate emotional literacy without making students feel overwhelmed. With this is mind I wanted to involve actual students into my project in order to make the topic of emotional literacy more relevant to myself and anyone else viewing my project. I had never created a movie before and I thought it would be a great way to show students interacting with emotional literacy.

The main idea that I have gained about emotional literacy through this project is that there are many different aspects that lead to a person becoming emotionally literate. It is not simply about sharing feelings and emotions even through this is a key part of it. However, emotional literacy involves a person being aware of their emotions and feelings and knowing why they are feeling that way and then being able to express those feelings. Further, emotional literacy also involves students being aware of and understanding the feelings of other people. Emotional literacy involves using the reactions and facial gestures of other people to make an informed decision about how they are feeling. This involves a person's ability to have empathy for another person, that is putting themselves in another person's shoes and thinking about how they would feel in the same situation. As I said, there are many aspects that make up emotional literacy.

Another key idea I have taken away from this project is that you cannot expect the reactions and the feelings and emotions that students are going to have about different situations. The use of the movie technology really helped me to see this. As part of the project I wanted to record the initial reactions of students. With the videos and voice recordings I gave the students their prompt and then immediately started to record. This technology not only helped me to capture the initial reactions of the students but it also helped me to reflect back on exactly what the students had to say. I was not dictating their answers but cutting and pasting what they said into the movie. I think that using video recording and voice recording in the classroom is an excellent tool, especially in capturing the feelings and emotions of students.

The technology also helped me to see the student responses right next to each other. The movie moved from clip to clip without a break so I, as well as my viewers, were able to see the differences right away. This is especially important for teachers trying to understand emotional literacy because it demonstrates completely the kinds of differences they can expect in their classrooms. Some students gave in depth responses while others gave one word responses. This helped me to understand that students have different comfort levels with sharing emotions which is why it is important to set norms and make the classroom a safe place for students. What was even more enlightening was that these students still varied in responses even though I had a personal connection with each one of them. This showed me that even when you form that bond with students and they feel comfortable with you, they may not always be comfortable sharing their feelings and emotions. One thing to take away from this is that emotional literacy is not about pushing students to share their emotions, but encouraging them to do so. There is a fine line between the two and we have to remember not to put students in a situation they do not feel comfortable with.

The last main idea that I have taken away from this project is that teachers need to be emotionally literate or at least moving towards it, in order to teach emotional literacy to their students. Teachers need to be aware of their own feelings and know that other students may not share the same ones. We can become defensive of our own feelings and emotions so being aware of possible difference and keeping our emotions in check it very important. Although I had different interpretations of the activities the students were doing in my video, I couldn't let that get in the way of what I was trying to get from the students. Teachers need to take ownership of their emotions but also be respectful of the emotions of the students. Also, teachers need to be aware of the feelings and emotions of the students. We need to look out for students who seem to be uncomfortable, or angry, or sad, not just in emotional literacy instruction but in day to day classroom activities. Emotional literacy is not something you turn on and off. If we are going to expect it from students, we need to live it every day.

I am excited to use some of the classroom incorporation ideas that I came up with for emotional literacy. Along with these, I think I will also try to incorporate the use of movies for my students. Although there were times that I was frustrated with the technology, I was very happy with the end result and I took a lot of pride in what I accomplished. I think that students could have the same reaction to movies, as well as any technology for that matter, and it is important to give them the opportunity to use different technology for class projects. I really enjoyed this project and I feel like I took a lot away from it.