More Perspectives

This Post focuses, again, on perspectives playing a big part in how one sees a story. This is a text copy of a very familiar story: the Three Little Pigs. However, this version is told from the Wolf's perspective, and makes the pigs out to be the bad guys. Again, see how looking at this familiar text from a new perspective makes you take sides with the wolf, whom was traditionally thought of as the villian. Also, think about how you can use this to help illustrate the difference that perspective and context makes to your students.
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs:
http://www.shol.com/agita/wolfside.htm

More funny context changes

Ok, so if you've already watched the Count, you know how easy it is to change the entire meaning of something with just a small tweak. If you didn't watch it yet, then this post will give you the same meaning. These next few links will take you to videos. The first takes a serious CNN report and turns it into something pretty amusing. I could not find the original report (CNN no longer had it posted), but I am sure you can glean what they originally meant showing it. The next links are some fun. They are from popular movies, but with a few tweaks, a serious movie becomes funny, and two other movies are changed completely (I dont want to spoil them for you). Anyway, while you're watching, remember to think of how the entire perspective of what you are watching changed from the original creators intended meaning. Think of how easily it was done with just a couple changes. Then, think about how easy it may be for students to get improper information from sources that have changed the perspective or context just slighly, and completely changed the information.

Al Qaeda Training isn't So Scary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1yRMY7g6iE

Saving Private Ryan becomes Funny?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Sui7st2q0&feature=PlayList&p=526C657C71AFFC9B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

2 Movies Completely Different than the way you first thought of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHWASn_ygo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0



OK, I found one more and decided it also needed to go up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic

Fun with my favorite video

This is probably one of my favorite online videos of all time--mostly because I am easily amused. I think that it illustrates how, when you change the context of a scene (in this case, using censorship to make an innocent scene seem dirty) it changes the meaning you get from what you are looking at completely. We all know that the Count loves to count, but everything changes when you add in an FCC context. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Wd-Q3F8KM&feature=PlayList&p=A239923502112FAA&index=0&playnext=1

Perspectives: Different Views on Reparations

The debate over whether reparations should be paid to descendants of slaves is a controversial one. These two articles debate the opposing sides. The first is from David Horowitz, a professor who published "Top Ten Reasons Why Reparations is a Bad Idea for Blacks- and Racist, too" in college news papers across the country. The second is a response to Horowitz, from Ernest Allen, Jr., another college professor who opposes Horowitz's views. Each is written from a distinct standpoint, and the perspective they are written from leads you to believe you are reading the right argument as you read each article. As you read them, see if you can recognize the differences between the two perspectives, and also how these differences shape your opinion of the arguments. Think about how students can learn to recognize these differences as well

http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=24317

http://www.umass.edu/afroam/hor.html

Context and Perspectives in the Classroom

While textbooks and news outlets claim to be unbiased, the fact is that there is bias built into everything we are exposed to. Certain news channels lean Democratically or towards the Republican party. A news article from the Middle East from the beginning of the Iraq war will have a much different outlook and tone than one from the United States. If our students cannot understand this fact, and, more importantly, recognize how context and perspectives combine to create bias in media and text, they will be at a disadvantage. This blog will use different media examples to show how context and bias shape the way information from any source can be construed. Some examples are funny, others controversial, but they should give you an idea of how important it is to teach students to recognize bias.