All LIT Things Must Come to an End

I am in pure disbelief that we are already in the final weeks of the semester and that this will be my last LIT post! Being that this week's readings centered on praxis and popular culture as education, I think this is a great final note to end on because it has made think about my implementation of popular culture for educational purposes, its effectiveness or ineffectiveness in the classroom, and how I have come to form my pedagogical stance based on my reflection of this semester.

Last week in COMM 1010, I facilitated rhetorical analysis practice using Drake's "God's Plan" music video along with multiple media advertisements, some of which touched on animal testing, gun violence, global warming, and the discourse surrounding victim-blaming. While covering these topics, I invited students to think pair share (with someone they have never talked to before) about the rhetorical message, then share their conclusions with the rest of the class. I did my very best to include diverse examples, all that touched on different social issues they told me they were passionate about at the beginning of the semester. In discussing the rhetorical message of the texts, multiple students spoke up and shared their thoughts, but also threw in their opinions about the topic and shared stories of their experiences with these topics. I was excited and shocked to see my COMM 1010 class who plays things safe, engaging in a conversation about race, normative discourse surrounding rape culture, and gun violence in schools. Although I was apprehensive to have these conversations, my students seemed nervous but excited to be able to talk about them in a classroom setting. On the other hand, some even seemed shocked and enlightened from the topics surrounding rape culture and gun violence. Following this class meeting, I had my students write a one-minute paper saying anything they were thinking or feeling about the class, myself, or the lesson. Overall, my students collectively enjoyed having these kinds of conversations, and they liked my selection of popular culture! That was a relief! 

The readings this week taught us that popular culture is educative and implementing it into our classrooms results in our students having conversations that challenge the hegemonic structure of the classroom; furthermore, it leads to story-sharing of their experiences based on that popular culture example. My day of rhetorical analysis practice demonstrated just this. Following the video and viewing the images, I executed problem-posing to my students, instructed them to think pair share, and come back to explain the rhetorical message, desired outcome, and to identify the ethos, pathos, and logos. My students were engaged, excited to share about their own experiences, and they were able to create an environment in which we were co-learners about each other and the topic. While students shared about their experiences, my other students began asking questions and engaging in dialogue with one another, and I was excited to see narratization come into play with experiential learning and critical literacy to create a critical communication pedagogy. 

Thanks to Paulo Freire, Parker Palmer, bell hooks, Kyle Hammonds and Karen Anderson-Lain, Ken Bain, Fasset and Warren, Deana Dannels, and John Dewey, I have learned so much about myself as a teaching assistant. I have learned that I lead with my heart, but I know when to stand my ground, I value self-reflexivity in order to transform and improve, making sure everyone is heard and feels represented in the classroom matters a great deal to me, and story-sharing in conjunction with popular culture has co-created a learning environment that both my students and I feel comfortable in. Furthermore, I value critical communication pedagogy, praxis, negotiating power relations with my students (with allowing them to teach me and be the experts on popular culture), and embracing the uncomfortable conversations to make for a LIT learning moment for all human beings in the room, including myself. I say this because students forget we are human until we have conversations about real-world things!

If it isn't clear yet, the point of this blog is to say farewell, but also to say that I have discovered my approach to pedagogy and I am aware of how I can only continue to be reflexive and grow from here as both a student and teaching assistant. Although this semester has had its dark days and legitimate rainy days, it has been LIT to learn about myself, learn with my students, and work toward building a new skill set of which I did not have before coming to this graduate program: the art of teaching. 

This semester was MAD LIT, thank you to my fellow teaching assistants, incredible faculty, and wonderful students.  #It'sMADLit