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"GETTING IT RIGHT" AND "KEEPING IT REAL": USING NARRATIVE SOUNDTRACKS AS A TRANSMEDIATORY ACTIVITY IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL

MILLER, ANGELA MARIA

Abstract Details

2007, EdD, University of Cincinnati, Education : Literacy.
There are many learners who find it difficult to navigate in strictly verbocentric classrooms where reading and writing are the central, and sometimes only, means by which students can explore and construct meaning, as well as express their understanding of literary texts. This qualitative study focused on two English classrooms in a secondary school where students were encouraged to utilize alternative response activities in order to make connections to literary texts. One class consisted of advanced placement eleventh grade students; the other class included eleventh and twelfth grade students who had been identified as “struggling” readers, based on their inability to pass the State Graduation Test. The study’s purpose was to establish and compare the types of connections the two classes of secondary students made with literary texts when they were asked to create a musical soundtrack and accompanying narrative for an assigned literary text. It also investigated how other alternative reader response activities (e.g., drawing visual texts, creating dramatizations) were received by the students as part of the ongoing curricular conversations in the classrooms. The data were collected, organized, and analyzed using a case study approach to qualitative research. The data included a teacher interview, individual student and focus group interviews, observational field notes, and student artifacts. The main objective of the analyses was to assemble comprehensive, organized, and thorough accounts of each class. Data from the interviews and observational field notes were initially analyzed using analytic induction (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The data gathered from the students’ musical response activities were analyzed based on categories that emerged through open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) during a pilot study. All data were later analyzed deductively in order to consider and confirm the patterns and themes that resulted from the first two phases of data analysis. Findings suggested there were significant differences between the advanced placement class and the State Graduation Test recovery class. First, the curricular organization of the two classes differed. While the advanced placement class had five consistent classroom episodes, these were flexible and included a variety of alternative response activities. The State Graduation Test recovery class, however, had only four classroom episodes that were more rigid in both content and timing, allowing only limited opportunities for the implementation of response activities. As a result of the differences in the planned and enacted curriculum for both classes, the students’ understandings of the received curriculum, including the response activity, were also dissimilar. The advanced placement students were primarily interested in creating a soundtrack product that reflected a literary analysis of the text consistent with the types of curricular conversations that occurred in the classroom. The State Graduation Test recovery students, however, were more concerned with the collaborative process, resulting in soundtracks that included more personal responses and aesthetic commentary on both the text and the music.
Dr. Robert Burroughs (Advisor)
230 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • MILLER, A. M. (2007). "GETTING IT RIGHT" AND "KEEPING IT REAL": USING NARRATIVE SOUNDTRACKS AS A TRANSMEDIATORY ACTIVITY IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1193924523

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • MILLER, ANGELA. "GETTING IT RIGHT" AND "KEEPING IT REAL": USING NARRATIVE SOUNDTRACKS AS A TRANSMEDIATORY ACTIVITY IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL. 2007. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1193924523.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • MILLER, ANGELA. ""GETTING IT RIGHT" AND "KEEPING IT REAL": USING NARRATIVE SOUNDTRACKS AS A TRANSMEDIATORY ACTIVITY IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1193924523

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)