Memes: Storytelling & Digital Writing

Making memes in class might sound counterproductive, but on the contrary it has been quite an illuminating and worthwhile experience for members of David Baroody’s seventh grade history classes, who create memes throughout the year to better understand various elements of history.
By definition, according to KQED Education, “a meme can be any kind of idea, action or creative output that is picked up, copied and repeated within a culture. ‘Internet Memes’ have become a popular way to describe various Internet trends that you might associate with viral videos, images or phrases that originate and spread quickly online. But most often, if someone refers to a ‘meme’, they mean a specific type of meme characterized by a familiar still image captioned with text based on a particular style of joke associated with that image. These sorts of images with text were originally called image macros, but are now popularly known as memes.”
By creating memes, students are being asked to do a variety of tiered analysis as they explore and think about the text and subtext of historical images, and then create their own memes using those images.
"It’s a hook for students,” said Mr. Baroody, who presented his two-day meme lesson plan to the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools conference in October 2014, and at the National Council for the Social Studies conference in Boston in November 2014. “It’s leading students from the concrete to the abstract. It pairs writing with visual analysis. It capitalizes on something the kids already know.”
In September, students in Mr. Baroody’s class made memes about Tres Riches Heures, a French Gothic illumination that details late medieval life in each month of the calendar year.
“As little textual evidence survives that documents the everyday lives of average individuals in medieval France, my students mined the images from the calendar to answer important questions,” said Mr. Baroody. “What do you observe in your images? How do you know it’s important? What is the text and subtext conveyed by the artists? The images are one of the only places in medieval art that you see everyday life. The history of the medieval ages is an age of a very select few of upper end society.”
Working in pairs and small groups, students created Google Docs that shared their initial thoughts about the images from Tres Riches Heures and their answers to the unit questions. The next day, Mr. Baroody challenged his students to make memes based on what they learned.
“The text of their meme explains the subtext of the image they are using,” said Mr. Baroody. “The images were all about the different levels of societies in late medieval France and the disparity between the upper class and working class.”
Students completed similar analysis and meme creation right before winter break as they studied the Boston Massacre in 1770.
“They will do another in the next several weeks as we start looking into the various arguments for or against the ratification of the Constitution,” said Mr. Baroody.
“Seventh grade is all about transitioning students from thinking concretely to thinking abstractly and giving them tools to scaffold toward higher order thinking,” added Mr. Baroody. “This is an activity that meets them where they are and give them tools to continue to maturing. From a 21st century standpoint, memes work because you already have an understanding of the image. The writing you do produces new meaning. The kids love it.”

US CAD Design Class Rocks Thinkverse

Digital Mathfolios in the Lower School

Lower School teacher, Marnie McDonald  had been using paper portfolios and digital portfolios for many years with her students, when she asked herself, “ How could a process “mathfolio” tell the story of the growth of my math students?” It was her  belief that every student should have a collection of personal bests–a cloud-based story of their development and artifacts of accomplishment that was easily shareable and organized for presentation.

When starting the portfolio process, McDonald kept it simple. "I started with a single unit. I determined goals and purpose for the portfolio, created a checklist and explained the process to students. I encouraged them to take an active role in the development of their portfolios. What I discovered is a  valuable and meaningful evaluation tool that effectively assesses student learning in math.  These portfolios offered insight into my student's thinking, understanding, and mathematical problem-solving skills, and offered a picture of the student's progress in math."  The students thought it was a great process too.  Here is what some of them had to say: Max reports, "I liked that I could be creative in math." Dominic adds, "It was challenging for me to do the polygons, but I actually learned them by doing them over and over again."  And Sarah states, "I loved designing my own dream home. I calculated the area and perimeter for each room. This did not make it into the portfolio but it was awesome."

Click here to see the results.

Middle School History Projects "Hand Students (creative) Reins"

As part of a “Social Activism” project, seventh graders have been studying the impact of activists on society during the early 1800s, and each student selected a group of three activists who championed a particular cause or used a particular form of activism. Helen chose the topic of gender equality / women’s rights. The three activists in this group were Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, and Emma Watson – two from the early 1800s and one from the present. We wanted our students to make the connection: social activism is still a huge part of our democracy. 

Students needed to research their topics and their activists, then use their own interpretations / beliefs and their research to do two things: write a three-page research paper and create a stand-alone presentation in digital form. The presentations will be archived. Helen’s paper looked at the women’s rights movement as it appeared in the worlds of three activists, but for her presentation she focused on Watson. 

Using non-fiction film making techniques Helen’s project shows what students can do "if we hand them the reins to their own learning," reports Emily Rubinfield, history department chair. Guidelines are set and a goal is established. From that point the kids’ ideas and creativity come pouring out under their own volcanic power. One of the best traits of our classes is that the kids cheer each other on; her class loved Helen’s originality and hard work. To see Helen's video click here.

Exploring Making in English Curriculum

The upper school students in Robynne Graffam's playwriting class unleashed their creativity and stretched their problem-solving abilities as they built models of their sets with Legos, for their final project, a ten-minute original play that they have written and will perform for the class.  Graffam notes, "Translating an idea into words, and then into a 3D mode of storytelling with real actors, furniture and movement presents challenges unique to this form of writing, but the process also builds creative, spatial and linguistic skills they can apply broadly in the world outside the theater".  Junior Nicole Zannikos enjoyed the fun of hands-on building, describing the experience as “nostalgic.  I felt like a little kid again.”  Amanda Parker said, “It was cool to be able to build [your set design] how you see it,” and Nick Moeller felt the process “helped with where I wanted things to go.  I didn’t know how everything would work before I built this, but now I see what they can do.”  Jamie Hermance added, “I liked how I could plan the scene and see the route of the characters.”

Middle School Students Learn History through Media Production

“Meet the Press” Featuring Leaders from the Progressive Movement

Students made a series of recorded news panels each featuring a host and three guests that discussed central themes of the Progressive Movement in American History. Researching character backgrounds to share historically accurate views, preparing a script that serves as a guideline for debate, and practice at public speaking and improvisation were all part of the process. Using iMovie students recorded and produced final "episodes" as podcasts or videos.

US Students Engineer A Foldscope Telescope

Senior marine biology classes were chosen to beta test a new and exciting origami microscope developed by a Bioengineer at Stanford University.  The Foldscope as it is called conceived by scientists at The Prakash Lab at Stanford University, focuses on democratizing science by developing scientific tools that can scale up to match problems in global health and science education. Part of a growing trend to encourage citizen scientists, meant to democratize the field of work and inspire the next generation to have greater interest in science. You can read more by clicking here.

Shakespeare with a Twist: Using Thinglink in MS English

 Middle School students are preparing for their Romeo and Juliet monologues using an online caricature development site called Thinglink that allows students to create and share interactive images and videos. Peter Jennings reports "Essentially, I was looking for a way to help our students prep for their Romeo and Juliet monologues, which each student will perform for their class (some will perform for the entire middle school). The iPad apps helped them to take on the role of the character, to climb inside their character's head, and to do some research on previous performances.

Jennings continues, " Each student created a caricature of the character performing their monologue using the "Caricatura" app. This became the background for a "ThingLink," an interactive image with text and videos. Using the "ThingLink" app, students wrote a description, a letter, a journal entry, and "tweets" from their character to bolster their understanding of the character in general. To help them prepare the specific performance, they created a modern-day "translation" of their monologue, linked to a video of a professional performance of the scene, and created a video of themselves performing the monologue. All of this content is linked directly on the image of the character that they created. "

6th Grade Student Makes Digital Model of Cell as City

R DiDonato a 6th grade student made this three dimensional rendering of a cell city using a free software called Sketch Up building each element without the assistance of models or pre-loaded template structure.  Maura Saurman, MS Science Teacher reports "After learning about the parts of a cell and how they function like parts of a city, the students were required to make a digital model of a cell city.  They were allowed to use Google draw or sketch-up. Robert put a lot of effort into his and it showed in his modeling which was very sophisticated. Applying the use of 3D rendering tools to traditional learning modes really help students to understand complex ideas in a tangible way."

Upper School Design Day

Earlier this fall, the students and faculty in the Upper School spent the day using the design thinking process (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test) to imagine a new school schedule.  Student and faculty leaders facilitated the work insuring each portion of the process from brainstorming to presentation provided opportunities for ideas to shine!