Between Bites

Once again, I am eating and blogging.  It seems that weekends, when Angelines is at work and I've put Emily down for the night, are really the only time I can squeeze a blog in!  Aside from a quick video here or there. ;)

And once again, I am working on my project...or rather taking a study break to eat.  This weekend has been very productive, I'm happy.  I know I haven't really blogged about my topic so you're all in the dark as far as what I'm working on is concerned; all, that is, except my mom who's been my sounding board from the beginning. :)

So the short answer to the question: "What's your capstone project about?" would be: it's a lesson plan.  The longer version would be something along these lines: It's a lesson plan grounded in research that uses CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) to combine the teaching of arts edcation with English as a means of furthering personalized education.  Whew!

Way back when I was hemming and hawing about what I should do for my project, I decided that the most practical was to do a lesson plan (of sorts) pertaining to English teaching, since it is very likely that I will be teaching English and can perhaps someday actually put my plan to use.  Not all of the capstone projects are so practical.  Some are purely research based, some are original research, etc.  And although you might be thinking that it's obvious that I would choose English, you're wrong.

I decided to go back to school to get my degree in Elementary Education here in Spain primarily because I decided I loved teaching...just not teaching English!  I suppose that's not entirely true, but the fact is that I am a curious person and love learning about lots of things (thus teaching a variety of things).  Limiting myself to English education just seemed too boring.  I wanted to be able to open up the posibility of teaching science, art, math, or language arts.

In choosing the topic for my project I was going back and forth as to whether or not I should even deal with English at all!  But the more practical side of me won out and so here I am; however, you'll note that I am combining it with arts education to spice things up.  In fact, CLIL is really about teaching content through an additional language so it's right up my alley. :)

I have dcided to focus on photography--a long-time love of mine--and the manipulation of images through new technologies (Photoshop, etc.).  Surprisingly there are some parallels between my current project and my thesis from way back at Pacific on ficcion vs. fact in literature.  I have chosen to work with the art of Catalan photographer, Joan Fontcuberta who plays constantly with the line between what's real and what comprises fiction.

His most famous photographs are part of collections that are entirely "false" so to speak.  For example, in one show he worked with another artist as well as taxidermists to create an elaborate farce about the astounding Darwinian discoveries of a Dr. Ameisenhaufen, a German zoologist from the 50's.  The alleged doctor discovered many fantastic creatures such as a centaur-like animal with the body of a monkey, flying elephants or legged snakes.  All of these discoveries were documented along with the "original" sketches of Dr. Ameisenhaufen.  The re-discovery of these amazing documents was displayed in a show called "Fauna".  After viewing the show, they found that 30% of visitors between 20-30 yrs, with university training believed the photos to be true!

Many of his shows run along similar lines, challenging the idea that so many of us have of photography as an objective reflection of reality.  When really, the truth is that even when there is no manipulation per se, all photography is subjective because of course we only take pictures of exactly what we want others to see...  And so in my project I am using his work to introduce the idea of photo-manipulation and challenging the students to look critically at the images that surround us, particularly in advertising.

The final product is due the 26th of June.  As some of you know, I will be in Philadelphia with my dearest friend Miriam at that point so the due date for me is a bit earlier.  So far I have finished a first (very rough) draft of the theoretical framework grounding my lesson plan and am plugging away at the acutal classroom application part of it all currently.  We must include all the worksheets/presentations that we mention as materials in the write up, so I am not only writing, but drawing up powerpoint presentations and worksheets like crazy! I would like to turn in the first draft of my actual lesson plan tomorrow, but I'm not sure I'll have all the materials made.  As it stands now, I am pretty much finished detailing each session, but I have yet to make up some of the materials.  We shall see.  Perhaps it will have to be Tuesday.

Wish me luck.  I'm back to work. ;)