Playshop

In reading Literacy Playshop, I was introduced to a new form of literacy. Rather than developing a typical spelling words, sentence-making, and proper punctuation curriculum, the teachers in the second chapter chose to use current media to explore storying with students. The curriculum was student centered instead of teacher centered, allowing curricular negotiations with the students. By exploring popular media and stories children were familiar with, Buchholz and Coggin (the teachers) allowed students to hop into their areas of expertise while helping them deconstruct their ideas of what makes a hero or villain.

After observing and discussing movie clips, characters, and character roles, Buchholz and Coggin realized that their discussions were not going where they had hoped. Their students were not coming to the conclusions that the teachers wanted: that gender stereotypes could be crossed and that popular media often creates such stereotypes. But because the literacy playshop curriculum is not one of call and response, the teachers were able to recognize that the students needed to play with the stories to get a better grasp on what they wanted to students to see. They moved onto the next step: storyboarding. Students developed their own characters and wrote down their general story lines. When the teachers realized that this was limited to the extent of the young children's vocabularies, they moved onto the next step, filmmaking. The literacy playshop in regards to media was very flexible in allowing each student to move onto the next step as they are ready to do so. Some were comfortable with storyboarding while others "ran out of ideas" and needed something else to get their juices flowing.

Activities flow easily from one to another depending on each student's needs. Each step also enabled students of differing intelligences to shine. Students who often spent time with individual teachers or were considered "struggling" could take leadership roles in the filmmaking portion, artists could help develop the images of the storyboards, and students could all try their hands at being a cameraperson or an actor. Boundaries were pushed as children tried various positions of leadership and forms of literacy. Additionally, the development of stories with peers encouraged the sharing of stories with other peers rather than just the teacher. As students age, insecurities often stifle this desire to share work with peers. Rather than creating a competitive environment, the literacy playshop allows students to show and develop their strengths and share them with others which could help build their confidence for sharing as they age.

Although the literacy playshop is a unique, new form of literacy that I am just beginning to explore, it encourages a love for storying, the sharing of students' creations and strengths, and a desire to explore new ideas. Rather than stifling students by demonstrating that there is one correct form of writing, it develops the idea of writing as a tool to convey or preserve a message via multiple forms of media.