Writing with Video
Maria Lovett (Art and Design) and Gail Hawisher (Director,
Center for Writing Studies)
Maria Lovett (doctoral student in Educational Policy Studies)
and Professor Joseph Squier (Art and Design) have developed an innovative
new course on the Illinois campus titled "Writing with Video."
Developed in conjunction with the School of Art and Design, LAS,
and with support from Gail Hawisher and the Center for Writing Studies,
the inspiration behind "Writing with Video," was to provide
an Advanced Composition course that explores "interdisciplinary
ways of knowing . . . articulating that knowledge through different
inscription technologies . . . [and involves] visual literacy, and
production, and ways of writing and telling your story." For
Maria Lovett, the course is more than just a class, it is "a
curriculum and approach to pedagogy . . . a methodology for investigating
topics and issues that are relevant to the students' own lived experiences."
One of the goals of the class focuses on using technology as not
only a means to teach, but also as an actual subject. Although still
being reviewed by the General Education Board, the class was successfully
piloted over the summer and taught by Lovett, garnering enthusiastic
student responses.
Presentation Summary
Maria Lovett began her presentation by discussing the goals of the course.
She is interested in having her students explore and articulate
different types of knowledge and to critically assess the ways in
which different types of knowledge are produced and expressed. To
do so, she has her students simultaneously create and critique video
projects. She based her class on some work she did with high school aged
young people in a Montreal community center whose "attention
to school left something to be desired." She discovered that
when these students, who had had no exposure to video technology
at home or elsewhere, were given a video camera and access to non-linear
editing software, they were able to create very sophisticated projects
with little direction. Through having her students at the University
of Illinois use a similar process, Lovett has also found that they
were able to produce interesting and complex projects. In addition,
they were able to transfer the experience of creating these narrative
projects into understanding and critiquing other media works.
Lovett then talked about the student projects that were completed
during the pilot run of the course held during the Summer semester.
The "Walkman Project," the first of three main projects
students had to complete, used reflective journaling. In this project,
Lovett had the students listen to a song and then create a video
based on their initial impressions. Lovett encouraged the students
to start thinking metaphorically and, instead of writing down their
ideas, to show what the song meant to them visually through a short
video production accompanied by their chosen song. Alternately the
"Remix Project," the second part of the summer course,
took a look at media literacy and helped students develop critical
thinking skills. The project involved taking five media sources
and manipulating the media in such a way as to convey a certain
view of the world. The final summer project, a documentary, had
the intention of representing a specific societal perspective. Extensive
research and interviews with community members and other sources
provided the foundation for the final video project.
Based on their experience over the summer, Lovett has been modifying
the class and adding new student projects. This semester, students
have already completed three new projects. The first, the "Motif
Project," requires students to explore cinematic devices, such
as camera angle, in a short one minute piece. In this project, students
reflect on how simple changes in cinematic device can dramatically
change the meaning of a video. The second project is an "Adjective
Project," that required students to visually portray three
adjectives. Lovett described this as an activity to encourage students
to critically reflect on objects and themes in their daily life.
Another activity was "Writing to Film," where students
had to take an experience or event in their life and describe it
in detail on video using their senses. Commonly known as the "showing,
not telling" method in English classes, the project examines
these life experiences through the lens of a camera rather than
the lead of a pencil. They used the video camera as their pen, the
computer as their paper, she said.
Student reactions to the course have been generally enthusiastic.
Lovett said "Writing with Video" offers students a methodology
for investigating relevant topics in the modern society. She thought
many individuals came away from the class with a different view
of the world. Furthermore, she noted the importance of using technology
for a variety of reasons, not only as a tool to gain information,
or a base for the creation of video productions, but also as a critical
component of the writing process for articulating arguments and
reflections.
According to Lovett, the course is designed to accommodate any
student at any level. Some come from a cinema studies background,
but many also come from various fields such as science and math.
One student in the course, who attended the brown bag, said the
class has changed the way she looks at the writing process, as well
as how she conveys her ideas. Currently students in the class must
check out digital video cameras in the Art & Design Building,
but possible additional rental arrangements for computers and cameras
may be available in the future. According to Lovett, some students
came to the class and didn't even know how to turn on the camera,
but overall, the class is "very user-friendly."
About the Presenters
Maria Lovett is a doctoral student in Education
Policy Studies at the University of Illinois and and instructor
in the School of Art and Design, currently teaching an innovative
new course she co-created called "Writing with Video." Maria has her
Master’s degree in Media Studies from the New School University
in New York. She has worked professionally as a documentary filmmaker
and her work has appeared on MTV, MTV-International, and been used
in diverse settings as a tool for social activism. She worked for
eight years with the Red Hot Organization, a not-for-profit production
company that uses popular culture to fight the AIDS pandemic. As
an educator, Maria has taught media art projects to youth in Washington,
DC, Philadelphia, Seattle, New York, Montreal, and now Champaign-Urbana.
Gail Hawisher is Professor of English and founding
Director of the Center for Writing Studies. She has primarily published
in literacy and technology studies, and, for the past 15 years,
has co-edited the international journal Computers and Composition.
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- By Lauren Eichmann
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