Blog Post 10/29- "Hyper and Deep Attention" + Digital Media Project

Theory Quote: “The contrast in the two cognitive modes may be captured in an image: picture a college sophomore, deep in Pride and Prejudice, with her legs draped over an easy chair, oblivious to her ten year-old brother sitting in front of a console, jamming on a joystick while he plays Grand Theft Auto.” (Hayles)

            As a future high school educator, one of main responsibility in teaching English is having the students be “connected” to the literature.  I have learned that most students need a reason why they have to read a certain text, or the importance of the book is lost on them.  The students need motivation to “concentrate” on why they need to read a certain assignment.   The best approach is having the students be connected to the text in a “personal” setting is by having the students connecting the text to their personal lives.

            The quote from “Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes” captures the increasing prevalence of the “hyper attention” in children and how teachers must “alter” their teaching abilities to better suit these needs.  While the article does touch on the awareness of ADHD and ADD in our society, our generation’s reliability to media plays a very important part on “concentrating for a connection”.   As I found examples for the “Digital Media Project”, I would try to find “media” that I could use in the classroom to show how different types of media can portray the same story.  While I found many examples to fit this criteria, I was fascinated by ones that strayed from the original literary text.  I may be going too far off topic here, but I discovered a movie called “Gnomeo and Juliet”, which was an animated movie telling the story of Romeo and Juliet but with talking garden gnomes.  I didn’t watch the movie, but I think it’s safe to say that neither of main characters die a tragic death.  What fascinated me the most though, is how children will be able to make a personal connection to the plot?  Children might be interested in it because it is colorful, but was it really necessary for this movie to be made?  I struggled to find an answer to this question, connecting the “fragileness” of the gnomes to the “fragile” nature of Shakespeare’s characters (deep), but the only answer I was firmly set upon was: they did it for the money.