M3: Blog Post 3 - Leveraging Tools, Texts, and Talk in My Teaching Context

 Today’s students are surrounded by new media and new literacies.  They have devices in their homes, rooms, and on their person that inform them throughout the day that something is happening somewhere.  Perhaps it’s a family member texting, or an update about how many Snaps they are receiving.  They have the ability to use their watch to access Google, to record others on their devices and share selfies.  My students love being able to show off how many TikTok dances they can do and if they are up to date on the latest trends.  Since the majority of my pupils are in elementary school, they don’t tend to question whether what they hear or see on their device is fact, opinion, or fiction.  

There are ways for educators to teach students how to assess the content that they receive through their devices.  Aguilera suggests that a 3-step approach can be used in assessing digital media:  what is on the screen, what is behind the screen, and what is beyond the screen.  Students can describe for what they see on the text, but is there meaning behind it that is not so readily seen?  How do their technology’s algorithms work to match them to what is placed in their feed?  What about the very ideas that sparked the content in the first place (2017)?  

I would like to alter a method that art teachers use to engage their students in critical thinking about artwork, called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), and use it for the music classroom.  VTS was created by Abigail Housen and Phillip Yenawine as a means for students to be able to have a connection in a meaningful way with the art they they observe.  They developed these three questions to aid all students in drawing conclusions about what they observe:  What’s going on in the is picture, what makes you say that, and what else can we find?  These questions engage the learner in a way that is similar to a strategy used in my district called Accountable Talk.  “Accountable talk is a strategy that supports students' academic language development through discussion by giving students key phrases they can use when learning skills such as explaining, agreeing, disagreeing, and justifying. This strategy is part of Colorín Colorado's ELL Strategy Library and can be used to support academic language development for all students” (Lbreiseth 2025).  Establishing critical thinking for use with digital literacy is integral for our students.  

Combining what Aguilera espouses with modified VTS for music could become a fantastic tool for Accountable Talk in the music classroom for all ages.  Dialogue can be driven by analyzing a video that seems genuine but may not be.  One type of video that tends to go viral are Shorts where people are “spontaneously” singing in a kitchen or bathroom, recording it, and uploading it.  They sound amazing, wonderfully in tune, and for all intents and purposes it appears to be perfect harmonizing.  Here is an example of this type of short:  https://youtube.com/shorts/1_pl9aZus3c?si=Yjv-ti7z-oB18RH8.  Students could be asked the following modified VTS question:  What’s going on in the music?  While the children can explain surface information, guiding them to explain more and delve deeper.  The next question could be what do you hear that makes you say that?  Perhaps they will find what they hear to be “perfect”, leading to someone else possibly disagreeing and explaining why.  The discussion can be concluded with what else can we find?  Other questions that can lead to further Accountable Talk sharing between students is how does this song/piece make you feel?  Does this remind you of another piece of music?  What do you think the composer/lyricist is trying to communicate?  Students are encouraged to listen to responses, agree or disagree with respect given to the other student, and all must explain the why of their answer (Aguilera 2017; Three Simple Questions).  

Aguilera challenges students to think about what is happening behind the screen.  I can ask them if the short they watched was too perfect?  Could it have been edited?  Are some Shorts potentially engineered for content?  There is a YouTuber who analyzes videos to pitch manipulation (please use this link:  https://youtu.be/Q6gCO5oMe-k?si=z1ETS0-rYJUz45W0).  When this video is placed into the platform EdPuzzle, an educator can edit the video for time and content, as well as pause the video at strategic spots to launch questions that they build into the presentation.  I could feasibly extract a portion of the 20-minute video that pertains only to the Short, and embed questions that students must complete in order to advance the video.  This can be done as a whole group or assigned through Clever to incorporate in to a Seesaw or QuaverEd assignment.  

Further discussion can lead to copyright in the music industry and if music can be plagiarized with the popularity of these Shorts.  How does content generate revenue?  How do we know if it is original to that creator or influencer?  “The internet offers students unrestricted, immediate, and remote access to original content. As we press Ctrl-C to copy quotes from articles to share on our Facebook feeds and save images and ideas from Pinterest without citation, are we engaging in plagiarism? How about retweeting without crediting the original author? When unbounded access to information is coupled with a laissez-faire attitude toward ownership of ideas, the meaning of plagiarism is blurred” (Moorman & Pennell 2017).   These questions are relevant to our students who do this on a regular basis on their devices without thinking of the sources they use.  Discussion of copyright and plagiarism can be connected to how they find information in their classrooms, and how important original content is to their own creations.  

Accountable talk using modified VTS engages every student regardless of home language since I am able to translate, gives ELLs and other students who need to time to process the ability to do so before answering, and gives the children a chance to lead the classroom discussion.  Shy students and non-verbal students might not feel comfortable sharing or be able to share using the academic language typically required for Accountable Talk, so further modifications must be considered to keep those students actively engaged.  This can be done by using Turn and Talk, having students draw or write instead of respond verbally, and the use of assistive technology with an aide.  

Works Cited

Aguilera, Earl. "MORE THAN BITS AND BYTES." Literacy Today, vol. 35, no. 3, 2017, pp. 12-13. ProQuest, https://sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Ftrade-journals%2Fmore-than-bits-bytes%2Fdocview%2F1966006470%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8067.
 

“Ex’s and Oh’s (Kitchen Version) @ElleKingMusic Anthony Gargiula @JonathanTilkinOfficial.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/shorts/1_pl9aZus3c. Accessed 30 May 2025.
 

Lbreiseth. “Accountable Talk.” Colorín Colorado, 21 Mar. 2025, www.colorincolorado.org/teaching-ells/ell-classroom-strategy-library/accountable-talk.
 

Moorman, G., & Pennell, A. (2017). PLAGIARISM IN THE DIGITAL AGE. Literacy Today, 35(3), 14-15. https://sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Ftrade-journals%2Fplagiarism-digital-age%2Fdocview%2F1966007393%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8067
 

“The Three Simple Questions.” VTS, emprobstvts.weebly.com/vts-the-three-simple-questions.html. Accessed 29 May 2025.
 

Youtu.be, 2025, youtu.be/Q6gCO5oMe-k?si=lFhDNi41ShpV1HSn. Accessed 30 May 2025.