Audio Listening Practices: Exploring Personal Experiences with Audio Texts

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

For many of us, when we think of listening to audio, we think of radio or CDs. As technology evolves, more and more often audio has moved online, taking advantage of streaming media and podcasting. This lesson plan asks students to keep a daily diary that records how and when they listening to radio, music (e.g., songs on MP3 players, podcasting), and other streaming media or archived broadcasts. Students then analyze the details and compare their results to published reports on American radio listeners. They conclude by reflecting on their findings and writing a final statement on their audio literacy practices and interests. In addition to asking students to become more aware of their own audio literacy, the lesson gives teachers the opportunity to see students’ audio literacy at work.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

ReadWriteThink Notetaker: Using this online tool, students can organize, revise, and plan their writing, as well as take notes as they read and research

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

In "Teaching Media-Savvy Students about the Popular Media," Kevin Maness explains that "When media education is not based on students' prior experience, it often deteriorates into 'teaching' students media literacy skills that they already possess or into futile attempts to impose new, 'good' media habits on students who have no interest in relinquishing their old, 'bad' habits. Understanding students' media literacy is the important and often-overlooked first step in making them more media literate" (46). Before analyzing any genre, in particular those that rely on nontext media, teachers must work to discover the literacy skills that students bring to the class while simultaneously asking students to interrogate and extend the skills that they possess. This process gives teachers the techniques for "listening to students to determine their prior understanding and their needs for further understanding" (48).

Further Reading

Maness, Kevin. "Teaching Media-Savvy Students about the Popular Media." English Journal 93.3 (January 2004): 46-51

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