Literacy Lives at the Virtual

While I provide my students with SUMMARY Museum openings, this opportunity to literally “exhibit” with exhibit banners, student docents, The Internet and the content mastery of their unit topic — brochures, admission tickets, demon - availability of free and for example, facts about the author low-cost desktop publish - strations, guest books and souvenirs Christopher Paul Curtis or facts about ing software have serve to celebrate completion of a unit immigration — using enhanced literacy oppor - study in my middle-level English lan - tunities for students by accessible, student- and teacher- guage arts and social studies class - giving them access to friendly software and use of free around the rooms. This act of working together Internet sites have enhanced literacy world whose exhibits they as to develop exhibits, opportunities for students. can replicate in the class - demonstrations, and storytelling room. However, even without access to tech - builds a literacy community. Students The classroom museum as a closing nology, educators can develop multiple reading skills as they celebration with community outreach help middle-level students research content of the exhibit — for is a memory-making student endeavor. create a classroom muse - example, a Karen Hesse author study, um that will enhance liter - Although the product of the museum or a rites of passage theme. They cre - acy skills for current and project is a , -rich future classes. ate actual informative reports, func - , there are oral language tional writings (museum surveys, spoken, written, published and quizzes, museum brochures) and per - interactive literacy opportunities suasive visual formats (posters). (e.g., docent tours, informational brochures, maps, and readings of exhibit-related books). Beyond think- tank teaming, the museum project can

Rose Reissman is a literacy consultant for Ditmas Educational Complex in Brooklyn, where she developed the Writing Institute as a full-time teacher and began her Museum in School. She is president of the New York City Association of Teachers of English, which offers retired volunteer mentors to new teachers. She is currently writing a book on classroom museums.

E DUCATOR ’ S V OICE V OLUME II PAGE 60 Rose Reissman, Ph.D United Federation of Teachers

be expanded through the use of the under the leadership of Heidi Hayes Internet, desktop publishing, Excel Jacobs in which six weeks of world Students need and Microsoft Publisher — the emerg - communities unit study culminates in a to have some ing basics of classroom technology. museum experience with multiple liter - acy products that can be assessed by idea of what Designing a Middle-Level Literacy teacher-developed rubrics. Linda Classroom Museum — Without a museum is, and With Technology D’Acquisto made an important contri - bution to the field with her Learning on why people This vehicle is grounded in the Display book that includes detailed create research of Howard Garner (2004), guidelines for the development of the museums Heidi Hayes Jacobs (l997), Linda museum learning on display vehicle as D’Acquisto (2006), Ralph Fletcher an assessment of teacher literacy learn - and why (www.ralphfletcher.com ) and Carol ing genre, text, and content objectives many people Hurst ( www.carolhurst.com ). While I with built-in student peer literacy skills started this project based on my per - and content mastery assessments plus enjoy going to sonal museum-going as a child, I was authentic adult and peer feedback museums — not aware of Gardner’s advocacy of (2006). Carol Hurst’s seminal work in the “ways in which the strengths of a literacy includes a downloadable chap - not only as museum atmosphere [fosters] appren - ter — Living History Museum — part of ticeship learning ...[content] structure, which is part of her work with Rebecca rigor and discipline” (2003). Otis on integrating U.S. history with lit - school trips. erature. This chapter details spoken, In addition, Gardner notes “science written, responsive, critical, and analytic museums and children’s museums have ways in which research of U.S. history become the loci for , activi - content at the middle level can be dove - ties and role models that do engage” tailed with literacy skills as part of stu - (2002). Engaged museum community dents “becoming”/impersonating his - members — student curators, docu - toric characters in a “living history menters, docents, exhibit builders, museum.” In his online “Tips for poster designers, brochure authors and Teachers,” Ralph Fletcher also suggests others — affirm the efficacy of the mid - that students write about artifacts. dle-level curriculum maps developed continued on following page

E DUCATOR ’ S V OICE V OLUME II PAGE 61 Literacy Lives at the Virtual Museum

Through access Over the three decades and ongoing do not live near accessible museums of my field research using the class - or come from museum-going families. to the Internet, room museum vehicle as a frame For students to create their own students can visit for literacy learning, student scores of an actual cultural organiza - have gone up on standardized social tion not personally experienced rep - as many museums studies vocabulary questions, docu - resents a challenge; anticipating an as they want to ment-based (illustration, artifact and adult audience visiting classroom diagram-referenced) questions and exhibits at the museum presents online. They can timeline questions. another challenge. Anticipating family view museums and local community as audience Within the last five years, classes in related to their helps students write, speak, commu - which I have explicitly developed doc - nicate and create classroom muse - units, without ument-based questions using two arti - ums. Classroom museums authenti - facts from the museum displays have cate English language arts standards. leaving their done significantly better than peer classroom or classes that did not have the museum With Technology. Through access to spending experience as part of their program. the Internet, students can visit as This would indicate that their authen - many museums as they want to a dime. tic study of artifacts, illustrations, and online. They can view museums relat - diagrams as part of the museum expe - ed to their units, without leaving their rience improves these test-mandated classroom or spending a dime. Three skills. museums in New York City that offer online tours and plenty of resources Step One: Plan the Museum include the Children’s Museum of Students need to have some idea of Manhattan ( www.cmom.org/ ), the what a museum is, why people create New York Historical Society museums and why many people (www.nyhistory.org/web/ ) and the enjoy going to museums — not only Museum of the City of New York as part of school trips. This can be (www.mcny.org/ ). accomplished with and without the use of technology. Identify online experiences offered by the museum, activities or links for the Without Technology. Lead a discus - students to review. Provide the stu - sion in which students share their dents with time and opportunity for a ideas about museums based on past directed cybervisit to the exhibit. experiences. Read aloud or focus stu - dents’ attention on a non-fiction or If a particular class comprises students fiction book about an actual famous who have learned to conduct online museum, particularly when students searches and evaluations using a

E DUCATOR ’ S V OICE V OLUME II PAGE 62 teacher-designed or student-designed One of my former students from rubric, leave the identification of 10 years ago stopped me on the As a teacher, I appropriate museums to the students, street to tell me he had finally seen would rather making it even more investigatory, crit - the San Francisco Exploratorium ical and analytic reading-centered — (www.exploratorium.edu/ ) after we have the Louvre and student-owned. Even if the toured it online for a Leonardo da museum or teacher does the preliminary perusal Vinci Project. Students from of sites and site activities, students will Syracuse, whom I visited during a Collection online, have to engage in a tremendous residency on a Langston Hughes than wait to raise amount of functional and information - exhibit, were able to access the riches al reading and writing as they visit of the Schomberg collection and the money to take their museums. They need to evaluate Studio Museum of Harlem my class or myself how useful the sites are in terms of (www.studiomuseuminharlem.org/ ) there to research print information, public domain online, where they also encountered images and accessibility for demon - Kerry Marshall. They had the French strating and sharing specific features never heard of either the museum or Revolution or of them with an adult or peer small Marshall before they did the searches group audience in 8 to 10 minutes. and checked out the sites. As a Ann Boleyn. Students experience streaming videos, teacher, I would rather have the interactive graphics, shifting screens Louvre museum ( www.louvre.fr/ and online interactive/collaborative llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en ) writing and reading opportunities or Tate Collection ( www.tate.org.uk/ offered by many museums. collection/ ) online, than wait to raise money to take my class or myself Neighborhood and international muse - there to research the French um-going students can expand their Revolution or Ann Boleyn. explorations of multiple world-class museums from their classroom. The Beyond broadening students’ ability Internet levels the cultural resources to develop a potential laundry list of inequity through museum URLs. objects and stories-descriptive narra - Urban students who may live near tives for the unit museum, the fact museums rarely have time to visit many that the students have been part of an accessible local cultural sites unless their online audience for a variety of dis - families are museum-goers. Through tanced and local museums “expands” the use of online sources the cultural their definition of visitors to their awareness of all students — including classroom museum. those from small towns or rural isolated communities — is broadened.

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Museums, with Step Two: Building the Collection into these documents, as could digital photographs of the museum in or without Without Technology. Have the stu - dents review unit texts, printed mate - progress. With a laser printer, suffi - technology, rials or experiences, then ask them to cient color cartridges and glossy offer compile a list of objects for their paper, high-quality brochures, exhibit. They chart who would be posters, signs, fliers and other muse - middle-level responsible for getting a particular um announcements can be easily students the object and create a timeline for the printed in necessary quantities. If the museum. school does not have a laser printer opportunity and sufficient paper for the printed to participate With Technology. Students can access signs and other museum materials, the sites they visited, create an Excel the prototypes become part of set in authentic, chart (or registry of objects), and an classroom museum documents to multiple Excel schedule of roles and responsi - reference next year. bilities. The registrar can maintain audience-validating online contact with students to moni - With access to podcast/MP3 record - literacy tor progress in building the collec - ing capacities, students can record a tion. Entries for a collection catalog podcast, interviewing collection experiences can be assembled as a Word file. donors, chronicling exhibit history, or whose magic interviewing adult curators. These Step Three: Creating the Museum experts can be from world-class will linger. Without Technology. Students draw museums that specialize in particular their space and develop maps to collections, or distanced museums. transform the classroom into a gallery. MP3 recordings can provide appro - They hand-letter all signs, brochures, priate period, popular, or student- posters, and directions. They fold, composed music to be wafted post, and photocopy brochures, fliers, through the exhibit. This actual and feedback forms on the school museum technique adds an aural copier or use an outside color copier dimension to the museum experi - if funds are available. ence. Students can record museum exhibit tour guides’ tapes on audio - With Technology. Posters, signs, and cassettes, so museum visitors can do graphics can be done with MS self-guided tours. Publisher or Print Artist. Images that are public domain can be scanned

E DUCATOR ’ S V OICE V OLUME II PAGE 64 Step Four-Working the Museum digital photography, PowerPoint Without Technology. Museums have presenta tions, and Ms. Publisher greeters who welcome guests to the tools, which are increasingly accessi - museum. Their remarks are scripted ble and familiar to students. Use of and practiced. The student docents, KidsSpiration ( www.inspiration.com/ ) or tour guides, compose their own can enhance documentation as well as scripts so they have step-by-step pro - engage students in using necessary cedural narratives to guide the muse - graphic organizers that will enrich um visitors through the exhibit within their research reporting capabilities. 10 to 15 minutes. They may need to Creating docs, JPEGs, PowerPoints, deviate from this script to respond to and other files ensures that the teacher questions from the guests. and the young curators have docu - The demonstrators or storytellers ments that can be used as a modifiable also work from a script, which details template for future students. the step-by-step procedures in their Step Five: Optional Followup “make-it-and-take-it demonstration” Without Technology. Students may (i.e., Tiffany glass design using plastic create the guestbook, photos from the tiles), or related print book reading museum, and the many scripts (e.g., (i.e., what illustrations to ask ques - tour guides and visitor feedback tions about, where to pause for the forms) and document the experiences audience to provide ending rhymes or of the event through a beautiful scrap - fill in missing words). These scripts book or poster. They may detail it in are developed by student demonstra - a school newsletter, write an article tors and storytellers and rehearsed for the student newspaper, or keep a prior to the opening. reflective journal. Artifacts from the Some students opt to be journalist collection can be photographed for documenters of the museum-building the next class. process. Their reports are included in With Technology. If students have the brochure or catalog or as part of learned Dreamweaver, Flash, or Front the exhibit. Page, they can expand the capacity for With Technology. The material above accessibility of the exhibit for a broad can be facilitated, preserved, and audience of Internet users, or potential transferred by using the most acces - school admissions when they apply sible Microsoft Word documents, for a high school or college.

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Conclusion RESOURCES : Museums in the classroom, with or Resource Central — Museum Resources without technology, offer middle-level Worldwide www.resourcehelp.com/qsermuseum.htm students the opportunity to partici - pate in authentic, multiple audience- This search engine offers links to a number of themed museums that will correlate to validating literacy experiences whose mandated curricula. Check out the San magic will linger. With technology, Diego Aerospace Museum for the history that experience can be accessed again of military and civil aircraft. To infuse com - munity service or teach civic responsibility, by students, families, the teacher, and visit the American Red Cross link on this general audiences. Technology does site. If you use cryptograms to teach puzzle offer multiple dimensions to enhance solving, mathematics literacy and higher order thinking skills, you will find the the literacy validity magic of muse - National Cryptologic Museum a rich ums. resource. Great Museums: Virtual Tour www.greatmuseums.org/virtual_museums.html To help docents design museum tours or to show visitors around relevant sites. Going to a Museum? Resources for Educators www.fraziermuseum.org/pdf/ educationalresource2.pdf This guide and step-by-step planner is a course itself in the use of museums for content and investigatory collaborative learning. Middle-level student curators will find it an excellent resource. National Gallery of Tours www.nga.gov/education/school.htm This site has grade- and age-appropriate top - ics for your unit museum. It has sample questions, teaching materials and models, plus templates for student-centered feed - back forms that students can modify. Among themes explored are: weather in art, portraits and personalities, global aware - ness, and lateral problem-solving. The site has a downloadable guide for its The Art of Romare Bearden (2003) exhibit.

E DUCATOR ’ S V OICE V OLUME II PAGE 66 FOR FURTHER PRINT RESOURCES AND SUPPORT : D’Acquisto, Linda. (2006). Learning on Display. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Fletcher, Ralph. www.ralphfletcher.com Gardner, Howard. (2004). The Unschooled Mind. New York: Basic Books Hayes Jacobs, Heidi. (l997). Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum and Assessment. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Hurst, Carol. www.carolhurst.com

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