Filipino:
Examining Sources
From News Writing
to Examining New Connections
to Examining New Connections
REPURPOSED NEWS WRITING ACTIVITY FROM CLASS:
From a news writing exercise in our Intermediate Filipino classroom, these are some themes that have emerged: stigma of mental health disorders in the Philippines, plight of indigenous Filipinos, long term effects of sleep deprivation among college students, creative ways people are getting married during the pandemic in Manila, space race, media suppression in the Philippines, military takeover in Myanmar, etc. etc.
Insights: 1. Students are already reading and writing about current events and issues that are significant to them 2. Students are already generating the vocabulary they need from the original project
Repurposing to examine sources & create new connections 1. Search 2-3 items in your writing to see which other sources are “talking” with what you wrote (for example: “plantito” “social class” “farmers”) 2. Try to find at least 2-3 “diverse” sources: 1. fact-based (academic, news, etc) 2. Opinion piece 3. Ephemera - memes, photos, posters, posts from FB, Instagram, etc. 4. Collage your word “search” journeys using Padlet 5. What did you find? - your reflections can be in the form of visual report, short essay, meme, short podcast report back etc.
Some frameworks & insights that informed this project:
Paolo Friere: “Language is never neutral”
Joi Barrrios: “Heritage language learning can also be seen as an act of empowerment, even called an ‘act of decolonization’”
Claire Kramsch: ”Language is not simply a tool for communication – symbolic power struggles underlie any speech act, discourse move, or verbal interaction, be it in face-to-face conversations, online tweets or political debates.”
Insights from the task:
1. Students read and write about current events and issues that are significant to them and generate the vocabulary they need for their reflection.
2. Students appreciate being asked “Who is talking / expressing this view?” “What values of Philippine society are being pushed / represented? By whom and why?”
3. In an intermediate level language classroom, comprehension & expression in Filipino take time & scaffolding, but empowering students to express beyond their current level ultimately leads to more creative & nuanced writing assignments.
SAMPLE WORD MAPS in PADLET below:
