Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th Graders with Kora Moore
144 Plays1 year ago
Our last episode with 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade ELA teacher, Kora Moore! We are so grateful to have gotten to chat with Kora and hear her experiences in the classroom. In this episode, she shares how the different grades she teaches have responded to journalistic learning and offers key pieces of advice for teachers considering leading journalistic projects in their classrooms.
Kora Moore teaches 6th, 7th, and 8th grade ELA at Lighthouse Middle School in Coos Bay Oregon. This is her second year leading a journalistic learning project in her classroom across the three grades she teaches. Last year, three of her students won an award for their published journalism piece.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to the Journalistic Learning Podcast where we talk with teachers who are leading journalistic projects in their classrooms.
Cora Moore on Journalistic Learning
00:00:18
Speaker
Today we are concluding our conversation with Oregon 6th, 7th and 8th grade ELA teacher Cora Moore.
00:00:24
Speaker
I've loved listening to Cora share her personal stories and insights as well as hearing about the things she's experimented with in the classroom regarding journalistic learning.
00:00:32
Speaker
In today's episode she's going to summarize for us her advice for teachers looking to lead these sorts of projects in their classrooms
00:00:39
Speaker
as well as how the students at each grade level that she teaches has responded to journalistic learning.
00:00:45
Speaker
So let's jump back into it.
Importance of Media Literacy
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah, for you, because you're teaching this again, and obviously you see it not only as something good, but perhaps something necessary.
00:01:04
Speaker
So why do you see this as something not only worth trying, but worth repeating?
00:01:10
Speaker
Worth repeating.
00:01:12
Speaker
So I feel like it is worth repeating this because it gives students more practice with those media literacy skills.
00:01:22
Speaker
It also gives them more opportunities to...
00:01:26
Speaker
research and tell those stories that are so impactful and why would you not want students to do that again and even again we might have to change the approach a little bit so if i do this again next year i'm going to have a group of students that have done it twice already and so maybe i might need to tweak some things
00:01:48
Speaker
But I think that the act of interviewing somebody and looking at what matters to us in our community and hearing different perspectives, all of that is so valuable.
00:02:00
Speaker
Definitely.
Student Reactions by Grade
00:02:02
Speaker
And, you know, I want to ask this too, but, you know, you're teaching sixth, seventh and eighth grade.
00:02:09
Speaker
What, what I guess are the differences between how kids are reacting in each grade?
00:02:14
Speaker
In each grade.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:16
Speaker
So sixth grade, I feel they were very much like, this is a...
00:02:22
Speaker
like a big kid, like a grownup kind of project.
00:02:25
Speaker
Like, I feel like they felt the weight of what I was asking them to do and they really stepped up and it was really cool to see.
00:02:34
Speaker
And those kids are seventh graders this year and they're the ones who are like, okay, I guess we could do this again.
00:02:39
Speaker
It went okay last year.
00:02:41
Speaker
Even though they're pretty shy and kind of reserved group.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:46
Speaker
My eighth graders last year, they had very strong opinions and they just would not stop talking at all.
00:02:59
Speaker
Very talkative group, very strong opinions.
00:03:02
Speaker
very diverse opinions.
00:03:05
Speaker
And so I think it really was a helpful project for them to kind of see some different perspectives than their own.
00:03:13
Speaker
And I think that they, many of them recognize the value in that, which was really neat to see.
Middle School Dynamics
00:03:20
Speaker
Great.
00:03:20
Speaker
And then your, your seventh graders, any unique about them?
00:03:25
Speaker
Last year, seventh graders.
00:03:27
Speaker
So they were, they have them again this year as eighth graders.
00:03:31
Speaker
Um, and they were the ones who were like, we have to do it again.
00:03:34
Speaker
Um, but they've come around and, um, last year, I think they were kind of a goofy, a goofy group.
00:03:46
Speaker
Um, there are a lot of joking around, um,
00:03:49
Speaker
And I wasn't really sure how much was going to get done.
00:03:52
Speaker
And then somebody walked in the door to interview.
00:03:56
Speaker
And let me tell you, they were all there with ties.
00:03:58
Speaker
And they were ready to get down to business.
00:04:03
Speaker
And I think that kind of fits with the middle school as well.
00:04:07
Speaker
The sixth graders were really kind of trying to keep up and say, hey, I'm a middle schooler now.
00:04:12
Speaker
And the seventh graders were like, we're goofy and kind of crazy.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:16
Speaker
Eighth graders are really kind of starting to find their way in the world and realize that they have...
00:04:20
Speaker
some autonomy.
00:04:22
Speaker
And so I do think that kind of those traits that we often see in our middle school students as they've progressed through the years kind of shown, showed through in this project in, in little ways.
00:04:35
Speaker
Well said.
Advice for Teachers on Implementation
00:04:36
Speaker
And then, yeah, lastly, what are some just general pieces of, of advice you'd give to teachers who maybe are either implementing effective communicators for the first time, or perhaps even apprehensive about leading a journalistic learning unit?
00:04:50
Speaker
Well, especially if we are language arts teachers, I think we're really especially equipped to handle this unit just because we already grapple with really deep and difficult topics in the rest of our curriculum.
00:05:06
Speaker
So I think we're the right ones to do this.
00:05:09
Speaker
And it might be a challenge, but I think it's a really good challenge that has made me grow as a teacher and as a community member.
00:05:21
Speaker
really wonderful, not just for my students, but for me as a teacher and a human to walk through this project.
00:05:27
Speaker
And so I'm so glad that I did it.
00:05:30
Speaker
And I'm excited about doing it again this year.
00:05:34
Speaker
And I do think that it has been really important to have some support from my administration and to communicate well with my parents.
00:05:43
Speaker
I think that that's been really key.
00:05:45
Speaker
I haven't had any like parent pushback or anything like that.
00:05:48
Speaker
And I think just kind of communicating what we're doing, why we're doing it has been really essential.
00:05:54
Speaker
there and just kind of reiterating that what we're doing are skills that we're supposed to be teaching, that it's not a big political thing, that the students get to choose what they're writing about.
00:06:07
Speaker
Those sorts of things have been really important to communicate with our families as well.
Conclusion and Sign-off
00:06:13
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing, Korra, and I appreciate your time.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
And that's where we're going to end today's episode.
00:06:21
Speaker
Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll see you Monday.