Tool Review: This I
Believe
Hyperlink: http://thisibelieve.org/
Description
From the website:
“This I Believe is an
international organization engaging people in writing and sharing essays
describing the core values that guide their daily lives. Over 125,000 of these
essays, written by people from all walks of life, are archived here on our
website, heard on public radio, chronicled through our books, and featured in
weekly podcasts. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the
same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.”
My description:
This I Believe is
a webpage that hosts thousands of personal essays. The authors of the essays vary in age, race,
sex, and every other category. The
essays themselves have equal variation in their topics. However, despite the variety of the authors
and their works, they are united in their purpose. These essays share the beliefs and values of
their authors. As a collection, they
provide a special kind of truth. This
truth may not be universal or life changing, but it offers some clarification
of life through the eyes of the authors.
Price/Availability
The website is free in a PBS/NPR kind of way. There is no cost to use it, and there does
not seem to be any limitation on the free content. However, most pages within the site do have a
“Make A Donation” advertisement, and if you explore the website for long enough
a pop-up donation request will eventually prompt you to contribute. However, if you can handle the guilt of not
donating to PBS and NPR, then you probably won’t feel obligated to donate to
this website.
The website also offers instructional materials for teachers
of all grade levels. These materials are
customized by state, but are only available for $19.95.
The site also has a store that sells books and CD’s, however
there is no obligation to buy them.
Sample Featured
Essay:
Essays that are “featured” on the website are accompanied by
an audio file of the author reading his/her work: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/31232/
REVIEW
Rationale for
Selecting This I Believe
As a writing teacher, I am always looking for examples of
good writing for my students. With my
sophomore class, I do a unit on writing a short story. When I was scouring the web for examples of
good short fiction, I stumbled upon NPR’s three-minute
fiction contest. This website
offered a cornucopia of short fiction that was well written. Not only was it well written, but it also
showed my students that non-professional writers can write great stories and be
recognized! The website is great for
my classes because it provides great examples of writing and offers my students
a chance at fame. I have found a similar
website for my 7th graders and their poetry
unit, but I have yet to find a great site for personal essay writing in my
freshman class.
My school is also really trying to improve the way that it
helps seniors with their college essays, because our students have struggled
greatly with personal writing. They can
write fiction and argumentative papers, but they get uncomfortable when it is
time to get personal. This I Believe seems to offer exactly
what I need. It is a website that
provides a plenitude of personal essays, and it also provides a chance for
students to be recognized! Too often,
the students feel like their only audience is the teacher. These types of websites and contests provide
a larger audience.
Tool Review Rubric
|
|
Exceeds expectations
|
Meets expectations
|
Does not meet expectations
|
|
Credibility
of website developers
- Who
funds website?
- What
is mission of website?
- Is the
content biased?
|
✔
|
|
|
|
Relevancy
to context
- Is the
material on the website beneficial to my classroom?
- Do the
essays serve as mentor texts for my students?
|
✔
|
|
|
|
Appropriateness
for target audience and level
- Are
the topics of the essays appropriate for a 9th grade classroom?
- Are
the essays challenging enough for 9th grade students?
|
|
✔
|
|
|
Website
design and usability
-Is the
website easy to navigate?
-Is the
information organized in a logical way?
|
✔
|
|
|
|
Performance
of website features
- Do
pages load quickly and easily?
Do audio
files load and play without delay
|
✔
|
|
|
Credibility
Credibility was an extremely important factor for me. I teach my students to be critical of the
information that they consume, and we are always on the lookout for bias. I was very pleased with the credibility of
this website. It is an “established” brand
and is funded by users who voluntarily contribute. Dan Gediman, the executive producer of This I Believe says, “The
goal is not to persuade Americans to agree on the same beliefs. Rather, the
hope is to encourage people to begin the much more difficult task of developing
respect for beliefs different from their own.” I believe that the website lives by this
idea. The variety of opinions on the
website ensure that the content does not have an agenda or bias.
Relevancy
I had a very specific reason for choosing This I Believe. I wanted to bring it into my freshman
classroom and use the essays as mentor texts for my students’ personal
writing. After poking around on the
website for a few minutes, I immediately realized that I could find essays that
were beneficial to my classroom. There
are essays on just about any topic that might come up in a Language Arts
classroom, and they are organized in a user-friendly way (more on that later).
Appropriateness for
Target Audience
Appropriateness is always a concern when bringing something
new into the classroom. You don’t want
to expose your students to inappropriate material and you also don’t want to bring
in material that is too challenging and might frustrate them easily. You also don’t want to bring in material that
is not challenging enough because it will bore them. This website has every type of essay that you
could hope for, although they are not organized by intended audience. You can search for an essay based on the
author’s age, but not on the age of the appropriate audience. This complaint is a small one, but it might
not be a great idea to turn younger students loose on the website. There are essays that deal with addiction,
morality, race, and other serious topics.
Website Design
If a website is frustrating or difficult to navigate, then
it does not matter if it has great content.
I found the design of This I
Believe to be very easy to navigate.
It has featured essays, but you can also browse by theme or search by
topic, author, or even age of the author.
There is also an Educators tab that has easily accessible lesson plans
and ideas for the classroom.
Performance
Performance goes hand in hand with design when it comes to
evaluating a website. If a website
cannot perform quickly and effectively, then users will get frustrated and look
for a better performing website. The
pages load quickly and easily. The audio
files that correspond to each featured essay load instantly, and the sound
quality is professional. Note: The
website also is mobile and tablet friendly!
The Verdict
I think that This I
Believe is a great tool for the classroom.
The sheer abundance of essays and topics makes it a wonderful resource,
and I think that students would enjoy exploring the website and
reading/listening to the essays. A
teacher might need to screen and select essays for younger students, but older
students could navigate the website on their own. The wealth of information on the website could
not be easily replicated in the print world.
I don’t think that there are comparable
resources out there that are as extensive and as well organized as This I Believe.
PUTTING IT IN THE CLASSROOM
English Language Arts
Standards (CCGPS) that apply:
ELACC9-10RL2: Determine a theme or central idea of text and
analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it
emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective
summary of the text.
ELACC9-10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how
to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and
manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery,
tension, or surprise.
ELACC9-10RL6:
Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience
reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a
wide reading of world literature.
ELACC9-10RI10:
By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literary
nonfiction in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with
scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend
literary nonfiction in the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and
proficiently.
ELACC9-10W3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined
experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and
well-structured event sequences.
ELACC9-10W6:
Use technology,
including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing
products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other
information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.
How do I get started?
It’s easy! Just go to
http://thisibelieve.org/ and start
exploring. The toolbar at the top makes
exploring easy:
If you want to brows the essays, just click on explore:
Some Ideas for
Literacy Instruction:
·
A unit on personal narrative writing that uses
the essays as mentor texts
·
Select a theme from a novel and explore related
essays with that same theme in order to initiate conversation
·
Select an essay as a means to introducing a
text. For example: Use an essay on race
to introduce a text like To Kill A
Mockingbird
I hope this helps you teachers out there! I highly recommend this site for the classroom!
Test
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteThis is Jacinth Robotham by the way. I have heard of this tool before but never actually investigated. Your review provided an excellent overview of it. I think I would like to use it for discussion generation as well as it could provide some good mentor texts for my students for writing. The ideas you provided fits well within a language arts context. I like the idea of personal narratives. I believe the website is very credible especially since it is managed on a similar format as NPR and Public radio. The cost to purchase the CD if desired is minimal. I also like that each essay comes with an audio files. This feature works well for low readers, students with disabilities and auditory learners. It also help the reader/listener to hear the author's tone and to see the relationship between speaking and writing. I am appreciative of the exposure and will be using this tool in my classroom as well as sharing it with my colleagues
BrickPollitt,
ReplyDeleteThis I Believe seems like a great resource for all Language Arts or English teachers regardless of grade level. So much of what I teach now is based on point of view, perspective, and how authors present similar information differently. Trying to pull together resources for such an activity can be very difficult. I typically spend 1 to 2 hours trying to find different perspectives on one issue. Many times these texts are written at a level that is too high for six graders.
It can be difficult to teach students to look beyond their own personal opinion. A site such as this would provide teachers with a great resource for teaching author's purpose. This I Believe could also be used for delving into personal bias and fact vs opinion. In addition to meeting many of the standards, I found many quality examples of student writing on this site, something that can be difficult to find.
Sean Spade