Modeling Media Literacy: Walt Jacobs, the Teacher as Text
Media is ubiquitous in students’ lives, according to Walt Jacobs, professor and interim chair of the Department of African American & African Studies (AA&AS). Today's students, members of 'Generation iPod,' may find podcasts, You Tube videos, and quips on “The Daily Show” more relevant than what they read in their textbooks. The author of Speaking the Lower Frequencies: Students and Media Literacy, Jacobs considers it vitally important for students to have an understanding of how modern media work, and how messages and products of popular culture are constructed. He'll be making these connections in the classroom this fall with his media-intensive course Your Television Will Be Colorized: Black TV Comics' Riffs on Race. In this and other courses Jacobs uses technology to enhance his teaching, but also to help his students engage more actively with the media messages most of us only passively consume.
Each week during fall and spring semester, students will view black comedians from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and beyond, by way of investigating the complexities of how race works in society. For their final project, Jacobs will be expecting students to write their own skits and perform them. "It may also be useful for students to make their own video casts," he says.
Jacobs always seeks to connect what's going on in the larger, wired world to the concepts students explore in class. Undergraduates need to question what they see and hear, he feels. "To be critical about the media," he says, "without losing the pleasure they derive from it, that's what media literacy is all about."
Although by training he's a sociologist, he took his undergrad degree in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech, so he's not easily intimidated by new technologies. He interned at 3M before returning to graduate school to follow his penchant for liberal arts. He enjoys exposing students to "strange texts" via digital media. If his numerous teaching awards are any indication, students like it, too.
"In addition to blogging, I've used WebCT [now called WebVista] and I'm going to experiment with Moodle for the first time this year," he says. "Students who don't say much in the classroom have really interesting things to say. That's my primary reason for using those tools—to give those students a way to more fully express themselves."
Jacobs has incorporated online discussion tools into his courses for at least a decade, even before he came to the University to teach in General College and in the Department of Postsecondary Teaching & Learning. He hosts two online discussion areas in his classes. One is the Coffee House, an online bulletin board where students can post any comment or question. In the more formal Debate House, students respond in writing to graded, structured assignments. Only rarely do the two "houses" overlap.
Jacobs loves popular culture, not only to help show undergraduates how to bring critical skills to bear while exploring self-expression in writing, but also to model the concept of teacher-as-text: "I use myself as an example, my reactions, my readings of these things," he says, by way of encouraging students to take similar risks. "I prod students to not always say the safe thing, and I share unpopular views, too."
As interim department chair, he explores new territory, as well. This year he is administering a departmental blog to communicate with faculty members and students. He also plans to try a departmental wiki when AA&AS revamps its Web site this academic year. He maintains his own blog apart from the department: Planet Walt at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/wrjacobs/planetwalt/.
"For me, it's really important for students to have an understanding of how media systems work, their purposes, the reasons why media messages and products are put together," Jacobs says. "In a way, media literacy is a component of the ‘sociological imagination,’ the ability to establish and analyze connections between the personal and the public. Always bring it back. Make the connections.”
