greater responsibility

Sundance Institute Feature Film Program



With technology advancing as quickly as it is, people are more and more rapidly gaining access into various cultures and insights. The ability to cross borders is accomplished with a click of the mouse nowadays. However, with this great access comes great responsibility. Today, we, humans, are looked at as mere consumers that are fed message after message about the society we live in as well as other society. This becomes a problem when we look at who is in control of giving the message. Knowing that we cannot separate the message from the messenger, we must critically think about the message itself. We must ask ourselves, "who is sending the message?" "what is their ideals?" "what do they want us to see?" Depending on the answer to the question, we might have to use caution in watching and consuming what we do. Our views of things can be greatly slanted depending on the lens that we see it through. Sundance Film is one organization that understands this and sees the need for true, raw storytelling. These independent films are not heightened by the stereotypical roles, characters, and themes and instead allow the message to be heard through a true voice. The organization tries to cultivate true voices. In the video it says: "They do not tell you what to do and not do, they ask you 'what are you going to say?'" As teachers, we need to cultivate the same voice in our students and ourselves. We are the future and if we can grab media and technology by the horns and direct in a way that builds people up instead of breaking people down, the world could be something special.

Hypertexts and the Essay

The Essay. The infamous student killer essay.
Essay's have always been thought of as the dreaded assignment by teachers. It takes students so much time to write this when it comes to outlining, writing a thesis, and all the drafts. Not to mention the very confusing ever-changing MLA works-cited page. It, of course, has to be Times New Roman, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins. It's a night-mare for everyone involved.
What if this process could be changed? Is there a way to make this more exciting? What about hypertext? This is writing an essay on a blog that is full of links and videos and the like. Is this a good idea? I am saying yes it is. Although it would require for the entire writing process to be changed and it would also require an entirely new grading method, it would put writing in a more exciting prevalent context for future students. In almost any job, one has to now be able to use technology and produce it. If the new form of essay writing required to be a form of media it would allow for students to practice what they will have to do in the real world.
In addition to practice, a media form of essay would also allow for students to become more involved with the essay. One could imagine many different facets of information and include it all on one page or links to a page. The works cited page could be the links provided.
For the strict grammar fans, none of this would be lost, however, it would be challenged. In addition to a well-written, grammatically correct essay, they would also include video clips and various links, providing the student with access to more knowledge.