One way that I've used my iPod is by providing background music for reading. Students listen to music when they are doing homework or reading at home; they can have the same experience in my room.
Music can indicate the genre or mood of a story before we even begin reading. For example, when my English I class read Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," I filled my iPod with spooky music, so they could experience the musical equivalent of roaming through the underground catacombs of Paris. Students knew through the musical cues that something strange was going to happen.
Amontillado playlist
iTunes is a great resource for teaching poetry; virtually every classic poem has been made into a song, and there is likely to be a recording of someone reading the poem as well. I used this to my advantage when teaching Poe's "Annabel Lee."
After reading the poem together, we listened to The Cruxshadows' spoken version of the poem. This version uses sound effects in the background, and the reader is very expressive (in a creepy way).
Next, we listened to The Society Islands' song. This version is almost a folk song; it sounds almost like a sweet love story. This offered the class an opportunity to talk about how people interpret poetry differently, and how their own backgrounds and experiences can cause them to have an experience with literature that is unique.
I cannot stress enough that I would never have found any of these songs without iTunes; the search feature is easy enough that I can type in either a title ("Annabel Lee") or a keyword ("scary"), and a great number of songs come up immediately.
In addition to music, iTunes also offers podcasts covering subjects that range from television shows to dating to Chaucer. Though I haven't used podcasts in my classes (yet!), I have a colleague who uses the Grammar Girl podcast as a supplement to her grammar lessons (Grammar Girl offers "quick 'n dirty" tips for remembering grammar rules). Students appreciate the condensed--but practical--grammar rules, and they also like the novelty of having another teacher; sometimes changing the routine just a little can invigorate a lesson.
I often use iTunes during my lesson, but I use YouTube when the lesson is completed; it can help reinforce our reading by giving students a visual adaptation of the literature. For example, I showed
this video after reading "The Cask of Amontillado."
The class watched this video after reading "Annabel Lee."
Each of these videos was produced by high school students; there are hundreds of videos available that match these titles. I chose these particular videos because they use the original texts that we studied in class.
This video gives a fantastic illustration of irony. Once my students watched it, they were able to transfer their knowledge of this concept to the stories we read, and they were able to identify irony in those pieces.
I used YouTube videos in my Theater Arts I classes to give examples of types of propaganda. YouTube has videos of commercials that are as many as thirty years old, and typically these are the most popular with my students (this Bounty commercial was very well-received; in fact, students insisted upon multiple viewings!
When my Theater Arts II class was talking about satire, YouTube was an excellent resource, as there were more than enough parodies of the plays we had already studied; these were often student-produced as well, and that added a level of interest for my theater students.
****** YouTube is blocked in Tipton County schools; to show YouTube videos, I had to download another application, ZillaTube, which converts YouTube videos to other media formats. TeacherTube is like YouTube, but the content is submitted by teachers; this site is accessible in Tipton County and has many fine resources.
In conclusion, both iTunes and YouTube have enhanced my reading instruction, and they have in turn enhanced my students' learning experience.
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