Olivia Sweet: Digital Media Literacy

  The podcast begins with an introductory personal narrative about the speaker’s uncle Ed that draws the listener in and evokes familial nostalgia. In my opinion, this is an effective way to begin. It also allows the listener to feel more connected to the speaker, and evokes a tone of vulnerability that lasts throughout the podcast and I honestly felt very sentimental as a listener, feeling very upset and angry for uncle Ed and his niece. This use of pathos to engage the listener in a serious, devastating issue in our country was effective.  The hypocrisy within the podcast introduction is heartbreaking. Hannah-Jones says, “ So it took, literally, my uncle getting a death sentence before he was able to get health insurance.” If he received appropriate medical attention when he first sought medical help, he would have had a chance to fight against death. Structurally, breaking up between speakers and offering various storylines regarding the same issue really highlights the sev...

  In her chapter, “Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us,” Christiansen’s metaphor of popular culture colonizing people’s minds, especially young people, is really powerful and enlightening. She writes, “Our society’s culture industry colonizes their minds and teaches them how to act, live, and dream.” I, too, watched Cinderella and other famous Disney fairy tales like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and romanticized the idea of women carrying out traditional female gender roles in the home (or under the sea) and waiting to be “saved” or “chosen” by prince charming. In undergrad, I took a literary analysis class on Fairy Tales through URI. This was genuinely the first time (at 20 years old) when my mind was floored by how the original fairy tales written by the Grimm Brothers were altered by Disney to fit American stereotypes and gender roles and “American Dream” unrealistic societal expectations of beauty, romance, and heterosexual relationships. The original story of Sno...

I n her chapter, “Literacy: Are Today’s Youth Digital Natives?” Boyd makes her argument clear that the term, digital natives, does not accurately define youth today and that the term is actually problematic. Boyd argues that while youth today are active participants in social media and online, youth today are not born with, or do not inherently possess digital knowledge and/or skills that define the term, digital natives. She argues that some youth still face challenges in the networked world. Teens in fact vary in their knowledge in technology, and those who are more challenged must “fend for themselves” to make sense of the technologies rather than “digital immigrants” who receive more help and aid that youth could also benefit from. She writes, “Being exposed to information or imagery through the internet and engaging with social media do not make someone a savvy interpreter of the meaning behind these artifacts.” Just because of the generation teens today were born into, teens are ...

Hello! My name is Olivia Sweet. I am an ESL ELA teacher at DelSesto middle school , a public school in Providence. I just completed the TESOL program at RIC and I graduated with a degree in English and in Education in 2019 from URI . My summer is going very well so far- I put an offer in on a condo in Warwick and it got accepted today. I am very excited to have my own condo. In my free time, I work at a restaurant in Warwick, serving seafood. I love teaching middle school in Providence and I love my two cats: Layla and Leo.