Progress Over Time
Animation Project
Curriculum Integration
A Common Framework
Consistent Implementation
Parent Involvement
Homework & Soap Operas
Family Literacy
Training Evaluations

"Every year, at the end of the school year, we hold a meeting to assess what is successful, what needs to be improved, and what can stay the way it is," says CML President and CEO Tessa Jolls. "And we watch and evaluate the students' animation projects." Feedback from members of the SMARTArt teaching team comes in the form of large-group discussions and individual written evaluations.

In the first three years of this demonstration project there were too many unknowns to be able "to know the right questions to ask," Jolls says. "Now that we can identify some of the factors of success," she says, "we can start to generate ideas on what comes next and how to measure results."

A foundation, a framework for integrating the curricula to achieve common goals, first needed to be developed. This process solidified in the second year with the introduction of the CML MediaLit Kit™. Another preliminary step was "to determine how much training and coaching educators need to learn and teach media literacy," Jolls says, "and be able to integrate all the different standards to produce a one-hour lesson."

Progress Over Time

Despite the challenge of teaching children new skills they were just learning themselves, the teaching team stayed committed to fulfilling the aims of the Project. "Now, in the third year, it's all falling together," observes Project partner Denise Grande, MCED's Director of Strategic Initiatives. "I've been involved in several model program initiatives," she says, "and in almost every case progress is not linear. Year 1 is all about understanding; Year 2 is all about frustration, that we're not making more progress; in Year 3 everything begins to click."

LAUSD Local District 4 Superintendent Richard Alonzo concurs. "Improvement is a gradual process," he says. "Sustainable change is done over time; it's not done overnight."

CML media literacy coach Jeff Share comments, "What we are doing at Leo Politi is bringing the big ideas from the ivory tower right down to earth. At the same time, grand expectations are seldom achieved except in baby steps," he says. "Hopefully, those steps are seeds we are planting for future forests of serious critical thinking."

Animation Project

Having students create 30-second animated public service announcements to address violence prevention "met the terms of the grant and also gave a focal point," Jolls explains. "Especially in the first year when teachers were just beginning to learn media literacy, it gave us something tangible to show." The intention behind the grant was to have students "use media literacy to learn how to deconstruct media and also how to construct it," says Jolls, "so self-expression is an important part of the project."

"Media literacy is all about the process," says coach Share. "The production is used to get kids deep into the process of analysis. But it's also great for kids to have the product, to see the animation they created." Most SMARTArt educators agree. As teacher Ralph Sanders puts it, "the students did a good job. It showed they understood it."

"It definitely brings a lot of pride when the kids see on TV something they've done," says Share. "I think that's been tremendous, and the kids are very impressed with how professional it looks."

Among other benefits of the animation project, such as giving students practice in working in teams and using technology tools, "students are learning where their skills lay," says Clifford Cohen, President of AnimAction, Inc. "It might be in writing, it might be in organizing, it might be in art, or it might not be in any of those things; but that's still learning something."

Each year, an authentic assessment of the student animations was administered in the end-of-the-year Project Evaluation. While viewing the final animation shorts, teachers were guided through a series of questions to evaluate the students' work. The process not only modeled how teachers should work with students to help them reflect upon their project work, but deepened the learning of the educators. Teachers definitely noticed improvement in the complexity of the animations done by students who participated in the program from one year to the next.

In the third year, a Pre/Post Test was tried again. This time it didn't work because few Project teachers administered the Pre-test.

Curriculum Integration
"Everything today is represented in the media," Share says. "So there's nothing that's going to integrate these kids' lives and all the different subject areas together better than a critical media literacy.

We're seeing now that learning is about connections," he continues. "It's about understanding the way people and knowledge are interconnected and interdependent, it's not about just storing information. The whole idea of academic disciplines is artificial," says Share. "In order to make connections so that something makes sense, we've got to break down those false walls. Media literacy is a great way of doing that and helping kids understand the relationships."

A Common Framework
Jolls emphasizes that it is essential "to adopt a common framework and have a common understanding." Progress can't occur if you have "a dozen different meanings of media literacy," she says. That is why the introduction of the CML Media Lit Kit™ in the Project's second year was so significant. "The meta-frame of The Five Core Concepts and Key Questions permeates all curricular areas. These are important tools." says Jolls.

From an arts-education perspective, Grande observes, "we need to think about a district-wide strategy." With district-wide implementation it's no longer a hit or miss. "Presently, you may get arts education depending on what teacher you have, what grade level, or what school you attend," she says. "Across the board, if we aren't getting math three times a year, why are we getting art three times a year?"

Consistent Implementation
In Years 1 and 2 of the Project, integration of nationally stated instructional standards in media literacy, visual performance, arts, language arts and other core curricula was part of the lesson planning that occurred during professional development workshops. Apart from the artists' sessions, however, implementation in the classroom was left to the discretion of participating teachers.

By Year 3, improved results were achieved through incorporating the California state English Language Development (ELD) standards in the professional development lesson-planning sessions and consistently implementing the integrated media literacy activities during daily ELD sessions in the classrooms.

Parent Involvement

At the end of SMARTArt's first year, an After-School Showcase featured a video of the 30-second animated public service announcements produced by students on Tracks A and B. A small group gathered in the school library to watch the video. Few parents attended, perhaps because it was held at 5:00 PM or because teachers didn't promote it enough. Those who did come wanted to watch the video again and again.

Subsequent to the poor parent turn-out the first year, a School-wide Showcase presented during regular school hours in Years 2 and 3 provided SMARTArt students with an enthusiastic audience of teachers, students, and invited administrators.

Homework & Soap Operas
"Ever since I started," says SMARTArt teacher Lorena Mendoza, "I invited parents to come in and learn about media literacy. Because there was going to be homework related to media, I wanted them to understand it." The parents of children in her second-grade class were very supportive.

Mendoza teaches a Spanish/English waiver class for students who have recently immigrated to the United States. "Ninety-nine percent of the parents don't speak English," she says. So she talks with parents in Spanish and applies the Five Key Questions to Spanish TV soap operas. Among other issues, "we talk about the themes," Mendoza relates. "There's always the poor Cinderella type of character who finds a rich man and marries him and lives happily ever after. The message is that they have to marry a rich man in order to attain what they want.

Now the parents are going home and they are talking with the kids about it," Mendoza says happily, "and the kids are building verbal skills to communicate to the parents what they learned. It's made a difference in the way the kids are internalizing this."

Mendoza's efforts are a good example of how to work with parents to encourage children in applying what they are learning about media literacy at school to their media experiences at home. More work needs to be done to engage more parents.

Family Literacy
One of the strategies to increase family involvement and to tie-in with Year 3's "community" theme was to implement two Family Album Writing Workshops with mothers of the students.

The adult literacy workshops are popular within the Los Angeles Unified School District. Laura Vargas of the Urban Education Partnership, a private nonprofit organization, conducted the seven-week (two-hours a week) program. Her husband, SMARTArt's coach Jeff Share, taught the Workshops' media literacy component, covering the Five Key Questions for parents to use with children at home.

The stated goal of the workshops is "to develop in parents the skills and knowledge to create a learning environment at home that supports the student's academic success." The mothers learned the writing process and media literacy through sharing and writing stories of the struggles and joys they have personally experienced. The final product of their work is a printed anthology with one story from each of the participants.

Training Evaluations

The following are representative comments expressed by SMARTArt teachers and artist/educators in interviews and in FY2003-2004 training evaluations. Additional comments about what teachers learned are included in the Project Description's Professional Development section.

All this information was not necessarily new to me but it was put together in a context that made it really clear. Each time the training sessions get better and better. It's really added a lot to what I do.
- Alvaro Asturias, MCED artist/educator

I appreciate the time to meet with the artists and having them participate in helping teachers to plan in advance.
-Claudia Perez, 2nd Grade Teacher

In the classroom, the media literacy critical questions tend to come up more naturally and at more appropriate times. Frequently they are better questions than teacher's guides suggest.
- Ralph Sanders, 3rd Grade Teacher

I had fun learning new ideas. I can't wait to use them in the classroom.
-Patrisia Torres, L.A.'s BEST (after-school program), first-year SMARTArt teacher

A very fresh way to revisit the core concepts. They didn't feel rehashed; they felt re-energized. When I started the training I only saw the negative impact media has on kids. I'm definitely more media aware now, and know that it can be good and bad.
- Lorenza Yarnes, 3rd Grade Teacher

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