Submitted by: Glenda Pleasants and Deborah Napoli
School: The Academy at Virginia Randolph
Summary
“Do walls talk? If they did, what would they tells us? Who built them? Why?”
Burns-Knight, Margy. Talking Walls. Gardiner: Tilbury House, 1992. Print.
Students will synthesize information they gathered about traditional Talking Walls—edifices around the world that were developed expressly as, or evolved into, vehicles to communicate messages– by using 21st Century technology to create and publish their own digital Talking Wall. The Academy at Virginia Randolph Talking Wall will be a gallery-styled web site that will communicate the students’ literal and symbolic messages about education and life while also allowing others to “talk back” via comments posted on the site.
Leading up to the building of their Talking Wall, students will learn about some of the world’s existing walls, examining, interpreting and analyzing their medium, message, intent and audience. Students will experiences three existing talking walls–The Martin L. King, Jr. Memorial, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and The Korean War Memorial.
TIPC Ratings
Students researched information about Talking Wall after reading Margy Burns Knight’s book, Talking Walls by visiting three Talking Walls in Washington, DC., The Martin L. King, Jr. Memorial, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and the Korean War Memorials. The students then selected the media type they thought would best represent their individual messages they wanted to share on the Talking Wall.
In this lesson, students worked together to post their individual messages on the Talking Wall. They read post made by classmates and made comments to those post. They will also have to respond to the thoughts and comments made by pre-service teachers, university professors, and members of the community. Talking Walls will continue to grow and students will post and respond to comments throughout this year.
In this lesson, students synthesis information they learned about Talking Walls to tell their story or share their message. Students were able to choose a medium they wished to use communicate with viewer of Virginia Randolph’s Talking Wall. Because this talking wall will continue to receive student post and comments, students will be able to reflect on their contributions and experiences.
Students created a personal blog posting using the medium they decided to would best communicate their story, ideas, and experiences. Each tile adds to the Talking Wall, allowing the student to share their experiences uniquely in a medium that best demonstrate their ideas and responding to others.
