Reflections on Podcasting...

This week, we learned what podcasts are used for and how to create them.  While I was researching sample podcasts on iTunes, I found a really great podcast called "Education for Social Justice" (how perfect, right?!).  Created by Colgate University and Family in 2009, each of these audio-only podcasts are about 20 minutes in length, and combine mini history lessons, personal testimonies/narratives, and spoken word poetry in response to such topics as civil rights, LGBTQ political issues, and injustice/oppression.  Unfortunately, there was little discussion of the women's movements. :(  The only drawback is that the last update is from December 2009, so some of these might be a bit dated.  The podcasts would be of great value to my students, as I plan to teach novels and create curriculum which would ideally connect them to the larger issues and concerns present in society.

Which brings me to my idea for my podcast project.  Because we have an upcoming final project that requires us to create lesson plans using technology, I thought I might try to create something I would definitely use in class! My Master's thesis was on the novels of Toni Morrison, and I plan to teach her novel, Beloved, some day, so I thought a podcast about something in that novel would be a comfortable place to start.  Beloved is an historical fiction novel, largely based on the life of Margaret Garner, a slave woman who briefly escaped slavery with her children in tow only to be caught by slave-catchers after crossing the border into the North.  Instead of allowing her children to be returned to slavery, she slit the throat of her youngest daughter in an attempt to eternally save her from the atrocities and abuse at the hands of her master.  As a result of Garner's choice, many people have demonized her.  I've decided to create a podcast that reviews the mainstream depictions of Margaret Garner, while also including some contrasting pictures I took while visiting the plantation where she was held as a slave and at her living quarters.  My goal is to evoke emotions of my students through the pictures they view and to perhaps problematize some of the commonly-held notions of Garner and her infamous legacy.  Here's a sneak peek at one of my pictures... this was taken looking out of the window of the Garner's small, two-room cabin.  The view looks out upon the expansive plantation in which they were forced to work.