Want to know what I'm going to do next? ;)

Credit: Brock Harlem (video still)

 Okay, bear with me--Filthy Frank came up with one of the best viral dances of all time. If you, like me, grew up watching anything and everything in the early days of YouTube, then you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about! What does this have to do with teaching? Not a lot to be completely honest, I just think that the Harlem Shake is a funny viral dance trend that produced some hilarious videos that I desperately want to use in my instruction, because why the heck not! 

As you know, if you've been keeping up with my posts, I am concentrating this mini-unit on the content area of imagery, diction, and tone. What I came up with in my TPACK diagram was for students to close read a text with heavy imagery and create a visual representation of that text. For this activity, the idea is reversed. I wanted to *spark* my students' curiosities, so I found a version of the Harlem Shake created by students at Brock University that had the potential for some rich description. I didn't need my students to watch the whole thing (it's just not necessary) so I cut it down to the best 10 seconds and cut the audio because I wanted to give as little away as possible, thus creating a situation in which they had "some of the information, but not all of the information," (The Brainwaves Video Anthology, 2015, 4:25). If I had shown them the whole thing with sound, they probably would come up with something basic like, "they're doing a funny dance to a weird song" or even "oh yeah, that's the Harlem Shake." But by cutting it down and muting it, their curiosities can run wild and their imaginations can come up with some rrreeeaaalllyy interesting ideas! 

Click here for my example and additional explanation!

Reference

Brock Harlem. (2013, February 13). Brock University - Harlem shake [OFFICIAL] [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ae8lpll7qeQ?feature=shared

The Brainwaves Video Anthology. (2015, May 15). Ramsey Musallam - Student engagement: Sparking student curiosity [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/mLYTO559WBk?feature=shared