Mr Bass Online

Note: This is the first in a series of posts this week about mentor texts for digital writing. Much of my writing this week will be about the role how mentor texts for digital writing can guide and influence learners.  These posts, plus writing by Katie DiCesare, Troy Hicks, Kevin Hodgson, Tony Keefer and Franki Sibberson are being collected at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.

One of my very distinct memories from my childhood was when I was 7 years old and the second installment of the Star Wars trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, was released. I hadn’t seen the first movie and didn’t really know anything about it, but my dad was watching the news and there were all these people out in California that were dressed up in all these costumes to see a movie. I remember seeing Chewbacca and Darth Vader and thinking, “What are these people doing?” Here they were standing in line to see this movie, but they weren’t just standing in line, they wanted to experience it and be a part of it. It wasn’t until quite a few months later that I was whisked away to an Indianapolis theater by my father and uncle for my first Star Wars experience. I was surprised to see absolutely no one dressed up as that was really why I wanted to go – to experience the spectacle first hand.

Much has changed in our culture since 1980, but the idea of people participating in cultural events is certainly nothing new. The classroom is no different. As teachers making connections between content and the everyday lives of our students, we constantly bring the outside world into our instructional spaces and invite students to participate. Over the last 10 years, the opportunities to participate have grown exponentially. Much of this has to do with the digital tools and connectedness that we experience everyday. Thanks to the internet, our students have the opportunity to see, hear and experience events on a global level. But typically, it doesn’t stop there. They can actually participate and emulate those events in the virtual world. Recognizing the power of this will be an important piece to seeing how these cultural events can provide mentoring for students for in their digital creations.

In preparing for my part of the NCTE presentation on mentor texts this year, I remembered an example that Michael Wesch had showed during one of his presentations. Wesch, a social anthropologist at Kansas State University, reminded me about Gary Brolsma. In 2004, Gary sat in front of his computer, turned on his webcam and recorded himself doing a lipsync to the song, “Dragostea din tei”, by Moldovan pop band, O-Zone.

This video immediately became an internet sensation being linked to and sent to email addresses throughout the world. While the idea of videoing yourself singing a song that you like was by no means new in 2004, the ability to share with people everywhere and for the video to become viral was. With over 7 million views, Gary’s video is still one of the most watched videos of all time on the internet. With no production quality (watch the video if you don’t believe me), the appeal of this video passes all understanding (at least in my own mind). However, it’s clear that the world was interested. Shortly after the Numa Numa video was created, others started creating videos copying Brolsma’s song and actions. In the following video, a boy who seems to be middle school aged, takes the Numa Numa song and, using it as a sort of mentor text, creates his own video on a webcam and, because of availability of YouTube, he uploaded it and shared his version with the world.

In some way, Gary’s video influenced and inspired this young man to create his own video and share it online. Whether it was poking fun at the original or whether it was because he liked the song or even if he just got caught up in the hype that was surrounding the press that Gary was getting, a video was created and share. Gary wasn’t alone, the next video is of an adult who wanted get in on it.

Each of these videos took the same premise and idea from Gary and copied, expanded upon and emulated his basic ideas. Why they did it is unknown. It could have been just for fun or because for a two year period, that was the thing to do. However, both of these people took the content of the video and used it to make their own creation. They used the “text” as a starting point and went from there.

Not all of the videos that were created in homage to “the Numa Numa kid” were straight copies though. In the following video, a student (of unknown age) creates a video in an animation class as a tribute to the Numa Numa craze. In the video he uses a software program called Maya to animate a lego character watching and copying Brolsma’s actions. While you watch the video, pay close attention to how he uses camera angles and character actions. To a certain extent, he is telling a story while showing his proficiency with a piece of software (which was actually probably the overall goal of the project). From the head turns to the arm movements and even the “head bobs”, creator Jeff Dingman is using the content of the original video as a starting point.

Think about the decisions that a writer makes when composing a piece. Now add on top of that writing, the decisions that Jeff had to make in order to animate his character. While the medium is different and the content was essentially created initially, he made it his own. In the same way, the content of a mentor text gives students a starting point. It’s a beginning, not an ending and the inspiration that comes from there will help to guide them through their creation process.

Students create more and more everyday and have more options for distributing their creations than they ever have. Because of this, their “mentors” are changing as are their influencers and those who inspire them. I would argue that content is only one of three types of ways that these creators can be mentored by texts. The other two I will address in posts later this week. Each of these videos was created using the same base content; a song and a guy in front of a webcam.

Have mentor texts changed? I don’t know about that. It’s in our nature to copy that which we like and to want to participate. In his book, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Henry Jenkins says that,

“Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways.”

We are participants in our culture who take the content that we see and with which we interact and try to frame it in our own lives. Mentor texts in all forms give us that starting point, but it’s important to recognize the need for the meaning of “texts” to be expanded to include content like what Gary inadvertently made with a webcam. We are in a time of change and the mentors that we find all around us, if harnessed, can guide us in interesting, enlightening ways. Just like 30 years ago when folks dressed up to see Star Wars, participation in our culture will drive much of the creation that is made and shared by people of all ages. It’s time to see “text’ as more than words on a page and “mentors” as more than just that which we, as educators, supply our students.