"Great Books for Great Teacher" Reflection

Literacy Project Reflection

My Project:

            The purpose of my project was to create awareness to the literacy gap between young men and women and give boys suggestions on what to read.  To do this, I chose to use a poster campaign to get my message across to my peers at U of D Jesuit.  This project was to inspire boys to pick up a book and see that if others could do it, they could too.  The slogan “Good Books from Great Teachers” was meant to point out how some popular teachers have great reading suggestions for their students to enjoy.

Display

            The posters are uniform in their overall format.  The slogan at the top, a column devoted to both teachers with their favorite books and a

uthors, a picture of one of the book covers from each teacher, and a reading tip at the bottom.

The poster on the far left focuses on Señor Diehl and Mrs. Foerg.  Each teacher listed five of their favorite books and there is also a picture of one of the books they chose on each side of their poster.  At the bottom there is also a reading tip for Señor Diehl.

The poster in the middle highlights Mr. Davidson and Mr. Slaughter.  Three of their favorite books are listed along with a picture of the cover of one.  Attached at the bottom is also two reading tips from Mr. Hill.

The last poster depicts some descriptions of the favorite novels of Mr. Hill and Mrs. Godwin.  Along with a picture of a book title for both, Mr. Hill also included some of his favorite authors and one of his reading tips can be seen at the bottom.

Why I Chose This? --Design

I wanted my posters to look this way because the mix of words and pictures is not overwhelming and I think they are put together very well.  The uniformity of the posters adds an overall level of neatness to the project, and the different columns help to sort all the different information.  When thinking about what I wanted to display on my posters I thought back to where I often go when looking for a recommendation on reading.  The teachers around school always have great ideas, so I thought putting all their input together comprehensively would be a benefit for the entire student body.  The picture of each teacher catches the eye of students in the hall, and makes them wonder what it is the poster is about.  By putting the teachers’ favorite literature directly underneath with more pictures, the attention level of the audience never slips away.  Finally, the quick, short quote at the bottom can be seen from a simple glance, and it will be an easy thing to remember in the future.

Why I Chose This? --Location

Posting the posters took a bit of thought as to not only where they would get the most exposure, but also where they would be seen by the most receptive audience.  I chose five locations total throughout the school that the different posters rotated through.  This included: the new wing hallway, the main staircase on the 2^nd, the main staircase on the 3^rd, outside the library, and outside the door of the teacher involved.  The new wing hallway is a very busy point throughout the day, and is also the location of some offices so my thinking was that these posters would be seen over and over again by many students.  Repetition was also the key to the posters on the main staircase.  After seeing a poster over and over again, people are bound to at least read it once if not more.  Outside the library is rather self-explanatory.  Lots of traffic and of course a place full of books, many of the recommendations even on the shelves.  Lastly, outside the teacher’s door was in my opinion the most productive position for the posters.  Whether students were walking into or out of class they could see their teacher and ask them questions about their responses on the poster.  This creates discussion, which realistically is all that I can hope for when it comes to the overall campaign.

Why I Chose This? –Decision making and Success

            The main choices I was forced to make during the project were how many posters, which locations, and which teachers.  After evaluating all sorts of different factors as seen above on the posters themselves, I chose the teachers based on personal experience and peer recommendation.  It’s clear which teachers are well liked by students, and those are the ones I chose to be a part of this project.  Overall, the response to the decisions I made was overall very positive.  If I did it over again, I would check with some younger students to see if there were any different teachers they would have like to have seen.

Reflection

            My literacy project “Great Books from Great Teachers” seemed to have tremendous success.  The end product for the posters was exactly what I envisioned, and I think they did exactly what they were supposed to by catching the attention of students.  Although it is of course extremely difficult to influence the entire student body, I am confident that I was able to make an impact on some of the students.  The only real challenge I faced came from teachers not responding to emails about their favorite books.  There was originally supposed to be ten teachers, but I think the six who ended up a part of the final product helped it to come together nicely.  Overall, I think the project would be marked as a success and I plan to leave the posters up for the next week in order to continue reaching an array of students.  “Great Books for Great Teachers” was a hit and I am very proud of how it all went.