Thing 11: Learn from Video

I watched the following TeacherTube video about formatting a Microsoft Word document according to MLA guidelines: http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=262638&title=MLA_Tutorial

A video like this would be handy to share with students.  (I wouldn't share this particular one because of the misleading action discussed in the paragraph below.)  I've worked as both an English teacher and a librarian, and I know that students rarely get the formatting correct.  MLA sets forth guidelines on margins, fonts, page numbers, spacing, and headers.  Students often don't know how to get their document to match the example in the handbook.  For example, they always need help figuring out how to auto insert their last name and page number into the header of a document.  This video using screen capture to illustrate the process. 

The one problem I have with this video involves adding the title to the essay.  In this example, the title of the essay is a book title; therefore, the teacher italicizes the title.  This is misleading and is a point about which students are often confused.  They understand that book titles are italicized, but they often want to italicize or place inside quotation marks their own titles on essays and poems.  This is incorrect.  A person doesn't format his or her own title.  Formatting is only added to the title of another work if included inside the writer's title.  I wish the teacher would have explained this in the video.  Students who watch this video are going to think they always italicize the titles of their essays now.  I like the idea of creating a video that illustrates how to set up a paper according the MLA guidelines, but I'd have to create a different one that didn't have this confusing element.

This video supports the following WV CSO:  RLA.O.12.2.6--plan, develop, and write a focused research project that has a clear thesis/hypothesis and logical progression of ideas supported by relevant details with an accompanying multimedia presentation and/or Web page using an accepted format (MLA, APA, Chicago, ASA).

While this CSO mentions research writing specifically, English teachers require students to familiarize themselves with MLA guidelines for all types of writing, not just research writing. Students must submit multiple types of writing throughout the year, as is evidenced in RLA.O.12.2.1: compose using the five-step writing process (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, publishing), critique and evaluate narrative, informative, descriptive, persuasive and functional writings that include a letter of job application, a scholarship application/essay, and personal letters. 

These particular CSO's were taken from twelfth grade, but they are appear in similar wording throughout grades nine through twelve.