Alyssa Mozel

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -Nelson Mandela

Day: November 24, 2024

Deadpool and Wolverine??

November 24, 2024 / / 6 Comments

The finished and stuffed Deadpool head.

As I mentioned last week, I realized that I needed to start thinking about some Christmas gifts for my family. I am currently a cash-poor student, so I wanted to find something that costed little but still felt like enough. My family won’t expect much from me as they know my financial situation, but I still wanted to give them something. I stumbled upon this new website, ApronBasket, that had a bunch of new and cool patterns. I found a bunch of blanket patterns and a sweater pattern that I liked, but I also found patterns for small Deadpool and Wolverine plushies that were created by eliyarnart. (These patterns are laid out well, are easy to follow, and have helpful pictures to ensure that you are on the right track. I would recommend these patterns to anyone who is interested.) I went to see the Deadpool and Wolverine movie with my Mom and Dad in Humboldt this summer, and I figured the plushies would be a cool memento of that.

I started with the Deadpool plushie, because the winged mask of Wolverine one was intimidating. Long story short, I accidentally picked the hardest one first.

The little legs.

The finished and stuffed legs and body.

The head of Deadpool was easy to start and complete as it was similar to the base of the other plushies that I had completed. The legs and body, however, were a rough time. I had issues with different tensions in both legs so they are different sizes unless you carefully mold them to look similar. I was not about to retry the one leg because switching the yarn colours (red to black and back) was painful. I originally used the method I learned from this YouTube short by HollyAuna (very informative, very clear), but I was worried about the ends not staying where they should.  In the end, I just started tying knots when changing the yarn colours, because I could hide them on the inside of the plushie. I had to make the knot far away enough from the inside wall of the plushie so that I had some slack in the yarn to work with, but had to put it close enough that it did not mess with the tension of the next stitch. I was mostly successful at finding that happy medium.

Little arms.

The finished project (pink belt and all).

When I tell you that changing the colours was tedious, I mean it. I had to change colours every few stitches and had to double and triple check that I did the right number of stitches prior to switching colours, because I couldn’t exactly go back and fix it. The body realistically didn’t take me that long to do, but I would not want to do it again because of all of those colour changes

Finished and stuffed Wolverine head.

Less colour changes. Yes!!!!!

The arms were not as bad to do as it was only one colour change. However, I did stuff the arms even though the pattern told me not to. The flat arms just did not sit well with me, so I decided to just put a little bit of stuffing into the arms to get the exact shape I wanted. Sewing all of the parts together was easy to do as well, although I did poke myself a lot when I was sewing on the arms and the belt. (Also, the belt was supposed to be brown, but I only had peach. I figured that Deadpool wouldn’t care too much about that. Probably would make him feel more fabulous.) The eyes weren’t even that bad to do either even though I had to do some precise cutting. With some felt and fabric glue that I procured in Saskatoon on a recent trip (before all of the snow happened), I created a paper pattern that was the shape and size I wanted, cut the felt based on that, and glued everything together. I am proud of how it came together!

I marked the front of the plushie as well as the places for the stripes.

I had to pin the black felt as the glue dried, because it need to wrap around the head a bit.

Next came Wolverine, which I was able to finish much faster. Wolverine was much easier to do, although there still were a good amount of colour changes. There were colour changes in the legs and arms, but only one or two per appendage. The worst area was the face where Wolverine’s actual skin colour is supposed to show. Also, I had to adjust the number of stitches I was doing with my skin-colour yarn as the yarn I was using was a much smaller size. The math was difficult to do, but somehow not as frustrating as the yarn changing of Deadpool. I messed up on one of the skin colour rows, but I used the felt mask/eyes to hide that mistake, so it’s fineeeeeeee.

Wolverine’s assembly was also easy, although I did almost put the head on backwards (oops). I believe that the felt portions of this plushie are done pretty well too. I was worried about the black part not having the right size or shape, but I think my paper patterns and cutting skills were even better this time around!

Front view of the finished Wolverine.

Side view of the finished Wolverine.

Overall, I am very proud of my creations this week as they pushed me to learn a new skill, crossed some things off of my Christmas shopping list, and increased my crocheting skills overall.

Up Next: Christmas Gifts Intensify

Digital Literacy in the Classroom

November 24, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Generally speaking, an educator could probably get fairly deep into and have discussions about mis- and disinformation with high school kids once everyone is caught up to speed on the basics of them and the internet. Some students will likely know about some of the tools that people use to create mis- and disinformation (if they are as chronically online as I was at that age). However, they still may not know how prevalent of an issue it is, what would even qualify as mis- and disinformation, or know any strategies to detect it. Activities and exercises such as the one we did in the previous class are things that I could use to show students how prevalent mis- and disinformation is as well as how hard it has become to detect. This lesson plan from Lowdown references much of what we did in that class and gives a rough framework for what steps I would take when it comes to teaching about digital literacy. It might be a good reference point to create age-appropriate adaptations from as well.

Within the Grade 9-11 English curriculums, you certainly can make arguments in favour of including digital literacy (or sneaking it in in some way) into the lessons or a unit. If English class is supposed to be all about literacy, students should have opportunities to become literate in different forms of technology as well as on the internet. The internet (and digital technology) is such a big part of our lives, as I discussed in a previous blog post, and reading, writing, and communicating on the internet is very different than writing a short story or answering some comprehension questions. Hence, we need time and specific lessons dedicated to practicing and learning digital literacy.

There are several indicators that you can point to in each curriculum I mentioned, less so in Grade 9, that I would use to back up lessons about digital literacy. For instance, I would argue that the first CR indicator for all senior grades (the one referencing idenitiy, social responsibility, and social agency) encompass the intent and aim of teaching digital literacy. A more specific curriculum example I can give involves the Grade 11 curriculum’s second suggested unit. The “Moving Forward” or “Growing to Adulthood” unit is certainly where digital literacy and mis- and disinformation can be learned about and examined. If our students are going to become socially responsible and critically thinking adults online, they need to “grow into adulthood” with a good level of digital literacy. The digital world will be part of and will impact their future lives, so they need to know how to navigate it.

Regardless of what grade you are beginning to teach digital literacy to, there are a few things that need to be addressed before you get into Lowdown’s Lesson Plan. Like I said at the beginning of this post, some students will have some knowledge of what is fake and what is not but others will be completely lost. Students need to be taught, or review, what “Fake News” (mis- and disinformation) is and what it can look like. You can use this Dynamic Landscapes site to look at the types of mis- and disinformation as well as the reasons why someone might create, post, share, or re-post mis- and disinformation. It might be a bit much for students to grasp at first, but I believe it gives good definitions that students can look back on. After this, I believe it is best to go over why people may fall for fake news, especially because students will likely have some questions about it. Also, it is important to go over the biases that each of us may hold that will possibly influence us to not look deeper into a source. TRU Library’s page details all of this with YouTube links on those topics embedded right in the page!

Pic from APass.

In terms of the NCTE framework, what I have mentioned here covers a couple of the main points. This would include the points about examining and creating information and amplifying or countering narratives. However, I believe that what I have outlined here would lay the foundations for the points that involve more critical thinking practices, participating responsibly in internet communities, and culturally responsive interactions with others online. There is so much that can, and needs to, be taught to our students about digital literacy.

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