The Pedagogical Uses of YouTube in the English Classroom

            In the English classroom, English teachers must conform to the pressures administrators put on them to prepare students for standardized tests. Unfortunately, as teachers conform to these pressures, they sideline an important skill that they should teach to their students: rhetorical analysis. This is rather unfortunate because a famous rhetorician named Wayne Booth said that rhetoric defines our reality. Everywhere and everyplace, words and images bombard us with different rhetorical appeals. Rhetoric shapes the way that we think. Teachers should show students the principles of rhetoric because educators can use them to help students gain important critical literacy skills.

            As we have read preparing for Interactivity #2 in our class, I noticed that teachers have tried teaching critical consumerism in the past. Teachers often brought in magazines, but in the 20^th century, the advent of the radio and television eventually allowed teachers to utilize different mediums for critical analysis. However, technology has improved so much over the years to the point where we can use YouTube videos in the classroom to teach rhetoric. I find that YouTube has revolutionized the way that we can teach rhetoric because it increases the number of choices that teachers can use for their instruction.  YouTube is truly a view into the world; thus, it is truly a great place to do a critical investigation into our culture and institutions.

            For instance, I can have students analyze two different political campaign commercials from 1952 when Eisenhower and Stevenson ran against each other. The two videos, “Platform Double-Talking” and “Ike for President” each have different rhetorical devices utilized in different ways. Not only are the words carrying rhetorical messages, but also the actual action in the frames as well. In addition, we can have students compare those commercials to ones that came from the 2012 election. As an activity, students can compare how different the commercials are and how it may reflect a cultural shift. Through activities like these, YouTube can be a platform to promote higher order thinking skills in education. However, it really depends on the pedagogical applications of YouTube that make it a successful educational technological tool.

            YouTube is not just a website where teachers can have students analyze the work of other people. YouTube is a site where students can also go and upload their own videos; thus, they can become producers of content instead of information consumers. After students learn how to do a critical rhetorical analysis, they can create their own videos where they utilize many of the different techniques and upload it onto YouTube. Since YouTube has a comments feature, students can comment on their classmates’ videos. In the comments, students can analyze the video to see how it applied concepts from the classroom instruction. This helps to create a community within the classroom. By putting the students in the producer of content position, students get a first-hand look about how meticulous the media can be in order to try to persuade people to believe something. In addition, they learn some complex organizational skills because to create a media text such as that requires coming up with a script that meets the necessary criteria, good editing skills, and the ability to navigate through technological programs to get it uploaded onto the internet.

            In conclusion, YouTube is a window into our culture, but it is also a way for students to interact with culture through imitation. Learning the critical language in order to analyze politics and culture is quite pivotal to being an informed democratic citizen. However, like any other educational technology, sound pedagogical techniques help to make YouTube an effective venue to promote higher order thinking among students. Rhetoric is ingrained into our world, but YouTube allows teachers a variety of ways to come up with media texts that will help students become motivated in the lesson. Thus, technological advancements have definitely provided a way to help educators individualize their lessons to the students they teach.