Mashups
The art of the mashup is being perfected daily on YouTube and Vimeo, perhaps by our own students. That any- and everything is available (legally or illegally) to be used to create something new on the internet is the heart of the new meme culture that students are deeply invested in. Capturing this interest and honing it in appropriate ways, through deliberate use of old media to create something significantly new, is important to how schools treat how students learn and create. The skills developed through image and video mashups are significant (like careful and conscientious editing), but the thinking behind them—the idea that makes the mashup novel and needed—is a real challenge for students’ creativity.
Example
In 2010, I wanted to find a way to make the teaching of the monomyth more engaging to high school students. Over time, I developed a series of video mashups that looked at several stages of the hero’s journey as seen in film. The videos might be, in small ways, oversimplifications of Joseph Campbell’s ideas, but the clips work alongside music to make students not just learn the stages, but feel them, too. The thought process I went through in brainstorming scenes and the small choices I made in editing are what I want students to mimic and build upon when tasked with a similar project.