For the 2nd Time in My Life, I Wasted 10-Minutes on Tik-Tok as We Paralleled Reading Strategies Across Content Areas

Truth. For the 2nd Time in my life, too, I admitted to graduate students, "I could lose myself for hours watching this stupid stuff."

Last year, when middle and high school educators were talking about the student obsession with Tik Tok I opted to make it a theme for an evening and applied strategies read for the week with Bromley's vocabulary work in Best Practices for Adolescent Literacy and Beers and Probst's strategy work in Reading Non-Fiction. It's sort of a fast-pace, fun, and interactive workshop I put together that keeps everyone engaged, active, laughing, and curious. Everyone wants to know how people make a living simply by promoting these short videos and gaining followers. Ah, found an article on that, too.

As part of the lesson, I go to what's trending on Tik Tok videos in the immediate, making sure not to select any of the raunchier ones. In the chat, I ask students to respond as if they were posting to the App. It's hilarious...from dancing, to magicians, to comedians, to pranksters, to lip-synchers, a half-hour can be lost in a snap of a finger. 

And we hypothesized on (a) why this is a phenomenon, (b) will it last, (c) what biological/psychological function does it serve, and (d) why bother? 

This, of course, all with paired articles where we could develop readers with the inquiry we made. KWL2

I also wanted to think as a teacher and how we might utilize this phenomenon with students, sort of (if possible) finding a purpose for our classrooms (obviously kids could parody any of the videos...why not go viral, quit school, and start a business as outlined by one of the articles we read).

Anyway, I'm too distracted and have told myself to stay away from the Tik Tok accept when I teach it in a content literacy class. One of the students however, a mother of 4, says she and her family collaborate on making videos together and it's a bonding experience that they couldn't live with out. I so, so, so want to join them, but the last thing Crandall needs to start is a new hobby of entertaining people quickly. I would never sleep again. 

Let me entertain in my slow, methodical way. But, if we're cell-phone buds chances are you get my own version of such foolishness. Not quite Tik Tok, but similar intent.