Word Play – My Final Project for ECMP 355 (Part 2)
The continuing saga of my final project… afterthoughts, musings, feedback.
I feel very fortunate that the endeavors of this project were seen through to such a successful fruition. I have not fulfilled all of my plans… it occurred to me at about 3:30 AM of the morning that I was waiting for our final videos to upload to YouTube that perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew. I have suffered a small failure or setback in terms of the goals I set out for myself in this project. I had intended to crete a Glogster page alongside the class – to share my own personal tastes in poetry, and to show these students what else is out there that they may not know about, or that they may find interesting about poetry. I had nothing but the best intentions….but I had so little time to make it all happen. So… my Glogster page remains limp, lifeless, and incomplete.
If you haven’t had the chance to experiment with Glogster – I highly reccommend it. It is an excellent creative space that to me functions like an online journal. I’m sad that I did not have the chance to get this going. But it warrants further investigation and experimentation, and it is a tool I would definitely use in my own classroom for a project just like this.
I checked my mentor teacher’s class blog today to take a peek at what some of the students had to say about the experience of creating questions for these two poets and what that meant to their understanding and appreciation of poetry. A small selection of the responses are below.
“I think it was really interesting to interact with the poets and actually get to know how a professional poet feels and stuff. I learnt that they actually don’t think they are that good at poetry and aren’t all stuck up . Which makes me appreciate them more. I must say thank you to the four of you for allowing and making this happen. I believe the way it turned out and how we went through with it was really easy to follow and a good learning experience.”
“I learned alot of interesting stuff that i never thought the poets would say they actually have to deal with.. I learned that there are many different ways to interact poetry in with our lives. I appreciate the people who write it more because they are trying to express themselves. I believe this turned out great and was way more interesting then sitting and listening to boring old stuff.”
“After watching the poets and hearing their stories and what they think about poetry, I think that it is realy cool that we got to interact with them. I learnt that they didn’t really like poetry that much throught school but they are now that they are poets its pretty much changed who they are and their lives pretty much. Thank-You so much for answereing our question and this whole thing turned out pretty swell. It was a great experience for us!”
“After watching these i think that poetry is kind of give or take and you only do the type of poetry you want i just need to find what i like. i now appreciate poetry a lot more and i think it is relay personal.”
None of this would have been possible without the aid and willingness of my amazing mentor teacher, Jared Nichol. Jared more or less opened up his entire classroom to any suggestions, resources, or ideas that I had about ways to make studying poetry a meaningful experience for students. I took full advantage of his offers, and I have learned so much about my own capabilities for using technology in the classroom beacuse of this.
Sometimes things just work out so well you’ve got to marvel at them. I am in a great state of marvel right now.
- The face of marvelling!
My last kudo goes out to Bert and his wordsmith friends- whom I ambushed with this idea, and dragged him (and them) into this project , fully intending to work him for his connections to two edgy poets whilst he finalized his wedding plans!
Awesome post Karen! When I tried Glogster, I worked on a poster for an hour and then lost it.. Is there a way to save it while working on it so that if your computer shuts it down you still have the draft?
Passion DOES make all the difference. Passion requires relevancy and technology can help provide that for our students I think. There is nothing more rewarding for me than to see passion in the face of students. It’s so inspiring.
- Lyndsay