Lesson plans and component links are attached in the blog below the following post.
My lesson plan has students creating found poetry. Found poetry is “a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and lines, or by adding or deleting text, thus imparting new meaning.” (Google Definition) The lesson is useful, because I can assess how well the students understand phrases by implementing certain guidelines, which will result in the creation of syntactically-correct, sentence structures if they are followed. Thus, if the students’ poems, despite whatever sources they pull from, maintain the correct structure, then I know they understand the material.
My lesson plan has students creating found poetry. Found poetry is “a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and lines, or by adding or deleting text, thus imparting new meaning.” (Google Definition) The lesson is useful, because I can assess how well the students understand phrases by implementing certain guidelines, which will result in the creation of syntactically-correct, sentence structures if they are followed. Thus, if the students’ poems, despite whatever sources they pull from, maintain the correct structure, then I know they understand the material.
Example of found poem:
The pure contralto
Up in the sky
Crunched
Like a cage
Of silk round my
bed.
Soft gold at the
alter
Heaves gorgeosity
Whenever I find
myself
Growing grim.
The pilot at the
antelope
Flows like silvery
wine.
Grass stalks
With a strong arm
Whistle gold and
silver
Whenever it is
A damp
November
In my soul.
Examples of the
guidelines: Alternating between at least three different texts, pick out
one noun phrase, one prepositional phrase, one verb phrase, one simile. End
sentence. And so on.
The first step in converting my
tradition lesson plan to a technofied one is to substitute the method of instruction. I can deliver the
instruction via Google Docs, where YouTube videos and links can be embedded to
build the students’ anticipation. Here, they can watch celebrities reading
found poems, as well as peruse a found poetry website to see examples of what
they’ll be doing.
The second part of
my technofied lesson plan, augmentation. To make sure the students understand what I’m
asking them to do, I will have them fill in a Google form that has four texts
for them to choose from. They can submit their answers via the google form for
me to check. Once I have checked off on the poem, I can then remove the limit
to the number of texts by opening up
the Internet, so students can draw from an infinite number of sources. This
would allow them the ability to surf sites they find most interesting, rather
then being limited to texts that pertained to the teacher’s interest alone
making their poems more personal and building their intrinsic interest.
The third step, modification, has the student’s sharing
their work with each other through personalized blogs, which I can link through
a class blog. As part of their assessment, the students would be required to
provide two constructive comments on the their classmates blogs, thus providing
encouragement to continue writing, or in general, looking at words in new and
exciting ways.
In
the final step, redefinition, I could
post the students’ blog links to a larger community of found poetry enthusiast.
At this point, the students are completely immersed. They are activity engaged
with others in ways that would never be possible without technology. Overall,
the method of instruction and assessment is more efficient, and the students
have unlimited range and a supportive community to encourage them to keep
creating in the future.
