Lesson #5- Language Arts/Poetry

Poetry in Second Life

Ms. Hoa’s middle school language arts class is studying a unit on poetry. Through this unit they are attempting to answer the unit question, “How do syntax (grammar) and phonetics (sounds) impact meaning and emotions?”

In the past, Ms. Hoa has found that students, especially male students, are reluctant to share their feelings through poetry for fear of ridicule from other students. To help her students express themselves without fear, Ms. Hoa has decided to hold her traditional annual poetry reading online in the virtual world of Teen Second Life. Each student will present his or her original poetry through an avatar created in this virtual The unit consists of these elements:

Reading and discussing poems on identity that appeal to the age group in the native language (in-class small group activity)

Language and word exploration through poetry sites that allow students to “play” with words and phrases (rhyming dictionaries, tag clouds, other poetry tools)

Writing individual poems for publication and presentation

Recording poems with or without music and visuals as a podcast or video

Presenting poems online in Teen Second Life through an avatar

To launch the unit, Ms. Hoa introduces the following statement made by developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, “The main task of adolescence is to achieve a state of identity.” Next, she assigns teams of three to four students to read and discuss a poem or set of song lyrics that illustrates this search for identity. The team must describe the emotions the poem elicited from the group, key words or phrases that evoked emotions, and syntax that differed from conversational, every-day speech. Each team appoints a secretary to record the important points of the discussion and a spokesperson to summarize it to the class. Groups share their poems or songs and their critiques with the whole class.

In English, poems could include selections such as:
Langston Hughes:   Cross
Colby Selter:           The Kid Identity           
Emily Dickinson:    I’m Nobody! Who Are You?
W.B. Yeats:            The Young Man’s Song

Song lyrics could include selections like:
The Who:                 Who Are You?
Cindy Lauper:          Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
No Doubt:                I’m Just a Girl
Rascal Flatts:           Life Is a Highway
Nirvana:                  Smells Like Teen Spirit/Never Mind

Next, remaining with their teams, students rotate to a different poem or song (switching from poem to song or vice versa) to explore the poem from a structural point of view. Teams will explore their poems through a variety of online tools designed to illuminate poetic elements.

For example, teams will input their poems/songs into a visualization tool that illustrates the relative importance of words or concepts through a word frequency “tag cloud,” a visual thesaurus that depicts word associations. The same poems/songs can then be examined through tools, such as Found Poetry, which allow students to input the lines of a poem and automatically create original new poems/songs from those same elements; or insert their own text into a poem stem (“Hope is…”) to create original phrases and explore literacy devices, syntax, parts of speech, etc. Other interactive tools allow students to study the line breaks in a poem and manipulate the words in other poems to change the lines breaks (Line Breaker) or move and add to “magnetic" words to create original poems (Magnetic Poetry Board). Other sites allow students to experiment writing letters as poems drawing attention to why the lines of the poem/song are broken, where they are broken, and how these line breaks affect rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance (Letter Poem Creator).

Next, students work on writing their own poetic expressions dealing with the theme of “identity.”  Students may work with online tools that provide prompts (Muse Poetry Generator), enable the student to easily move and visualize words and phrases (Poetry Tiles), or provide assistance with rhymes (rhyming dictionaries).
Each individual’s poem is then recorded with or without musical accompaniment or visual (podcast), as a video based on still photographs or drawings (Animoto), an animated video (GoAnnimate), or read in real time in the virtual world environment.

Students then design their poetry reading site in the virtual world, invite other students to attend via social media platforms such as Twitter, MySpace, or Facebook, and present their poems at the student-hosted event. Because the site is designed for students 13-17 years of age, adults are not permitted to enter Teen Second Life. Exceptions for instructors can be applied for directly to the site and will be verified by the site management.

Resources used in this scenario:
To find additional poems and songs with identity themes: http://www.Poemhunter.com http://www.experienceproject.com

Word relationships: http://www.visualthesaurus.com
Online rhyming dictionaries: http://www.rhymer.com   http://www.rhymezone.com

Tools used in this scenario:
Virtual worlds:  http://www.teen.secondlife.com
Poetry tools: http://www.poetryforge.org/teaching.htm http://www.southjerseyacademy.com/academy/interactive_poetry_tools_and_les.htm
Tag clouds: http://tagcrowd.com/
Video creation from still photos/pictures and music: http://www.animoto.com
Animation video voiceovers:  http://www.goannimate.com
Microblogging for feedback:  http://www.twitter.com  http://www.sapweb20.com/blog