Slammin' Poetry

I had a few different ideas, but I think I will take a chance and go with this one for this class. There are five parts to this blogging implementation, but I'll start with the background, and the connection to... lets here it for the STANDARDS! *cheers all around*

Background: Students will participate in a 3 week African American Poetry Unit in 11th Grade Amercian Literature class. The students in the class read at all reading levels, and 5 students are members of the Academy of Information Technololgy. After students have analyzed poems written by a variety of poets for stylistic techniques, they will start experimenting with poetry of their own.

*** Plan for "non technie" students: The AoIT students and myself will take 4-5 students under our wing. We will be in charge of setting up individual blogs, and answering technical questions for our assigned group. This way all students will benefit from the infusion of technology and Literature, and the AoIT students get "help desk" experience!

Standards : 2.3 Write reflective compositions:
a. Explore the significance of personal experiences, events, conditions, or concerns by using rhetorical strategies

1) Getting Started: I will set up a class blog that will be a place for students to post comments about the poems read in class. The poems are powerful and political, so students should be motivated to make their voice heard. Students will be able to add to the blog starting on the first day of the poetry unit.

2) Student Blogs:Students will set up their own blog and publish poems that they have written, or are in the middle of writing, to their blog. These individual blogs will be linked to the class blog. Students will be required to write a miminum of 5 poems to their blogs, along with 5 reflections (one for each poem), that reflect on the writing process: what inspired you? how did you choose your form? what author did you use as a model? Along with any links to cool poems or authors they found on the web.

3) Showcase: Each student will read one poem of choice that they have written, to the class while projecting that blog entry on the screen.

4) Publishing to the world: The class will vote on the top 5 poems in the class. Student will be given critieria on which to judge, so that it doesn't become a popularity contest. For example: which poem moved you emotionally? Which had the best rhetorical techniques? Which poem best modeled a famous American poet?

5) Extend:The winners of the class vote will be published to a Weblog: The MadTeahouse Poetry Slam where students will be able to receive feedback from poets around the world, and possibly win a contest.