To Write or To Be Written About

What's Been Happening Since the Last Post 

The last few weeks have been spent mulling over the meaning of words, studying our poets, and explaining why our selected piece of poetry is indispensable to our poet's collective work. Once we pressed the submit button on the essay, the next project for the class was to write about something significant that happened for ten minutes in class. We had a few poetic styles to utilize like abstract poem, concrete poem, found poem, free verse, ghazal, haiku, insult poem, list poem, nonsense poem, rap, or sonnet. After submitting those very rough drafts, we had another to do. We were given 20 minutes for the one named Effacing the First Person. In three columns or three paragraphs, we take two to three facts about ourselves, then two things that may or may not be true about ourselves, lastly we select someone famous and write three facts about them. After viewing all of your pieces, we create a piece of poetry. We had a week to revise, then we had a poetry slam during class.

To Write or To Be Written About

As a quick observation, writing about, critiquing, and analyzing poetry is a longer endeavor than writing poetry. The poetry may not be great, but one can compose some of the many different styles in a short period of time. I was surprised that I was able to create a list poem that made sense in ten minutes. The beginnings of my sonnet took a little longer, since there is a strict form to conform. I enjoyed manipulating the words to fit my rhymes and figuring other ways to say things. Another difference is that our poems did not have to have any sources cited. 

I feel that writing about poetry helped with this aspect of the assignment as we got to know the style of our artist and the time period in which they wrote. Another way the writings were similar is finding the correct words to use, whether concise terms or a type of elaboration. With Effacing the First Person Poem construction, we had to make sure to add the points we wrote in each section into our poem. This could be drawn as a comparison to quotes and facts that we want to include in our essays about our author.

For future teaching, I think I would like to use a similar method. I would like to do the poetry writing before and after the essay to have the students see their growth after completing the essay paper. We often get caught up in what we feel we can not do, it is important to measure when and where we can succeed. 

Technology and Education

     

I am a senior in English Subject Matter with an emphasis in Popular Culture. I am an older student and a commuter. Throughout my lifetime, technology has been introduced. In elementary school through high school, the big highlights were films on a projector, electric typewriters, and the new computers in the early 80's for my senior class. Which were completely out of date within a few years. Wow and to think I made fun of my Granny for living through innovation like the washing machine and microwave. I was also there for the microwave, but it was huge news for her.

    I have returned to college a few times. The second time, the teachers had computers, not lap tops in the front of the classroom and were able to do things much quicker than in past years. Technology was better sourced to enable videos or films to be shown in the classrooms. Most professors expected all work to be done on a computer and printed, rarely written, and never typed from a type writer at this point in time, which was 2000. Nineteen years later and while raising my young children, technology had grown, changed, excelled, and weaved itself into almost every aspect of our lives from those huge computers during my senior year. Now so much is available instantly that people get upset, if the wi-fi is not working fast enough. With so much available, the world, including teaching or education, can become overwhelming or distant for students. Answering text, viewing and commenting on social media like Tik Tok, Instagram, and X take time away from actual learning in the classroom. I know some instructor's have created Instagram and TikToks for their classrooms. I have not heard of any positive or negative feedback from these opportunities. Most schools provide a tablet or Ipad for students to complete work. 

    While one of my children was in high school, they would get into trouble for being on other sites playing games rather than the sites for learning as instructed by the teacher. It would be great if the computer could just shut down and the student had to do the assignments by looking them up in books and writing the information clearly for the teachers to read on paper. If this adds more work for the students (and the teachers), it was their choice that conditioned the longer and archaic, educational workload. As an adult learner, I have enjoyed Quizlet and Kahoot to name a few educational technologies. The ease of viewing informative works on YouTube and TedTalks has been helpful and thought provoking. These technologies have made me wonder how I can use them effectively in my classroom to stimulate the interest of the students and progress the lesson plan. Relating back to the films in elementary school to the little quiz afterward, then never returning to that information again. Was it just a break for us or the teacher? Technology is now and will be part of the future. As future educators, be need to adjust and welcome these changes to benefit our students and ourselves. Key foundations in these technology programs are to create, set, and follow guidelines for all staff and students using any technology at a school site. There are also many shows that can educate people of all ages on many different topics. There are a number of vet shows, zoo shows, in-depth history shows, and cooking shows that teach people things. As an educator, maybe we could have a student watch a show that is of interest to them and write in their journals about what they saw or learned. Learning happens in unexpected ways and we should be able to inspire those seeds.   

    Last year, a few states were planning to take away or eliminate cell phones in public schools. This is currently happening as we discussed it in class on Tuesday. While many argue of the dangers of young people having phones, their lack of interest in the classroom, or the many other comments that I can add, phones can be an educational tool. Phones have much more capabilities than we use. If teachers and schools begin utilizing them as part of the curriculum, for educational games or journal prompts as examples. What might happen? Would there be a revolt with families wanting part of their phone bills paid? Students currently have their phones out and are very quick with using and hiding them. Some parents say the phone is a way to communicate with their child or to know where their child is.  If the plan to remove phones moves forward, there is the old school way of communication plans. The meet up spot and time is discussed in the morning or previous night. If something changes, call the school and leave a message, including a message to phone home. Lastly, parents could track their own children by affixing an Apple AirTag to a keychain, necklace, jacket, or backpack. This is maybe not what we want to do with our children, but is it a viable solution? 

I do not claim to have the answers to these or any issues, but possibly a solution that can help to resolve or form a compromise.

I would enjoy hearing your thoughts.