|
Digital Poetry Project
|
|
Joseph Ugoretz
|
|
For the Digital Poetry project module, the activities include choosing a poem, reading and annotating the poem, dividing the poem into slides, conceiving images, finding images, conceiving music, designing text and text entry effects, page layout, and annotating and processing.
|
|
Narrowing Questions
|
Narrowing Questions
In both case studies, as they were presented, I was curious about one missing step: going back to look at the narrower questions against the broader questions. I realized in looking at these that my own module development has been a process of just working on the narrow questions, and while that's an important emphasis, I also want to keep a reflective movement back and forth with the broader questions. The three things I'm looking at (which images students select, students' process of choosing images, and the connections students make between the images and the poem) maybe do need to be separated. They're certainly connected, but I think the process focus is my main one.
|
|
|
Course Context
|
Course Context
English 201 is a course that combines the second semester of Freshman composition with an Introduction to Literature. For many of the students, this will be the last English course, and the only literature course, they take. There is a tension between trying to survey a large amount of literature, and working intensely and specifically on skills. Almost all the students need continuing work on their writing skills, and all the students need to learn about reading, responding to, and analyzing literature...and they need to learn why it's important (if it is) to learn these things.
|
|
|
Initial Questions
|
Initial Questions
- How do students understand a poem at the start of the class?
- How do they communicate this understanding?
- How does changing the medium of communication change the understanding?
- What motivates students to read poetry?
- What motivates students to share poetry?
- What responses, other than understanding, are valuable to students?
- What effect on understanding do these other responses have?
|
|
|
|
What do you want to know about student learning?
|
What do you want to know about student learning? I'm interested to understand how (and how to promote) students make connections between the course material and their own needs and experiences...what learning they can use and engage with.
|
|
|
Evidence Template
|
Evidence Template
I think for me, the hardest and most rewarding part of filling out the template was the choosing one specific activity out of the module. I hadn't really (to be honest) even divided the module up clearly enough into its separate activities. So that was a useful step, and then trying to think about what was an Expert, Intermediate or Novice response to each category on the template was also useful. I still want to think more about "evidence" and about how to judge or measure or assess or code as I track the module. I'll have the projects themselves, and I think I want to have students annotate (powerpoint makes this easy) their own and each other's projects. Maybe those annotations will give information that can be considered and used as evidence. Links Evidence Template Version 2
|
|
|
Activity Description
|
Influences
Influences
- Sherry Linkon: Sherry's work demonstrates to me that the process of module planning and implementing is recursive and never really finished. I also like the idea that the module is part of the course in a real way...not a separate activity that just happens to fit the overall goals, but one that leads directly from and into the work of the class.
- Patricia O'Connor & Rachel Theilheimer: I'm not exactly working with associations in the same way they are, but having students actually create projects, in a new medium (new to the students and me, too), is part of the core of my own module.
- Wyn Kelly: Wyn Kelley's project of creating the database for annotation of Moby Dick was also inspiring...she's not having her students make choices about what and how to annotate in the same as I am, and she's got a different goal in the annotation process, but the "annotated" projects her students create are somewhat similar to my students' finished Digital Poetry projects. Her two questions represent what I want to ask:(1) What is the value of multimedia annotation for close reading and analytical writing? (2) Can media literacy help students make informed and nuanced speculations about a print text?
|
|
|
Findings and Interpretation of Evidence
Findings and Interpretation of Evidence
- Asking the students to explain their choices in the "notes" section of PowerPoint provides some clear evidence of their learning in this module. It is somewhat difficult to demonstrate the full effect of these presentations without the full PowerPoint, but I have chosen several small-scale examples.
- My work with this module demonstrates the value of multimedia authoring for student learning and understanding of literary material. The module is one that students enjoy very much, especially the "festival" at the end of the course when all their presentations can be publicly enjoyed, discussed, and applauded. Their work on these projects is more directed and intensive than I have seen in students asked to merely read, or to read and write about, poetry in other classes.
Links
Initial Analysis of Student Evidence
Joe picked three examples that demonstrated to him a deep understanding of poetry based on the images students chose and what they wrote.
|
|
|
|
|
|
