Clinical Activity Design Experiment, Part II

Found Poems: A Mobile Learning Activity

Presentation Topic: Found Poems: What are they, and how do they work?

Workshop Date and Time: N/A (Alternative arrangements were made with instructor)

Location: N/A

For the purposes of this assignment, the rest of this report is hypothetical, aided by speaking with teachers and watching videos online

No. of Students: 25

Audience Description: 8^th grade students; both male and female; mixed ability levels

Preparation:

Describe how you prepared for this activity. Copy or link any planning documents that you created in this section.

Prior to the first day of this activity, I made sure to sign up for computer lab time on the Monday and Tuesday following the start of this activity. I also handed out some examples of the poetic forms that student could choose from so that they could review the format of the poems. I also made sure to remind students to bring a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, the novel we had most recently read, so we could practice writing a found poem together. The following is a link to a more detailed account of my lesson planning process:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T2hiZnjpgB47E2K9wxBFZ8acFzOGEaxgh9_flk39WuQ/edit?usp=sharing

Procedure:

Describe what procedure you followed for setting up and conducting activity. Copy or link any activities that you conducted during the session. Add references to time segments in your recorded video if you think some portion of your session was captured well on camera.

Day 1:

1) Pass out copies of the following poems to remind students of poetic form:

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Haiku by Matsuo Basho

An old silent pond...

A frog jumps into the pond,

splash! Silence again.

Limerick by Edward Lear

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, 'It is just as I feared!

Two Owls and a Hen,

Four Larks and a Wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard!'

2) After students have had the opportunity to review the poems, introduce the idea of found poems. Then, as a class, complete a found poem from Chapter 1 of To Kill A Mockingbird.

The class decided to write a haiku (largely because of time constraints), so we all set off to find sentences or sentence fragments that would work. A few suggestions didn’t fit with the meter of a haiku, but, after a lot of hard work on the part of the class, we finally came up with the following:

In rainy weather,

he took his time about it.

There was no hurry.

I was pretty proud of my students for finding three sentences/fragments from completely different parts of Chapter 1 that fit together so nicely. I was feeling pretty optimistic about the assignment.

3) Explained assignment to students. Students had the weekend to complete the project and upload their completed poems to Google Drive.

Day 2:

1) Students were randomly paired and edited each other’s poems. Errors in form were marked so students could fix them during the rest of the class period.

2) Students spent the rest of class editing their poems.

Day 3:

1) Students uploaded their finished poems to a class-wide Google Slides presentation. Students also uploaded the pictures that they took of where they found the words for their poems. Some students had trouble with recording their poems, so students helped each other figure out how it worked. A few students ran out of time to record. Those who ran out of time were given the option of either recording it that night and uploading it to the Google Slides or reading aloud in front of the class. Most chose to record.

Day 4:

1) Students got to listen to their classmates’ found poems and see where the poems came from in the class presentation. Students who ran out of time to upload a voice recording read their poems aloud to the class. This, as planned, took up most of the class period.

Key Take Away Points:

List four or five things that you consider as highlights of what you learned from this experience.

1) No matter how carefully you plan your time, things often take longer than expected. That is okay. Being able to adapt your lesson plan is an important part of being a teacher.

2) Getting kids excited about a project is the first step to really getting them invested in what they are learning. A group activity like the one I did with this activity worked really well for my students, but I could see it not working as well for other groups.

3) On that note, it is important to know your students. Ask yourself what interests them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how you can best communicate information to this particular group of students.

4) Using technology in the classroom doesn’t have to be scary. Having a backup plan is always good, but that does not mean that things will go wrong. Teachers often tell the horror stories about technology but leave out all of the times it works well. It is important to paint a realistic picture of technology in the classroom.

5) Found poetry is a great way to introduce writing poetry to middle school students! It allows them to practice writing poetry without actually have to produce words, and it helps them feel safe sharing what they find with the class. This is something I would really like to do in the future.

Feedback:

Describe or quote feedback from students and your mentor. Copy or link any feedback documents that you gathered from participants after the session.

Because I am not a current classroom teacher, I decided to speak with people who all have different perspectives on education. I was able to take down quotes for most of them, but for a few, I will just provide a summary of their comments.

1) From the 14 year old boy that I nanny when I described this activity to him: “I actually really love poetry, and that sounds so cool! I wish my teachers had done something like that. It has more technology than my normal classes do, which I think is pretty cool. I mean, classes don’t always need technology, but it makes it more fun sometimes.”

2) My soon-to-be mother-in-law who is a 7^th grade English teacher: “I bet my students would love something like that! We actually do a unit where they have to write a six word story that I bet you would love teaching. It can get really intense, and sometimes you learn things about their lives that really stick with you. You probably would learn a lot about them with your project too just based on where they choose to find their poetry.” She ended up asking me if it would be okay with me if she adapted my idea to use with her seventh graders! I was really proud of myself!

3) From a former classmate from Georgia State University: “Wow, not even our college professors used the technology they were given. I love that you didn’t shy away from using computers and such in your lesson. I wonder if that is the way classes are going to end up being. I mean, back when we were in school, no teachers did things like this. I think this is a much better way of getting students involved and invested in their own learning.” This friend of mine was in the Educational Psychology department with me.

4) I spoke informally with a few friends of mine who teach English at the college level, and they all were very impressed with TEACH-NOW for teaching us how to prepare a lesson like this. Most of them were given almost no preparation before being tossed into the college classroom as a teacher, and they all seemed a little jealous. One of them actually asked for my advice on how to incorporate technology into her classroom in a way that wasn’t just shoehorned in. Other than that, they all were pretty impressed with the project. They said that it was something they would have enjoyed when they were in school, and one of them said it was a great way to introduce students to poetry writing.

5) My aunt who is a special education teacher: “This activity is great, but have you thought about how you would make accommodations for those with special needs? Of course, you would not know what your students would need until you see their IEPs, but it is something that is always worth keeping in mind when planning a lesson. I’ve had teachers come to me in the past who have no idea how to modify their lessons, so that is just something for you to think about. Overall, I think this is a well thought out activity, and I think it would be great for the age group for which you intend to use it.”

Evidence:

Copy pictures here or give reference to any audio or video recording files that you created of your session.

As stated above, this activity was altered by the instructor because I am not yet in the classroom.