Sharing Projects.

I was very suprised how different my project was from everyone else's. All of the website and lesson variations gave me wonderful ideas, but I hope mine wasn't too different. Regardless, I really do think students would enjoy doing something similar. Writing the poem itself took awhile, as did adjusting the audio (I used several programs to make the audio louder). I hope that everyone could hear it okay. Jenn has already posted on my project in the previous post and she seemed to be able to hear it, which was exciting. Overall, I think the outcome of my project went well. One thing Jenn mentioned that I just wanted to clarify... the paintings of individuals were all closeups of individuals within one painting that I showed in the beginning and end of the project. I thought that would capture each person's perspective more. Originally I had wanted to have the whole poem at the end as well, and perhaps I should have. Anyways, thanks for all the wonderful ideas to everyone, some of you I will be talking to while student teaching, if not, this class has been a lot of fun... Good luck in the future!!

Project!!

I am so very excited about the progress of my project now. I redid the poem... it's entitled "Tonight" and I had everyone in my house read a stanza from the different perspectives. First, I was suprised by what a good job they did, better than I am with a microphone, but now I find it funnier how serious they all seem.--My family is anything but serious! Regardless, I'm going to piece it all together on the MAC tomorrow and I should be able to play it on either PC or Mac. I just hope that the audio shows up!!!!! My biggest worry is that it will be difficult to hear on the speakers in class like my IMovie was. I'm not sure if it will be dependent on audio or if the lyrics will be present with the pictures, we will have to see.

Reflecting on Final Project progress

Originally I had planned to use an old poem that I wrote, which I was pretty proud of, in collaboration with my project. Because I no longer have a copy, however, I tried to recreate (or just create) a new piece that goes along with the painting. After reading the poem now, I have decided I don't really like it. Of course I am my worst crittic, but I'm going to redo it again until I'm halfway satisfied. Hoping that some creativity will arrise and my writer's block will go away so that I can resumer working on the other parts of the project.

I was wondering...

Throughout this course and other courses we have taken to prepare us to be English teachers, we have had many discussions about what tools and strategies we would us in the classroom. When Shay came to visit us and discuss his work with film in the classroom I heard quite a few people saying, "Well he teaches an elective class though..." This really suprised me.
Ever since I decided to be an English teacher I KNEW I would teach a Creative Wri ting elective. I never had any doubt about doing that. I don't mean to suggest that there is not A LOT of work to keep English teachers busy enough, but I was wondering if anyone else had ideas about what else they wanted to do in schools. What other things would you like to be active in ( yearbook, newspaper etc.)?
I always think about being a Creative Writing teacher in addition, and the idea of becoming a basketball couch in school has also crossed my mind. Maybe this is because I come from a small school where teachers had many positions; I'm really not sure. Could that be it?
Karen forwarded this article to me today that basically says everything I believe in regarding poetry and allowing students to express their own voices. Anyways I guess after reading it, I just wondered why we never talk about the additional things we want to do when we teach, especially if they are what administrators are looking for?

IWeb verses Freewebs.com

I agree that the IWeb template seems more professional, especially because there are no advertisements. Still, I thought that a professional website would be useful to showcast yourself as a teacher and also to expand on and organize both your past experiences and where you are headed in your carreer. I can see myself using a professional website like the ones we created, and that is why I decided to construct it using Freewebs.com instead of IWeb. This class has definately transofmred my apprehensive MAC using capability and I am more comfortable using a Mac, but a PC is still what I have at home. I wanted to be able to work on my website in the future and doing it in IWeb I think would have made this assignment, just that--an assignment that I would not be able to expand on after this course. On a side note, after using the Mac to do various things in class this semester, I would consider buying a Mac for my next computer. Applications like IMovie, garageband, IPhoto etc. are much easier to use together on a Mac then I have found from a PC.

ILife Book

As I was re-reading my posts I realized that I hadn't disscussed my experience with the ILife '06 lessons. Michael Rubin's book is a wonderful guide to learning IPhoto, IMovie, Garageband, and IWeb. I will definately hold onto it as a useful tool. However, I learn much better through hands-on experiences, and I found that the lessons Rubin sets up were more confusing, time-consuming, and frustrating. I don't believe my frustrations with the lessons had anything to do with Rubin's technique. Instead, I just think that I do not learn well from step-by-step guides. By the time the IMovie project came around, I was experimenting with it by myself and only refering to the ILife book if I was stuck.From this, I feel the three hours it takes to do a lesson is better spent on experimenting with your own ideas by using the program. It's much faster and I think you know how to use the program better if you fiddle with the buttons. Creating my IMovie... I did a lot of "what does this do, what does that do'es?" Reading and copying what someone else is doing seems mindless and less enjoyable. But maybe it's just me. Did anyone else rely more heavily on the ILife lessons they did?

Project

For my project I am demonstrating how IMovie can be used to help express poetry, visually. Incorporating still pictures with my own written poetry -based on these images- will show a connection between what we write and what we see. I have always had a passion for writing poetry, and I think having students write poetry based on pictures or concrete images will help them appreciate a genre that they may otherwize feel disconnected from. Also, it is important for students to expreience different point of views and perspectives in their own writing in addition to exploring voice and point of view when they are read literature. Choosing a topic that truly interests me and that I feel I will use in the classroom has been challenging, but I am very excited about sharing and learning poetry in this new way.