Monday through Thursday of the past week was spent in mini-lessons of poetic purpose, symbolism, theme, and real-world connections.
Monday was very eye-opening for both teachers and students. The students really seemed to get a better understanding of why authors write poetry and why they use symbolism. The most common conclusion drawn by the students was "so that future generations can understand and relate to what they are really talking about."
Tuesday was another teacher-led discussion of another 2 poems. More time was given for students to read and think independently, and then we came back together as a class to deepen our understanding through discussion.
Wednesday, students were again guided by the teacher to compare 2 more poems with similar themes. This time, themes were discussed before reading the poems. This seems to greatly increase the students ability to understand the poem independently. By knowing the theme before reading, students were better able to pick out the different forms of symbolism used by the authors.
Thursday, students were left to work in small groups to compare and contrast 2 additional poems with a recurring theme. In 2 classes, the set up worked perfectly, and students were able to correctly identify theme and continue to have intellectual discussion about the poem. However, there were 2 classes that had extreme difficulty even when allowed to work in groups. They main concerns seemed to be (1) whether or not the activity was being graded and if they had to turn something in that day. (2) Most wanted me to "hold their hand" through the entire poem analysis and never attempt to complete it independently. The 1st factor I attribute to the nature of the school setting, and it was expected. The 2nd factor was expected, but I did not expect it to be so wide spread. From one group (6th period), the major thing noticed was a lack of confidence in their own abilities, thoughts, and opinions, which was indicated in the initial survey. However, because the survey did not identify students by class period, I was not aware that the majority of the students with these issues were in the same class. After further review, it was discovered that most of these students had the same language arts teacher(s) in 7th and 6th grade, which would lead me to the conclusion that previous environment played a huge role in their confidence levels. The students with higher confidence levels all came from the same 2 teachers' classes in 7th grade. This is a new issue that I did not foresee in my planning, but I find it quite interesting. I would like to explore this aspect of the project and see how it contributes to the data and the overall effectiveness of my AR project.
Friday, the students were allowed time to finish up the independent activity that they began on Thursday. On Friday, the students were also introduced to the digital story project. Students overall seemed very deeply moved by the example video that I showed them. This was the video that I made during EDE as a sample project. I explained to the students how this project would be the connection between their classwork, their independent reading novels, and their research papers. The students all seemed to be excited about the project. There were some students who had trouble brainstorming ideas, but I did not want to share individual ideas that other students previously shared with me. There were other students who immediately made connections between things that their parents discussed with them or things they had seen on the news. Many of the students want to rely on things that they learned about in their US history classes, and not try to find anything modern. This problem mainly occurred during that same class (6th period) that had trouble with the rest of the week's activities. Some groups immediately cam up with great ideas. I had 1 group mention an idea that I did not think was very appropriate, especially for school. I even double checked with my principal, and she agreed. However, it was extremely insightful, and it was the exact type of depth that I wanted the students to develop over the course of this project. For reasons of privacy and security, I will not share the exact contents of the inappropriate suggestion on this page, but it is noted in writing. I will work with critical friends to decide whether or not it should ever be included in the final results and data sharing on this project.
This coming week, students will begin planning their projects through the use of a storyboard. Students will also have a chance to use the internet to find copyright friendly pictures to use for their projects.
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