#Who wrote good golly miss molly how to#
Again, this is a difficult thing to convince students of, but having them engage with the process of recording podcasts could really help them recognize how to edit their writing. However, as I read my work into the mic, I was constantly changing things, realizing that how something sounded in my head was completely different from how it sounded out loud. I know I should, but I guess I have convinced myself that I don't need to. I consider myself a fairly good writer and don't often read my work out loud before handing it in. This is the part of the process that I really became sold on the podcast idea, especially as a way of enhancing writing skills. Next, I read a page-long statement/analysis about the poem. Students may not even realize how reading out loud is enhancing their understanding, so that part of creating a podcast about a piece of literature is important. This process of having them record their readings in a podcast is a good way to ensure that they do. Of course, poetry is typically meant to be read out loud, but it's often difficult to ensure that students really did read the poems you assign them a few times aloud. Just in the process of reading the poem a few times into the microphone brought me new levels of understanding in the poem. I was just in the mood to read some poetry, so that's what I decided my podcast was going to be about. I started my podcast by reading a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my favorite poets. I am happy to announce, though, that I am a convert! This process showed me how much this can help students. The process of podcasting as a tool for helping students improve their writing was lost on me. I thought that creating a podcast was just not a big deal and wouldn't provide any additional understanding than writing a paper would. In another class, I had an opportunity to create a podcast for an assignment, but I decided not to do it. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this process. These two forms of technology have provided me with new ways that I am going to inspire my students to analyze existing poems and create their own. I definitely plan on using a form of this activity with my students next quarter. In the end, I feel like I have a very orginal poem that no one would know came from Rilke. I took an idea that his poem planted in my mind, expanded on it, and let it unfold and develop naturally. And I don't feel like I simply reiterated what Rilke said in his poem. I was so inspired and motivated by the images and from the ideas I had already gotten from Rilke's poem, that it was almost effortless. I was really surprised by how easily this poem came to me. So, it was just as much about getting the pictures to match the poem as it was getting the poem to match the pictures. As I wrote, I found I needed to go back and find some other pictures or delete pictures I had already inserted. After I had the pictures lined up the way I wanted them, added the music, transitions, and played around with the Ken Burns effects, I began to write my poem based on the pictures I had found. I searched picture databases on Google and Flickr in order to find pictures that I could use. Before I wrote the words to this poem, I searched for images that reminded me of Rilke's poem. Having students write poems as a response to other poems, or have them write poems based on or inspired by other poems is a good way to start. So many would become paralyzed by confusion or fear. It is not enough to just tell students to write a poem. If the goal is to get students to learn about and appreciate poetry and be lifelong lovers of poetry, it is important that they feel connected to it. Teaching high schoolers how to write poetry is a very difficult task. I want them to analyze the poems of others and write their own poetry. I will be teaching a unit on poetry in January and I wanted to explore various ways I might have my students engage with poetry. I did a podcast about Rilke's poem, "Entrance," and decided to continue working with it for this project, as well. Working with images and music is like playing, and playing is how we learn about the world. And when we can create things with our own hands that we can see and hear, there is a deep sense of personal satisfaction. It is with our eyes and our ears that we internalize so much of what goes on around us. It isn't fair to have students simply put words on paper and ignore all the senses. It is so important that students learn how to navigate the visual world as much as the literary one. The result is something so personal and so much more than just black letters on plain white paper. There is such a sense of ownership one gets from getting to use images and music that matters to them in their work. Creating visual poems, stories, or montages is so fun and rewarding.