Poetry lovely poetry!
Do you have a home?
On the page? On bathroom stalls?
Or in the chords of a microphone?
For all of my avid followers--hey Momma--you know my feelings on new literacies. Not crazy about them myself, but thrilled that they exist. I when I say not crazy about them, I only mean that I do not yet fully grasp them. However, I admire those who do and am very thankful for their tech-savvy skills. The chapter that I read for today was written from the perspective of a teacher who wanted to show his 21st century digital boys and girls (big ups to Bad Religion) that poetry had a place in the digital world. He laid out a number of different assessments for working both with poetry and new literacies to engage his students who wouldn't normally did on villanelles, sonnets, and the sort, which tends to be a large percentage of students. By encouraging students to read, analyze, and learn to appreciate poetry through a more student friendly medium, he was able to reach them in a way that simply reading "Locksley Hall" as a large group never would. My one hang up: This guy taught at a competitive and prestigious school where students had access to all the new literacies they would ever want. Not knocking the guy, just saying that he only know one said of the access story.
Allow poetry to jump off the page. To hell with the purist nay-sayers! They don't own poetry. It is for everyone, and wherever it is that people will enjoy it is alright by me.
Check out Motion Poems created by Todd Boss and Angella Kassube. The two of them take poetry to a new, and lovely, level.
http://www.toddbosspoet.com/Motionpoems.html
Ted, I think I read the same chapter. You are a sucker for poetry, I think even the Dali Lama knows that by now, and I think the things outlined in the chapter was a great way to suck younger kids in, too. Since the age of dinosaurs like you and I who appreciate a good poem for its presence on the written page is coming its denoument, using new tools like video and audiobooks comes in handy to make poetry seem as accessible to these young bucks.
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