"Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking."Paul Valery
In September of 1999 a
staff developer from Media Workshop New York and an
instructor from Taft High School designed a student inquiry
based project that grew out of student writing. A number of
students expressed their feelings, ideas and existences in a
poetic form during media journal writing time. From this
start the Taft Digital Poetry Project grew. Each student was
encouraged to write at least five poems in their journals.
From their selection of work they choose one poem. Next,
they identified key words in their poems. These key words
were then meditated on, considered and developed into
associated images. These images are visual representatives
of the key words for the writer/poet. The key words and the
images are then made into hyperlinks in a PowerPoint
presentation of the entire poem. Students surfed the
Internet for images; cut pictures from magazines; brought in
family portraits. They played with fonts, sounds, colors,
and timings. Each step of the process the students shared
their work with peers, teachers, friends. The staff
developer and instructor also developed notes, responses and
suggestions for the students as the project grew. Students
and staff grew in their understanding of the Internet,
PowerPoint, writing and last, but not least, themselves. The
pages that follow are a "hard copy" of the project. We hope
they give you a part of the joy we have experienced in this
process. Dance with us. Charles Osewalt
Taft High School Teacher