I wanted to share an example of a way in which students can use technology in a language arts classroom. For this project, the students found examples of poetic devices in popular songs today. This is a great way to make learning these devices accessible to students because students can relate to the pop culture references.
The students make great use of the internet, and video recording device. The ultimate product is a video encompassing definitions and examples of all the devices they learned. Technology integration worked wonders for this lesson.
This is such a great project! Because of my fear of poetry, I have recently found a lesson plan that incorporated Katy Perry's song Fireworks as a way for students to understand and identify literary tools that create poetry. The pop culture references allows students to understand that poetry is relative to their lives. It is not some out dated art form that they are forced to study. Also, it eases the transition and stress that is associated with learning literary terms because the students can see they already know what the devices are. The students didn't need a literary dictionary to understand what Bruno Mars is doing when he says, "The whole world stops and stares..". This lesson creates a bridge between two worlds that are far more related than they realize. As for integration of technology, this project allows for students to utilize their knowledge to create something they can understand. It puts a different spin on the idea of studying poetry. I think its great!
ReplyDeleteArturo, this is a fantastic example that you found of how to relate a class topic to the students' interests. One of the biggest challenges we all have as teachers is relating our subject matter to the activities and interests students have outside of the classroom. As technology is such an important part of our students lives, it is becoming apparent to me through the interactivities and other blog posts in the class, that integrating technology into the classroom and assignments is key. I love how inventive, yet simple, this assignment is - I could definitely see myself using this assignment in the future.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. This is a great way to teach literary devices because the students are analyzing songs that they usually listen to anyway. In the classroom that I observe for my Teaching for Learning I, my teacher used a similar strategy. She asked the students to analyze their favorite song to find the theme. She had been teaching them theme for a while and this was the closing activity of this unit. Through seeing how the students reacted to this activity, I feel like this was definitely effective for them to learn that every song, poem and story can have the literary devices that they are studying. In short, this is a great and effective way of relating the material to their lives and to technology.
ReplyDeleteArturo,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely LOVE this video because it makes teaching literary devices a piece of cake. What students don't want to learn about literary devices, while listening to their favorite songs? I really like this video because students can easily relate to the material and learn very quickly what a simile, metaphor, hyperbole, alliteration, and personification is. It is so important to have students relate to the content they are learning, what better way to do that than this video. I thank you for posting this video because I cannot wait to use it in my poetry unit in the Fall. Excellent post!