National Poetry Month is coming up in April. This is a great time to celebrate the beauty and power of poetry in your classroom! There are unlimited ways to explore poetry in April, ranging from creating poetry journals, to reading poems aloud, to hosting a poetry jam to share the joy of poetry.
Here at Wacom, we always look for ways creativity can shine through. National Poetry Month is a great time to explore the intersection of poetry and digital art. Many of these are possible no matter the tech you have access to in your classroom, but work best with a class set of Chromebooks and One by Wacom tablets. Here are some creative ideas you can try out:
- Create a digital poetry anthology. Students can collect and curate poems around a theme or topic. Google Slides, Flipsnack, or Canva are great tools that allow for incorporating interactive elements such as animations, videos, and sound effects. Once all of the students have contributed to the book, you now have a variety of poems for all to enjoy.
- Use Canva or Adobe Express to create a visual poem. Use a poem as inspiration to create a visual representation with images, colors, and typography.
- Try creating found poetry. Blackout poetry is a great example of found poetry, where existing text is used to create new meaning and beauty. In blackout poetry, a page of text is selected and certain words are blacked out with a marker, leaving only a few key words visible. These visible words are then arranged to create a new poem. Kami is a great tool for completing this type of activity. Find a common text, and share it out to your students. From there students use the Kami tools to creatively black out sections of the text.
- Discuss poems as a group. Connecting and finding meaning in poems is a great opportunity to start dialogue in the classroom. Sometimes this is a difficult task, because not all students feel confident enough to speak up. Using a tool like Pear Deck, where students can visually represent their understanding, or write a response to a poem, teachers can ensure more voices are heard.
- Create a stop-motion animation using poetry. Use clay or other materials to create characters or scenes inspired by a favorite poem, then use a camera to take a series of photos of each movement. This can easily be done on a Chromebook using the Stop Motion Animator Chrome extension.
These examples of digital projects allow students to engage with poetry in new and exciting ways, while also building digital literacy and creativity skills. By incorporating multimedia elements and digital tools, students can express themselves in unique and impactful ways, making the poetry come alive in a whole new way.
Feature image by Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst
Wacom for Education
For more information about how Wacom supports education, and how Wacom products can elevate collaboration and engagement in classrooms across all grade levels and subject areas, check out the Wacom for Education site or the education section of this blog!
