![]() ![]() Some tended to look at techniques while others considered themes. Some studied an element of a single poem, while others studied groups of poems. The Resultsĭelightfully, students took this assignment in a million different directions. I usually didn’t have “the answer” - most often, the student and I sat together, talked, looked at the draft together to see what was working and what wasn’t, talked some more, and made a plan of action. In all of our writing studies this year, I spent the most time conferring in this unit. Students found a greater need to talk things out - to doodle, run it past me, get back to the drawing board. Instead of spending time teaching lessons, I spent far more time conferring. These seemed to be sufficient whole-class instruction to give my students what they needed to get started. Allison had made two incredible digital lessons for our Reading Writing Workshop 9 students that I borrowed (stole) for my seniors: (Free) Infographic Tools (Right) and Infographic Design Basics. I didn’t teach mini-lessons this time around. Almost all of them came from Infographic Guide to Literature, while one gorgeous infographic of Bob Dylan’s “vanities” came from Vanity Fair (Below). I also gave students far more mentor texts than normal - seven (Here they are!) ! I wanted to give them mentors for content as well as mentors for form. Students were already reach far outside their comfort zone to create infographics. While, as always, I aimed to show students a lot of variety in mentor texts in order to expand their sense of possibility, it seemed important this time for their mentor texts to show a response to literature. Mentor TextsĪllison found this amazing book at the library: Infographic Guide to Literature. Most importantly, I wanted my students to go deep into the poetry in a way that would be meaningful to them. I wanted my students to have as many choices as possible, and I didn’t want their creativity to be limited by rules. Work alone or with a partner to create an infographic studying any element of Wilfred Owen’s work. I confessed to my students that I didn’t know a lot about creating infographics, but we would figure it out together. Here’s what I decided: to approach the study with honesty and optimism. Nervous like I used to be before I even jumped into writing workshop - what if students asked me questions I couldn’t answer? What if I couldn’t help them? What if the products were disastrous? Nervous like I used to be before every writing study. Allison has bravely taught infographics before, so I relied heavily on her wisdom and pep talks to get me through.Įven with Allison’s help and advice, I was still nervous. I have no graphic design experience, and although I can tell you when an infographic is attractive and clear, I don’t really know how to define those things or tell students how to achieve them. I am neither artistic nor extremely visual. As my students said, “Oh, these are everywhere!” And they are! Open up a new tab, search “Infographics”, and you’ll see oodles.īut this was pretty terrifying to me. Best of all, infographic are a very authentic product of real world design and writing. There are so many good reasons to try infographics - they are beautiful, accessible, offer great opportunities for collaborative work, access different parts of our students’ brains. So, rather than writing a big paper, I assigned a genre I had never taught and knew little about - infographics! They needed something else - something to re-ignite their brains, something to force new synapses to fire, something to nudge them to view literature with fresh eyes. When my seniors recently finished studying the poetry of Wilfred Owen, none of us could face another essay, no matter how authentic or rooted in the real world of writing. Sometimes the very thing we need to wake up and recharge our teacher brain is to try something new, experimental, and a little bit unknown. This is true in exercise our muscles and our minds need to be surprised occasionally with a new move in order to achieve maximum results. Sometimes, no matter how good our routine, we need to shake it up.
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