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Copied post from: https://padlet.com/jaydenwoodbridge/k55fqpsnpkfjx7t
Canva allows for the use of storyboards, where students can put images onto the screen.
This will be handy for my mini-unit plan too, as students will be creating visual representations (video) to accompany their poems. Before filming it will be great to plan their images out with a storyboard using this website.

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Although this document is for a Year 8 unit and slightly different to what I want to do for my own unit plan, it offers some great resources, links to more poetry (particularly Indigenous Australian's work), and has some great ideas around students creating their own blogs.

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Again, I got my ideas for what songs to include from a quick google search on poetic contemporary songs:
https://powerpoetry.org/actions/7-famous-poetic-pop-songs
This particular song is composed almost entirely from simile; she compares aspects of her relationship to colours. Blue is loss, grey is longing, love is red. She also uses imagery.

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This song came up on a google search of contemporary songs that could be considered poetry. https://www.readpoetry.com/10-powerful-songs-with-poetic-lyrics/

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I stumbled across this video looking for poetry to use in my unit plan. This content creator 'illneas' makes beautiful films that represent how poems make him feel. In his words: "the purpose of this channel was never to create visual versions of the poems. My videos are based on the poem the way I perceive it but at the same time, I try to say a new story".
I love the idea that he is not just retelling the same story, but rather merging his own story with that of the poem.
Having students do the same for their assessment task (create a video interpretation of their own poem and how it makes them feel) would transform learning to go beyond only writing a poem, but being able to express it in multiple ways. Creating a video would require higher order thinking.

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Mary Oliver reading her poem Wild Geese.

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Education Week article on using technology in the English classroom

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Education Week article on using technology in the English classroom

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This is a very useful article with tips specifically on using technology in English lessons. The tips I found most useful are:
- Select texts from contemporary authors and have students reach out to them on Twitter with questions/comments.
- Use your own social media connections to find another class doing the same unit/text and connect students online through Google hangouts etc.
- Have kids use Goodreads to post a review of the text they are reading. Teach them how to construct a review.
- Create a Twitter poem using only 280 characters.

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What are effective ways to use tech in English classes?
There are lots of English classes in schools and there are sure a lot of ed-tech possibilities out there.

This series will explore if there are any useful connections that can be made between them.

This is part of a series considering tech tools for different content classes (you can see posts on tech in math classes here and on tech in social studies classes here).

Today's column features responses from Jennifer Casa-Todd, Jenny Vo, Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry, Ingrid Nelson, and Stephanie Affinito. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jennifer, Jenny, and Maggie on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You might also be interested in The "All-Time" Best Web Tools For English Language Learners and The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An "Authentic Audience."
Response From Jennifer Casa-Todd The temptation to have students use a Chromebook or tablet to write and peer edit papers is great, but there is so much more to using tech in English. Don't get me wrong; using collaborative tools to get feedback on a student's writing (text or audio) can be very powerful, but technology and social media allow for powerful storytelling and transformational learning experiences in English classes. Here are a few examples: and have your kids reach out to the authors with their questions or comments. -Use your own social-media connections to find another class reading the same book and connect with them by sharing questions and feelings about the book on Google Hangouts or Webroom (if in the same time zone), or Padlet or Flipgrid (if synchronous meetings are not possible). -Have students join the Global Read Aloud, created by Pernille Ripp, and use the Twitter hashtags to talk about what resonates. OR create a slow chat (from a class account if students are under 13) and invite others to respond to your students' questions. with resources to get started. for students to synthesize what they know about a story or create an alternative ending. ) to create scavenger hunts or BreakoutEDU style challenges for vocabulary or content sharing. -Have kids post a review on Amazon or Goodreads for the book they are reading in class or Rotten Tomatoes for a film they are watching (class account for younger kids). Help them to construct a review and teach them how to respond positively and critically to other reviews with which they either agree or disagree. This not only provides an authentic audience, but it also teaches students how to comment appropriately to others. -Create a Twitter poem using a maximum of 280 characters. and the power of Google Earth to create an interactive map of the setting and moments that resonate from the novel or story they are reading. for novels, stories, and nonfiction units. Hyperdocs reinforce the 4Cs, are multimodal and therefore allow for a variety of entry points, and provide students with the opportunity to work at their own pace. Most importantly, ask your students-what are they writing, reading, creating? Students lead rich digital lives outside the classroom. Use these ideas flexibly to meet your curriculum needs; this will reinforce their own literate behaviors and help them to feel valued in the classroom. Response From Jenny Vo
Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has been teaching for 22 years and is currently an ESL ISST in the Katy Independent school district in Katy, Texas:
In this digital age where technology is everywhere, it behooves us as educators to embrace it and use it to our benefit and for the benefit of our students. Why not integrate technology into your instruction to enhance the learning experiences of your students? The goal is not to substitute technology for quality teacher instruction but to integrate it seamlessly so that it supports your teaching and provides the students with interactive, meaningful lessons that will engage both their attention and their brains. With so many programs and Apps available, however, teachers need to make wise choices about which ones to use and how to use them. What are some effective ways you can use technology in the classroom?

1. Use technology to develop the language skills of your students, especially your English-language learners
. There are great programs and Apps that help the students with their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Flipgrid is a great online discussion tool where students can record themselves responding to questions posted by the teacher and then listen and respond to other students' replies. Use this to activate background knowledge, share experiences, book discussions, etc. Poplet is a powerful mind-mapping tool that allows students to think and learn visually. They use words and pictures to show relationships between ideas. Use this to teach vocabulary, main idea/details, plan for writing, plan out presentations, etc. EPIC and ReadWorks are online libraries of books and nonfiction and literary articles. Teachers can assign students books to read during independent reading time or at home. Students may also choose books themselves. They both have quizzes and assessments that teachers can use to track their students' reading progress.

2. Use technology to give your students opportunities to share their learning and show off their work.
Have students create presentations using PowerPoint or Google Slides. With TeleStory, students can create their own movies. Students can write stories using StoryJumper. These are great to use at the end of the unit when you want students to summarize what they have learned. Not only will the students feel great about sharing their work, you can also use the finished products as an assessment tool and to share with parents what their children have learned.

3. Use technology to enhance your lessons and for assessments. Teachers can use technology to create and deliver lessons and to assess student learning. My school started using Nearpod last year. Nearpod has been a game changer in helping to create engaging and interactive lessons for our students. You can create your own lessons or import lessons from the lesson bank and customize them to your needs. You can add interactive features such as 3D objects, polls, open-ended questions where students can type in answers or draw their answers, virtual field trips, quizzes, etc. It is a great tool for formative assessment during your lesson. Reports can be printed out and used to determine which students mastered the concepts and who needs reteaching. Kahoot! is a game-based technology tool that can be used for pre- and formative assessment. Use it to check for background knowledge, check for understanding midunit, or as a review before an assessment. Teachers can add questions and polls, along with images and videos to their quizzes. Like Nearpod, Kahoot! also has a bank of quizzes that teachers can access and customize.

Technology will only get more advanced as time goes by. Why not embrace it and allow it to support our instruction? Our students will benefit from the fun, interactive lessons and will think we are so cool because we know how to use technology. It's a win-win situation! Response From Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry & Ingrid Nelson

Maggie Verdoia and Sarah Acosta Landry are teachers at Raymond J. Fisher Middle School in the Los Gatos Union school district in Los Gatos, Calif. Ingrid Nelson is a teacher at John Sloat Elementary School in the Sacramento City Unified school district. They are members of the Instructional Leadership Corps, a collaboration among the California Teachers Association, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and the National Board Resource Center at Stanford:
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the tech tools available for the English classroom. As teachers, even though tech is engaging for students, we know that arbitrarily choosing a tool is not going to raise content mastery-it has to be the right tool, for the right purpose, at the right time. In designing 21st-century instruction for an English class, we seek tech tools that promote three key areas: inquiry, reasoning (or critical thinking), and authenticity. When tech allows students to inquire effectively and safely, think critically about the world around them, and do so in authentic ways, we know it's a good integration. (reliability-authenticity-purpose) works well to help them evaluate websites and determine credibility. . , a virtual bulletin board that can be used in a multitude of ways. For inquiry, students use Padlet to post questions (for example, either as part of a K-W-L activity or in response to student presentations), or to post answers to other students' questions. When it comes to authenticity, we want students sharing their work with real audiences, and Padlet works well as a place where students can share their writing (via the Google Doc link) and then comment on each other's pieces using Padlet's comment feature.
A cool tool to get those brains thinking critically is EdPuzzle to publish their thinking in small groups (think Literature Circles) by posting thoughts and commenting on the thoughts of others. And if we want to share with a wider audience (the entire school or beyond), we use Google Sites We challenge you to choose a tool and implement it with your students! They'll thank you! Response From Stephanie Affinito to publish student work. We use Google Sites for literature circles, reciprocal lessons, book reviews, and student portfolios. Our conceptualization of literacy is ever evolving. It includes attention to new, digital, and multimodal literacies and acknowledges that these literacies change our habits as readers. Therefore, literacy teachers must reimagine instruction to ensure students authentically create, communicate, collaborate, and learn together through technology. Based on my work in teacher learning communities, I have found technology can be particularly effective to build connected literacy communities, engage teachers during professional development, and support personalized learning, lessons easily transferred to the English classroom: Build a connected literacy community. Engage students during literacy instruction. Support personalized learning. Above all, pedagogy must lead technology. We must intentionally choose digital tools for the classroom using our knowledge of the learners in front of us. If we focus on how technology can amplify student voice and provide authentic audiences for student work, we harness the power of literacy, empowering students to share their voices with the world and leave their mark on it. Flip your classroom with technology! Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach where individual reflection precedes group collaboration and discussion to create an active and engaged learning space. Create resources for students to guide their own learning: collections of texts and videos, tutorials for skills and strategies, and options for student choice. Connect individually with students to support their journeys and share their voice with others. Innovate your literacy teaching by using technology to spice up lessons and increase student engagement. Survey students before a new unit of study using Google Forms to inform your planning and instruction. Create attractive slides and memes to spark thinking using Canva or Adobe Spark during lessons. Encourage interaction through QR Codes and ThingLink. Engage students by creating backchannels for discussion through Recap or Today's Meet. Technology has the potential to connect readers and writers together. Students can use digital tools such as Padlet and Flipgrid to share books they are reading and begin literate conversations. Students can use Google Docs to easily share their writing with others for feedback and celebration. While these connections might begin in the classroom, they can be continued outside of them, blurring the boundaries of learning. Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. Look for Part Two in a few days.
. There's no denying kids love watching videos online. With EdPuzzle, you can take YouTube videos and make them interactive for students. Teachers import the YouTube video, either use the audio given or record your own, and embed critical-thinking questions for students to answer. Students can also create EdPuzzle videos to demonstrate their own thinking about a text (digital or traditional) and teach others!

Stephanie Affinito, a former classroom teacher and literacy specialist, is a literacy teacher educator at the University of Albany. She has a deep love for literacy coaching and supporting teachers' learning through technology and presents nationally on this topic. You can find her online at stephanieaffinito.com and on Twitter at @AffinitoLit:

Thanks to Jennifer, Jenny, Maggie, Sarah, and Stephanie for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

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Response: Ways to Use Tech Effectively in English Classes (Opinion)

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Jennifer Casa-Todd, Jenny Vo, Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry, Ingrid Nelson, and Stephanie Affinito share suggestions on how to use tech in English classes.

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This video is of Evelyn Araluen reading from her poetry collection. Evelyn is an Australian First Nations contemporary poet who recently won the Stella Prize for this collection of poetry called 'Drop Bear'.
Using contemporary poets in a unit plan would transform the learning experience in the class as students can have the option to reach out to them on Twitter or other social media platforms to comment or ask questions. Social media makes these writers so much more accessible than ever before. Students would be able to query whether they have the right interpretation of the author's work, or just to let them know they have enjoyed their poetry.

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This is a literary competition open to students from Years 5 to 12. Entries can include poetry, short stories or non-fiction prose.
I feel this could be a real world opportunity that links to the ACARA Year 9 Syllabus. Students can enter their "written interpretations of traditional and contemporary poetry".
Having a real life competition for the students to enter would transform learning in the classroom as they would have a real-world context for completing the assessment task. The fact that they can win a prize and recognition makes the process of writing a poem more rewarding.

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The SAMR model is something I will refer back to when designing my unit plan to ensure that I am reaching the two highest levels of 'modification' and 'redefinition'.

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Good technology integration isn't about using the fanciest tool, it's about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy-or strategies-for the lesson at hand.

The biggest obstacle to teaching online probably isn't the technology. Teachers seek out educational technology, in fact, because it "can have considerable positive impacts on student performance," according to a 2016 study -improving test scores and allowing teachers to assess student achievement more efficiently. The big problem is how to integrate it: Beyond the sheer number of tech tools available, the same researchers identified "inadequate professional development and training" as the primary obstacle to using technology productively in classrooms.

Understandably, the emergence of the coronavirus has dramatically accelerated the process of integrating edtech, as educators around the country race to get online as fast as they can. But as many of our teachers have noted, the current state of K-12 online learning is more like triage-a form of crisis management-and not at all like skillfully managed distance education.

What's missing from the conversation right now, which makes sense given the immediacy of the need, is a focus on the bigger question of what the highest quality technology integration actually looks like. That's an important conversation to have, because in a post-coronavirus world there's likely to be a greater emphasis on digital learning, even as we return to physical schools and take advantage of face-to-face opportunities.

A Hierarchy of Tech Uses

A powerful conceptual tool to think about technology integration-and edtech's best uses-is the SAMR model, developed in 2010 by education researcher Ruben Puentedura, who was the 1991 recipient of a Phi Beta Kappa teaching award.

The SAMR model lays out four tiers of online learning, presented roughly in order of their sophistication and transformative power: substitution, augmentation, modification, and r edefinition. When switching to an online format, teachers often focus on the first two levels, which involve replacing traditional materials with digital ones: converting lessons and worksheets into PDFs and posting them online, or recording lectures on video and making them available for asynchronous learning, for example.
Creative Commons
Those are important steps, especially when teaching online for the first time, but in classrooms where tech integration has moved to the mastery level, the last two levels of the SAMR model-modification and redefinition-should also be in the mix. Students in classes where this kind of mastery is embedded find more novel and immersive uses for technology. They are creators and publishers of their own work across multiple forms of media, for example, or they are inviting professionals to provide feedback on their work products, or participating in digital forums with other peers around the world.

It's tempting to think of SAMR as a mountain to be summited. But good technology integration isn't about living at the top of the SAMR model; it's about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy-or strategies-for the lesson at hand.

Here's a closer look at good classroom practices at each level in the model:

Substitution

"Substitution" means replacing traditional activities and materials-like in-class lectures or paper worksheets-with digital versions. There is no substantial change to the content, just the way that it is delivered.

The goal here is to keep things simple: there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Scan your lessons and worksheets, convert them into PDFs, and post them online using Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, or a similar file-sharing service. Think about the information you have on your walls, such as the classroom norms, the daily schedule, or vocabulary lists, and convert them into digital formats that students can easily reference.

It may also help to provide synchronous as well as asynchronous versions of your lectures. If you're holding class meetings over a videoconferencing service like Zoom or Skype, provide a recording for students who can't attend. You can also create your own instructional videos for students to view at their own pace.

Augmentation

This level involves incorporating interactive digital enhancements and elements like comments, hyperlinks, or multimedia. The content remains unchanged, but students can now take advantage of digital features to enhance the lesson.

For example, students can create digital portfolios to create multimedia presentations, giving them more options to demonstrate their understanding of a topic. And instead of handing out paper quizzes, you can gamify your quizzes with tools like Socrative and Kahoot.

Teachers can also create virtual bulletin boards-using an app like Padlet -where students can post questions, links, and pictures.

Modification

At this level, teachers can think about using a learning management system like Google Classroom, Moodle, Schoology, or Canvas to handle the logistical aspects of running a classroom, like tracking grades, messaging students, creating a calendar, and posting assignments.

Teaching online opens up new channels of communication, many of which can help students who have traditionally been marginalized. Research shows that girls may be less likely to speak up in class, for example, so they may benefit from backchannels -alternative conversations that can run alongside instruction-that encourage participation.

Zoom's text chat feature, meanwhile, gives students an opportunity to write their questions out, which can feel less intrusive if there are dozens of students participating in the call. Also, students who prefer to collect their thoughts may benefit from slower-paced, asynchronous discussions in an online forum or email threads.

Redefinition

Learning is fundamentally transformed at the "redefinition" level, enabling activities that were previously impossible in the classroom.

For example, virtual pen pals can connect students to other parts of the world, whether it's with other students or experts in a field. Virtual field trips enable students to visit locations like the Amazon rainforest, the Louvre, or the Egyptian pyramids. After reading a book in class, you can invite the author to chat about their work and answer questions.

Technology also provides an opportunity to bring authentic audiences into your virtual classroom, and can make publishers out of your students. Kids can write their own wikis or blogs for public consumption and feedback-and platforms like Quadblogging can connect distant classrooms together so students both write and respond. Students can tackle local problems-like investigating the water quality of a nearby river-and invite members of the community to assess their digital proposals.

Going Beyond SAMR

Finally, consider how technology can be used not just as a way to deliver content, but also to strengthen relationships with your students. For elementary school teacher John Thomas, Seesaw and Flipgrid allow him to share a daily greeting, which his students then respond to-or to each other-with a typed or voiced comment. It's a good way to provide some stability while they're isolated.

How can my lesson be improved using technology?

How can I engage and empower students through technology?

How can online learning more closely resemble authentic, real-world learning?

Remember, again, that SAMR is sometimes thought of as a mountain to summit, but it's really more like a toolbox. The goal isn't to use the most sophisticated tool, but to find the right one for the job. More importantly, however, it's a way to reflect on your technology integration by thinking about a few key questions:

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A Powerful Model for Understanding Good Tech Integration

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Good technology integration isn't about using the fanciest tool, it's about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy-or strategies-for the lesson at hand.

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This is the ACARA Year 9 Syllabus for English that I took my idea for a unit plan for. The particular content descriptor I will be focusing on is 'create literary texts, including hybrid texts, that innovate on aspects of other texts, for example by using parody, allusion and appropriation (ACELT1773)'.
Elaboration:
- creating written interpretations of traditional and contemporary poetry (for example sonnets and contemporary song lyrics) focusing on their use of symbol, myth, icons and imagery.

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Year 9 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students' knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 9 and 10, students interact with peers, teachers, individuals, groups and community members in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments. They experience learning in familiar and unfamiliar contexts, including local community, vocational and global contexts.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They interpret, create, evaluate, discuss and perform a wide range of literary texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts, including newspapers, film and digital texts, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, dramatic performances and multimodal texts, with themes and issues involving levels of abstraction, higher order reasoning and intertextual references. Students develop a critical understanding of the contemporary media and the differences between media texts.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 9 and 10 as independent readers are drawn from a range of genres and involve complex, challenging and unpredictable plot sequences and hybrid structures that may serve multiple purposes. These texts explore themes of human experience and cultural significance, interpersonal relationships, and ethical and global dilemmas within real-world and fictional settings and represent a variety of perspectives. Informative texts represent a synthesis of technical and abstract information (from credible/verifiable sources) about a wide range of specialised topics. Text structures are more complex and include chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. Language features include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, a high proportion of unfamiliar and technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and dense information supported by various types of graphics presented in visual form.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts including narratives, procedures, performances, reports, discussions, literary analyses, transformations of texts and reviews.

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The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students' knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating.

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Thread of literary devices in Taylor Swift lyrics

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Thread of literary devices in Taylor Swift lyrics

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I saw this thread a while ago and it popped into my head as a good resource for examples of literary devices in songs. Taylor Swift has some great lyrics and this thread has put them all in one place.

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Here's a thread of examples of rhetorical devices in Taylor Swift lyrics:

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Here's a thread of examples of rhetorical devices in Taylor Swift lyrics:

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Here's a thread of examples of rhetorical devices in Taylor Swift lyrics:
— Christian Tucci (@chrtucci) November 16, 2020

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Here's a thread of examples of rhetorical devices in Taylor Swift lyrics:

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Here's a thread of examples of rhetorical devices in Taylor Swift lyrics:

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Here's a thread of examples of rhetorical devices in Taylor Swift lyrics: