When my students were working on their One Little Words, I discovered how much fun thesaurus.com can be. I was curious if there was a form for thesaurus poetry. A Google search turned up a funny metaphorical poem by Billy Collins. You have to love a sarcastic poem that ends with a love story between two words.
I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.
See complete poem here.
The assignment: Choose a word. Write it in capital letters. Find 4 synonyms. Write those in a second line. (Pick the easiest word to rhyme for your last word.) Then write a phrase that ends with a rhyming word. As a class, we wrote this poem.
MAGICAL
Imaginary, mythical, enchanting, spellbinding
Potions of my mind unwinding.
–Mrs. Simon’s Caneview class
I let the students go. When one or two were getting frustrated by line placement on Kidblogs, I suggested Canva. We have talked about design before. More than ever, I watched them wrestle over design. One student got frustrated that every background cost a dollar, so she said, “I just made my own background.” She used the plain color background and added free icons. She also changed the coloring on the icons. I marveled at her quick turn around.
Digital Literacy should be more about the literacy than it is about the digital. Technology enhanced my students’ poems with design and allowed them to share their work globally. However, the most value was in the play and problem-solving with words and language.
My favorite writing tool has long been a thesaurus. I tend to overuse the same words so it helps me spice-up my writing.
Speaking of Roget, have you read Bryant and Sweet’s new book, The Right Word? It’s INCREDIBLE!
I should have mentioned it in my post. We did read it when we started our one little word projects.
Those are great! I liked that you said that digital literacy should be more about literacy than the digital! Great idea to take this to poetry.
I love this idea!!! I will definitely try this. Love it!
I’m with Holly. I love the line…it’s more about literacy than it is about digital. Digital gives us one more tool. Thanks for sharing your kids’ work.