Description of Project:
Based on Taylor Mali’s visit to The American School of Sao Paulo, Meryl Zeidenberg and Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano were inspired to amplify students’ poetry writing by adding a visual and audio layer as well as connect them globally to other students’ poems.
They are launching the Visualize Poetry Around The World project and are looking forward to connecting teachers and students, bringing global awareness and encouraging them to look beyond their own backyard and their own perspective.
Objective:
Encourage students’ global awareness and their ability to share their traditions and experiences based on their cultural heritage or geographic locations
Support Third Culture Kids and expats to express their unique experiences through poetry and make the advantages and challenges of International living accessible to geographically rooted children and vice-versa
Process:
Become a member of the project by joining the wiki. Questions? Contact Silvia
Become familiar with project objectives, expectations, timeline & mini-lessons
Complete task
[ There is no specific beginning or ending date for this project. Each teacher contributes his/her students video poems on their own time to the wiki platform. All we ask is that part of the commitment is to share, connect and give quality feedback to other students’ contributions ]
Task Breakdown:
create poem
find/create images & record voice
publish on project wiki
connect and give feedback
Expectations:
expect quality student work using poetic devices
students create poem based on one or more of the provided prompts
students visualize poem with quality images and overlaying poem text with author’s voice
strict observance of copyright conventions and citations.
contribution of final student work to collaborative platform
participate in feedback of student work.
Time Commitment:
up to 80 minutes- write poem
80 minute class: Students present their poems to class (teacher and peer feedback). Students re-edit after feedback.
up to 2 -80 minutes class periods digital production
Third Culture Kid Poem Example
I am from… I am from Germany, Argentina, USA and Brazil I am from Germany. From the warm Bretzel with melted butter and the sound my shoes make when going for a walk in the dense forest. I am from Argentina. From the crowds on Florida and Lavalle and the smell of a Bife de Chorizo at a friend’s asado. I am from the smell of Jasmine as I step off the colectivo on a warm Spring day in early December. I am from the United States. From the smell of salty and buttery popcorn at the movie theaters. The wide streets and gigantic parking lots that fill up to capacity after Thanksgiving. I am from Brazil. From the language that is almost understandable, but different as if listening under water or with glasses of the wrong prescription strength. I am from feeling almost close, but through the fog so far away. I am also from lighting Hanukkah candles as I am smelling Christmas in the air and buying Charlie Brown Christmas trees on the 24th day of December. I speak German, Spanish and English. Ich bin from Argentina y el vos. I am from speaking in all the 3 languages in one sentence without having to be held hostage by staying in one alone. I am from leaving on a gray, cold and rainy day in October in autumn. Racing along the runway, up up into the sky towards spring air and towards a country far away and forever closer to me. I am from arriving after a 24 hour journey to a tiny village, at the foot of the Katzenbuckel- The Cat’s Arched Back” where my grandmother anxiously awaits at the door, welcoming the return of the world travelers. I am from changes, the differences, the friends made along the way. I am from the opportunities to see wonders of the world, tasting, smelling different ways of life. I am from the different faces of the world and history. I am neither from here nor there or even there. I am destined to be torn forever between Fernweh and Heimweh, from always being far from.
Geographically Rooted Poem Sample
I am from the United States – New Haven, CT- where the imposing, old, stone, university architecture validated my fairy tale-laden child mind. I am from the warm, loving scent of Aunt Martha’s cookies baking in the flat below. I am from the one mile, all weather walk, to and from elementary school, where urban flora stubbornly persisted through sidewalk cracks. I am from the grassy field of the local schoolyards where the kids from my street gathered and grew up, after school, until the street lights flicked on. I am from the marvel and curiosity of tales from the old country spun out in a mixture of Yiddish and English around my grandmother’s kitchen table with the men drinking schnapps, the women tea. I am from learning French because it is a “romance” language. I am from learning Portuguese because of a Brazilian romance. I am from the security of knowing my way around and where everything is. I am from the frustration of not knowing the the colors, smells and sounds of everywhere else except from books and movies.
Ready to participate? Head over to the project wiki to sign up.