CI5461: Exhausted, and finished

"The Bet" has been made. Yikes, I must be tired. "Has been" in the first sentence? Yuck.

Here's the link to our adaptation of Anton Chekhov's short story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkJWs9KjkiY

Have a swell afternoon, all.

Oh, and if you watch it, make sure to set the video quality to 720p. There's no point in shooting it in HD if you don't take advantage of it. You can adjust it in the bottom right corner, by the full screen icon.

Cheers,

Dan

CI5461: Poetry on Film

Oh, how I long for a laptop cart. Then, I could integrate all these new media and not be as scared of the technology gap, and my lessons could seemingly be more relevant to my students.

With that slightly snide opening out of the way, I want to spend a few moments lauding the poetry activity (and others) that Jeffrey Schwartz describes in "Poetry Fusion." I had considered the short story a great medium that could be presented in film, by students, but the poem may actually be just as effective. I love its possibilities to teach writing skills, as Schwartz describes in his final paragraph: "What could be clearer than cutting the extra seconds out of a good shot? Get to the point. Use all of your creative and analytical resources to express your meaning to your audience. Pay attention to the language." And so on, and so forth. It's a great closing paragraph, and I side with Schwartz. Students would better understand poetry by giving it the repeated readings that film creation demand.

I also like how he built up to the activity with poetry reading in podcasts. Again, this forces a second reading (or a second listening) and infuses the poem with life-giving voice. It is the natural bridge to film, and it is also a bit less daunting (I think) to record your voice and then share it than it is to read aloud in class. This aspect could more easily transfer to a less tech-savvy classroom, but perhaps that is what we've been doing all along.