Poem Movies

Over at our blog promoting our new middle school book, The Poetry Friday Anthology (Gr. 6-8), I'm posting "poem movies" that my graduate students have created for selected poems from the anthology. Look here. Each student chose one poem from the anthology and then interpreted it in a short, original, one-minute digital film-- sometimes with input from young people themselves (and with the poet's permission, of course). I'll be posting one-a-day throughout April (National Poetry Month).

Green Screen Poetry
Meanwhile, a former student, Carol Neeland, has done the same thing with her students at the international school at The Hague where she works. Her students were kind enough to share one of their videos with me and I am posting it below. Check it out! I love the idea of using technology to engage in poetry. And since I'm such a movie buff too, I love the idea of using filmmaking to interpret a poem.

 

Here's the lowdown on this project from Carol:

Sixth graders at the American School of The Hague in The Netherlands take an eight week IT skills course with Carol Neeland, middle school IT teacher and graduate of TWU's School of Library and Information Studies program. One of the units in the course is "Green Screen Poetry" and the guiding question is, "How can technology be used to promote communication, collaboration, and creativity?"

During this two week section of the course, students learn basic video production techniques while making creative interpretations of poems for young people. They work in groups to develop a collaborative storyboard on Google Docs that includes the lines of the poem, the photographs they will use in the background of their green screen scenes, and the actions they will do in front of the green screen to bring the poem to life.

Students operate the lights, cameras and clapperboard, edit the video using the green screen effect in iMovie, dub in voiceovers, and make subtitles showing the original text of the poem. Using Garageband loops, the kids create music that expresses the mood of their poem. They play the music during the credits which cite the sources for their background photos in addition to acknowledging everyone in the room who helped with the production.

Through the green screen poetry project, Mrs. Neeland and her students combine a passion for poetry with the craft of video production and this unique combination can be magical for sixth grade students!

I agree!

BTW: I'll be posting daily in April here, too. (The poem movies will be at the PFAMS blog.) Here, I'll be featuring "Blasts from the Poetry Past," snippets that look backward at the history of poetry for young people. I hope you'll stop by!

Now, let's gather at A Year of Reading for some Poetry Friday fun hosted by the lovely Mary Lee Hahn. See you there!



Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2013. Video: Carol Neeland. All rights reserved.

Image credit: Fastcodesign.com