INTRODUCTION

Each poet has a unique voice, shaped by his or her life experiences and cultural background. When students read a variety of poets, they are likely to find some voices that can speak to them powerfully. How can we encourage students to stay with poems long enough to discover how they might express what they have otherwise struggled to put into words? How can we tap into students' inherent need to express themselves?

PROJECT OVERVIEW

In this project, students read a variety of multicultural poems in In My Own Voice, and from these choose six class favorites. With groups formed around each favorite, students study their poems intensively, using the full suite of features offered by In My Own Voice, and write essays expressing their interpretations of the poems. Then groups create performance art pieces around their poems, stage these performances, and produce them as iMovies published on the Internet.

Phase 1: Finding poems that move the soul

Ask groups of three or four to explore the poems in In My Own Voice. Their goal: to identify as a group three poems that are especially moving or meaningful.

Each group chooses poems from the CD at random. The group listens to each poem first, without reading the words on the page. If the group agrees that the poem "speaks" to them in some way, they read it as a group, discuss what they like about it, and write their impressions down in the In My Own Voice Notepad. After exploring at least ten poems in this manner, the group decides on its three favorites.

Phase 2: Digging to the heart of the poems

Invite each group to report its three favorite poems to the whole class, and to give a brief oral statement about its reasons for choosing each poem. Write the titles of all the favorite poems on the board. Determine, through show-of-hands voting, the class's top six (or five or seven, depending on the size of your class) poems.

Form groups of four or five around each of the most-liked poems, so that every student can be in a group linked to a favorite or almost-favorite poem. Each group returns to In My Own Voice to delve deeper into its poem. The group reads and listens to its poem, listens to the poet describe the poem, reads the biography of the poet, and discusses the poem's meaning and language. Finally, with a printed copy of the poem in hand, each group member writes a one- to two-page essay describing the poem's "essence"--what the poet is communicating through it.

Phase 3: Creating poetic performances

Explain to groups their next challenge: to create a "performance" of their poem, which they will "film" and produce as a desktop movie. Each performance will include the poem being read by a group member while the other group members interpret the poem with some combination of movement, pantomime, props, sound, music, and visual images (which can be in the form of mPOWER slideshows projected as a backdrop).

Groups brainstorm ideas for their performances, taking notes in AppleWorks and referring to the "essence" essays created in Phase 2. When an idea emerges that all group members can embrace, the group begins to put its ideas in visual form by using Inspiration. Through a process of continued brainstorming, rehearsal of performance bits, and modification of the Inspiration concept map, the group builds an Inspiration storyboard that details the entire performance.

Phase 4: Rehearsing, staging, and producing the performances

Groups collect and create their props, build mPOWER slideshow backdrops (if appropriate), rehearse and polish their performances, and practice using the digital camcorder.

When all the groups are ready, have each group stage its performance and record it using the digital camcorder. Groups then use iMovie to edit their digital video and create professional-looking desktop movies.

Show the movies to the class and lead a discussion on what students have learned about interpreting poetry through performance. Finally, publish the movies on the Internet using an iTools theater template.