Building
Learners
Project

I have just shared a sample Quick Project and project template for a Visual Poem Quick Project. You can find it one of two ways:

1.  I have shared them with all the project members within the workBench (go to Manage My Resources  to see them under Shared With Me and click to Make me a Copy).  Feel free to change the versions I made to better suit your needs with YOUR students (ex. change the requirements, etc.)
2. You can view the sample project itself  from this URL: http://tf.trintuition.com/cshively/visualpoem.  Feel free to share it with students (or not).

Here is the background  and some context for this  Quick Project idea:

• Students can write their own poems and add visual images to go with them, either in groups or individually. If you have studied an important historical event, why not ask your elementary student to create a visual poem about it.
• As your class studies poetry and literary devices (imagery, motifs, etc.), have them create a visual poem with annotations to show their understanding of the poem’s imagery. If you use poems from the public domain, you can include the ENTIRE poem in the project. If  the poems you use are newer and still under copyright, have students select portions of the poem under “Fair Use” of copyrighted material to combine with images in their visual poems. This would be a terrific activity for students to explore the visual imagery and themes within song lyrics as poetry, as well.
• Younger students can use classic poems with more concrete imagery to visually illustrate the metaphors and similes they read.
• With elementary classes, do a whole-class visual poem as a message to send (by emailing the URL) to another class in another part of the world (another Building Learners class?) or to your class parents, summarizing what you have learned about animals, Thanksgiving, family, community, or any curriculum concept. This is a wonderful way of culminating a unit and sharing it proudly.
• Gifted students would respond well to the open-ended challenge of visual poetry at ANY age

Have other ideas? Share them here as comments!