1.+9th+Grade

**Reading Poetry Collaboratively with Diigo**
In ninth grade, the goal of the poetry unit is for students to learn to use language "tools" as they write their own poetry and to write an analytical essay showing their understanding of the poem's elements. In years past, this was a solitary assignment with students using paper notebooks to reflect on their learning. They annotated poems using the commenting feature in Microsoft Word, and although they worked in groups to share thoughts, the oral process was limited. I realized that by allowing them to "read together" and record their thoughts online, they would be expanding their media literacy in several ways. Students with a shallow understanding of the poetry would learn from others, and those with a solid understanding would model and share their analysis. The opportunity to use [|Diigo,] a social bookmarking tool, and a [|wiki,] proved to be a powerful combination to take this lesson a step further. This synchronous sharing provided a safe way for students to ask questions, be teachers, and have a recorded document for later review. I reflected about this on my blog [|here] and posted a summary of our first attempt at poetry analysis.
 * Step 1: Rethinking the Original Lesson **

This quote by [|Steven Johnson], whose blog I follow in my Google Reader, spurred me to try this: //As you read, you will know that at any given moment, a conversation is available about the paragraph or even// sentence //you are reading. Nobody will read alone anymore. Reading books will go from being a fundamentally private activity — a direct exchange between author and reader — to a community event, with every isolated paragraph the launching pad for a conversation with strangers around the world.//

Here is the updated poetry unit in our curriculum map. Students studied a variety of poems, explicating each using terms such as alliteration, symbol, or imagery. They then modeled the poems in their own writing. The poems we chose to annotate online were Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" and "Pumpernickel" by Philip Schultz. The comments, exported from Diigo and linked below, show the students' thought processes and their sharing of ideas. Students were then able to use the online notes as a study guide as they prepared their final poetry notebooks with original poems and as they studied for the final test.
 * Step 2: Poetry Unit **

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 * Step 3: Student Examples**
 * This screen shot of the wiki shows the pop-up commenting feature in Diigo. Though nearly everything else we do online is public, we decided this year to keep our Diigo group private as we experimented. Thus, this link to the poem only shows the annotations to the members of our private Diigo group. The photo below shows yellow and pink highlighting as well as the pop-up comments that the group sees.
 * Here are several students talking about their work as well as some of my own comments about the project:
 * This [[file:FA.doc]] shows the online conversation about "We Real Cool" as students asked each other questions, looked up answers, and tried to determine meaning as they were reading the poem together. Rather than sharing one at a time, their thoughts literally popped up on the screen as they worked.
 * This image from our Diigo group shows how we organize our links (the arrows point to the number of comments students made).
 * Poetry Test: An example of how the student used her online annotation practice to show her understanding of the tools on this final assessment

The video above tells the story of the students' realization of the power of this medium. Synchronous online learning allows for a vastly different kind of collaboration then we had previously. Students used multi-modal learning to gain a deeper understanding of theme, symbolism, and language. The opportunity to reflect online gave the less vocal students a chance to share in writing and forced the verbal students to slow down and to read others' thoughts. I was able to see where they had questions, but even more, this allowed the students to self-direct their learning, bringing up topics of interest and seeing connections I had not thought of. Many students used this example of learning in their final portfolios as one of their favorites. Having conversations online is a skill our department feels is worth teaching. We all learned the value of collaborative online communities through this process.
 * Step 4: Reflection**