When we started this poetry unit, I wasn’t expecting the amount of research this project was going to entail. I had always been a one for poetry and lyricism, but I never applied any of my skill to a topic that I found important to me. I could always write about someone else’s perspective but it was hard for me to really dive deep into myself. In this unit we studied poetry, beat poetry in particular, and the historical movement surrounding the Beat Generation. We were required to present our research many different times, each outlined our inquiry question:
How can we use poetry to reflect our perspectives on people, places, issues, and beliefs?
Our first real assignment outlined the question, how might we express ourselves through language, and how did the Beat poets do it? This was our opportunity to learn and research the Beat Generation and Beat Poetry. In class we watched many different videos of poets reciting their work. This gave us a first step to propel ourselves off of mostly in curiosity of this new topic. At first I had some strong opinions of beat poetry and its cacophonous tones and rhythm. I could say that this dislike provoked my interest in the topic, and helped me to create an overarching understanding of this topic. Spoiler, I ended up really liking Beat Poetry.
After we had more of an understanding of beat poetry and the time frame in which it took place we we’re introduced to our first project, Bio of a Beat. This project entailed the research of a chosen beat, and a presentation of our learning in the form of a short biography. There were many different means of media we could choose from, a short keynote movie, a podcast, and an essay were three that stood out to me. I decided that the best way to present my knowledge was through a short podcast because I realized that it was one step harder than an essay but wouldn’t waist my time on the details like a keynote.
The week before the project was assigned, a classmate (Alivia) and I left to council at outdoor-school, a program designed to introduce learning in the outdoors to elementary school students. This gave us very little time to complete this part of the project. In total we had upwards of two and a half days, which was less then the rest of the class but, plenty of time for me to create a stellar podcast. It did take me a fair amount of time to set up what I call the podcast booth, a desk of equipments and cords that I set up many times last year in our podcast unit. One of the reasons why I consider a podcast to be harder than an essay and easier that a video is the work I put into it. For an essay I will write and edit a given amount of text, while for a podcast I still have to write and edit a script just as long and record and edit it in a different media. For me I don’t necessarily think it is harder to make a good keynote movie I just think it is more time consuming.
The Group of councillors and I after a very long week.
For this podcast I created my script, edited, and recorded my audio all in about a day. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the hardest part of this particular podcast. I found that editing in audio of the beat poet that I chose Joanne Kyger and equalizing it with the rest of the podcast was quite strenuous. Overall this part of the project was very interesting and I found the podcast to be challenging (in a good way).
The second part of this project was the creation of our poetry books and the exhibition. We were first introduced to writing our own poetry in class. The first ten minutes of class were turned into a topic inspired poetry session. It was incredibly helpful to have this time and later I found myself being able to write poetry on my own time. The book consisted of a title page, a table of contents, an introduction page, seven to fifteen poems, and a Chronology. I spent a lot of time on my poems and also found our learning of poetic devices helpful in this aspect of the project. When creating this book I also had to consider how in-depth I wanted to go on my explanations of the poetry because some poems were quite personal. I decided that I would dive a little into my past in my chronology, but otherwise I decided to stay fairly surface in most of my poetry.
The last part of this project was the exhibition. Since this was my fourth exhibition I had a fair amount of experience in this field. I knew that my experience also raised the bar on what I eventually would create. In class we chose groups that we felt confident in. The general theme of this years exhibition was Star Wars, mainly a causation of the release the new movie in the franchise. Since Star Wars is a really broad topic, our class was given an sub theme to work with, the Cantina. If you aren’t familiar with the Cantina Scene from Star Wars: The New Hope, the song Cantina Band will probably jog your memory.
I decided that the best field for me to work in was sound, because at the time it seamed to provide just the right amount of creativity and freedom. This lead to the creation of my speaker casings. Even though I oversaw most of the work that my group did, I noticed early on that there was a need for props and decided to fuse both sound and design to create my product. I had this idea right from the start which provided lots of time to work on my prototypes.
I started the creation by gathering supplies, and since all of the electronics were stored in the speakers this consisted mostly of paint, foam core, tape, and glue. In contrast to the past the creation of this product didn’t feel pressured and I didn’t have to cover any topics. The design of the casings mixed the chrome angular styles of the fifties, the droid look of Star Wars, and the colour thyme of the cantina. I even added little details to accentuate each of these topics, for example a screen of a 1950’s radio and a small nob like a droid might have.
On the day of the exhibition I realized that the hallway, an important part of our exhibition, wasn’t assigned to anyone. Since my job was already completed I decided to step in and try to create an entrance both enticing and mysterious. This mainly consisted of me frantically running around trying to find supplies to amp up my design. To finish off my design I placed the two speaker casings (simultaneously playing the Cantina Band Song) on both sides of the hallway.
Throughout this project we were given two Curricular Competencies to work off of, Historical Perspective, and Create Competencies
Historical Perspective: Explain and infer different perspectives on past or present people, places, issues, or events by considering prevailing norms, values, world views, and beliefs.
Create: What literacy skills am I using to write, speak, and represent in the texts I create?
This wasn’t the first time we were introduced to the Historical Perspective Competency. In past projects we have studied historical perspective and implemented this competency in our projects. When supplementing this competency into our learning i found that I understood the worldview of the beat poets more and more. Without this understanding I found the poetry to sound dry and harsh. Only until later when I understood the Historical perspectives of the Poets, did I learn to enjoy the poetry.
Personally I found the creation Competency tied directly into my poetry. As I mentioned above, in class we learned a lot of different poetic devices and poetry styles. When I later created my poetry I found it natural to use methods like alliteration and metaphor. In my book itself I spent time and wrote an Introduction/Authors Note that gave the reader as much insight into my life as I could fit. All the way to the end when I created the hallway, I used up all of the creative juices I could muster, and although it didn’t have to do with reading and writing, it felt incredibly rewarding.
Overall I thought that this years Winter Exhibition was a success, and the unit in general was very interesting. Throughout this unit I learned many new skills and tackled problems that i never thought I would face. In the future I will definitely feel more confident creating and writing high quality poetry, and if anyone asks me to read it “like a beat poet,” Oh Boy do they know the trouble they have just gotten themselves