As education changes, more and more schools are starting 1:1 initiatives. This meaning that each student has one device that he or she can use for the entire school day. This allows for more engaging and technological lessons for teachers and students. This was our school's first year with our new 1:1 Chromebook program. I teach at a small k-12 school, so all of our students k-12 have a Chromebook that they keep and use during the school year. The k-4 students keep their Chromebooks at school, to avoid any breakage. However, our 5-12 students take their devices home each day. They are also responsible for charging them.
Throughout this year, I have discovered many new ways to implement technology in my classroom. I will continue to write blog posts that discuss those new strategies. Today's blog post will focus on what might be my favorite paper-free lesson! BLACKOUT POETRY.
Blackout poetry has always been one of my favorite activities with my students because it challenges their creativity. If you are unaware - blackout poetry is a type of found poetry. Students are given a paragraph or book page and they black out the words that they don't want in their poem. They leave words visible to create a new poem. These poems do not usually rhyme, although they can. They are more creative and free form.
The downfalls to paper blackout poetry: SHARPIES. Although these works of art can be so interesting and visually appealing, it is very difficult to have a class of 25 working on blackout poetry at the same time, unless you have a large collection of Sharpies and markers. I love what my students come up with, but I hate how many markers I lose to this process. Markers die mid poetry writing, which throws off the design, and I'm spending more money on markers than necessary in my 9-12 classroom.
I have since discovered that digital blackout poetry is the way to go! It not only saves on paper and markers, but it is easy for students to change their mind and edit their poem. In a typical blackout poem, once you have blacked out a word, there is no getting it back. However, with digital blackout poetry, you can easily take off that highlight. Students can also add in specific pictures to enhance their poem. This especially helps the students who are not good at drawing. I find that many of my students are nervous to start paper blackout poems, because they don't want to mess up, but I didn't have any hesitations with the digital poems because they knew they could revise them. I'm not saying that paper blackout poetry is bad - I love it. However, if you have the ability to go digital, I'm suggesting you do!
Here are directions for how to make a blackout poem on Google Slides.
Step 1. Create a simple Google Slideshow with multiple pages of text. You can just use one if you want all students to work on one page, but having more than one will give students options and allow for more creativity to occur.
Step 2. Make sure students know how to create a highlight on the text. They will need to make the highlight, text, and background the same color to create the typical blackout poem look.
Step 3. Have students search pictures with "png" attached in the search bar. The png pictures will not have a background, which will work better for their blackout poems because it won't interfere with the color they have chosen for the background. The png pictures will have a checkerboard look to the background.
Step 4. Let the creativity take over! Here are samples from my classroom.
Hope you found this helpful! Let me know if you use this in your classroom. Tag me on Instagram, if you use this method. I'd love to see them.
-- Amanda