The old year is going

The end of the year is close and it pertains to sum up the days gone by.
I do not pine for the year that is coming to an end and I do not write new year resolutions.

Everything I feel has been said about a hundred years ago by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Made with http://www.postermywall.com/

Happy New Year to all!
 

Using textivate.com for simple interactive tasks

Textivate.com offers a great teacher tool for creating simple interactive tasks for younger students.


Update: Later discovered that all quizzes can be embedded on your class website or blog. Great feature!

For my set of interactive tasks I chose a poem by Kenn Nesbitt  Today I Had a Rotten Day. It is a brilliant poem for teaching the students about the body parts, and a wonderful resource for teaching the verbs.

Today I had a rotten day
as I was coming in from play.
I accidentally stubbed my toes
and tripped and fell and whacked my nose.
I chipped a tooth. I cut my lip.
I scraped my knee. I hurt my hip.
I pulled my shoulder, tweaked my ear,
and got a bruise upon my rear.
I banged my elbow, barked my shin.
A welt is forming on my chin.
My pencil poked me in the thigh.
I got an eyelash in my eye.
I sprained my back. I wrenched my neck.
I’m feeling like a total wreck.
So that’s the last time I refuse
when teacher says to tie my shoes.


To create the tasks, you can choose from various options.

I started with the easiest task, in my opinion - separating the words. After your students have read the poem, they go online to the address you have given them and separate the words of the poem. To do it, they just have to click in the right place.

After the first task, they go on to the next, slightly more difficult task - mixed lines. There are many layout variants, I used 10 tiles. Students rearrange the lines by dragging the tiles.

When they have done the easier tasks, they go to the next task which is a little more challenging than the previous ones - they have to write the missing vowels.

After the vowel task, give them a considerably more difficult task - putting back the missing consonants.

Now it's time to ask your students to recall and write the missing words. The good thing is that the tool generates a new variant each time you click on Restart. The words may be hidden or shown depending on your student abilities. If they see the words, they simply drag them to the right space.

Finally, ask your students to reconstruct the poem from scratch - with only empty letter squares given. Looks hard but in fact it isn't, taking into account they will have learned the poem by that time.

Observe how proud they will look after they have completed the last version of the tasks!
 

More presentations on creative writing

Following my presentation on writing mini sagas, here are two more presentations giving quick tips for writing diamond poems or diamantes and limericks.

A diamante is a seven line poem, shaped like a diamond, hence the name. It is perfect for revising adjectives, participles or gerunds.
To learn more, see my presentation.

Creative writing: Diamond poems

More PowerPoint presentations from baiba svenca

Limericks are short poems of vague origin but the name most obviously has been borrowed from the Irish town of Limerick which is why limericks are often associated with Ireland.

This presentation gives examples and suggestions how to write a limerick.

All these forms of creative writing - mini sagas, diamond poems and limericks - are suitable for developing students' creativity, imagination and thinking skills. They work well with students of all ages.

Snow

I got into poetic mood today while I was watching the amazing snowfall.

There was no wind. The snow was falling in slow, languid motion drifting past my eyes as I was looking through the window at the breathtaking beauty. The snowflakes were enormous and looked heavy but they landed one upon another more tenderly than the fluffy down.

Then I took some pictures of them but could not capture their ethereal beauty.

What is snow?

Snow is precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes. Since it is composed of small rough particles it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. Snow is precipitation in the form of ice crystals, mainly of intricately branched, hexagonal form and often agglomerated into snowflakes, formed directly from the freezing of the water vapor in the air. Snow is ice crystals that fall from clouds and which may stick together to form snowflakes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow)

I read a wonderful poem by Robert Frost and enjoyed the fabulous winter day.

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow 

Shook down on me 

The dust of snow 

From a hemlock tree 

Has given my heart 

A change of mood 

And saved some part 

Of a day I had rued.

Christmas time

Mistletoe

by Walter de la Mare

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Someone came, and kissed me there.


Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale green, fairy mistletoe)
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

Typography

What once was a simple selection of letter forms to be organized into words and sentences and then printed, now is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs.
Typography has evolved as both a science and art for one main purpose: to make words easier to understand and more meaningful to read.

Typography is also what you get when you use word cloud generators mentioned in my post Web tools for making word clouds.

Example of typography (click to enlarge):

An awesome example of creative typography

Further reading on typography:
http://free-web-design.co.cc/the-art-of-modern-typography-design.html
http://sixrevisions.com/design-showcase-inspiration/30-creative-typography-art/

Web tools for making word clouds

Word clouds or clusters of words are a fun way to sum up the lexis used in a particular text. There are quite a lot of tools for creating them, here I have exploited four of them. I have already mentioned TAGUL and WORDLE before.
I have used the same poem The Little Boy and the Old Man by Shel Silverstein for making all clouds. You may try to predict the content of the poem while looking at these word clouds, and then read the full poem at the end of the post.

Further reading about the ways how you can use word clouds in the lessons:

http://kjtechresources.blogspot.com/2010/03/ways-to-use-word-clouds-in-classroom.html
http://www.web2teachingtools.com/wordle.html
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/09/using-word-clouds-in-efl-esl.html
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Stockdale-TextCloud/
http://oupeltglobalblog.com/2010/06/16/what-is-a-word-cloud/

WORDLE is probably the most popular tool. I have not researched its history but I believe it may also be the oldest of all tools of the kind. I developed my love for the word clouds thanks to Wordle.

WORD IT OUT is a tool I discovered recently and liked it at once for its simplicity.

















Word clouds made with ABCya are amazingly similar to Wordle products and as lovely!

Finally, TAGXEDO which is popular because of its versatility. You can even create a cloud in the shape of a star or an animal. But then Tagul also makes shapes if you wish.








Here is the poem I used to make the word clouds.

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the little old man.

The Poetry Channel

I just discovered a new website The Poetry Channel which presents poetry in videos.
The poems are read by the authors themselves. The site is not big yet because they have just started but I liked it at once because it is exciting and inspiring to watch the poets and listen to their voices.
There are poems which are fantastic for classroom use.

I loved this poem http://thepoetrychannel.org.uk/poems/back-in-the-playground-blues/