THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY

THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY
April 12, 2016

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

National Poetry Month 2013: Teens in the TechnoVerse

It's the last day of April and I'm saying TGIM. (Thank God It's May.) I should have known when I began a series on the TechnoVerse that life would go into Warp Drive this month.

When April 2013 began, my family was in Florida for spring break. In the last 30 days, we have:


On line for Olivander's.
celebrated a first birthday;
sent one kid off to California for a robotics world championship;
taught poetry in two elementary schools;

Fifth graders writing portrait poems in response to fine art.

got sick and missed a week of middle school, but
the show must go on (stage managed "The Little Mermaid" at said middle school);
sent Dad off to Nashville for a business trip;
various and sundry other joys and minor disasters.

As I am learning, this is a typical month when you have two teenage children. My teens are tech-buffs. They do their homework on laptops, watch anime in their spare time, and spend too much time on Reddit.

For them, and for the teens in your life, here is a great teen-focused poetry website.

http://www.powerpoetry.org/
PowerPoetry.Org -- "Write Your Own Life Story" bills itself as the largest mobile teen poetry community in the TechnoVerse.

A lovely lady, Alyce Myatta, from the NEA (which sponsors another great teen poetry program, Poetry Out Loud) tipped me off about this site. This is a place for young poets to upload and share their original writing. They are encouraged to browse through their peers' poetry and vote or leave comments.

There are great inspiration resources at PowerPoetry such as "5 Tips for Writing and Ode Poem" and "6 Tips for Writing about Music." Kids can learn how to make a multimedia poem, get hooked up with the local slam scene, even find an adult poet to be their online mentor.

But I especially love what comes up when I click a tab entitled "Why Write a Poem": 

"Every one of us has a story that is completely our own by virtue of the fact that each of us is unique and has an ever expanding collection of experience that are particular to the lives we lead.

"Simply put, no one is like you.
"Poetry is the means which we can express ourselves, it’s a way to vent, and to make sense of the world, to tell our stories in our own words."
Quoted from PowerPoetry.Org

Teachers, there is a spot on this site for you, too. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on EDUCATORS. You'll find out how to start a PowerPoetry group at your school.

Despite all the drama at home, I've had a great month exploring the TechnoVerse with all of you. Kudos to our excellent guest bloggers! You have all expanded my tech-tools and my thinking about how I can use technology to be a better, more organized writer. (Yes, even you, Dennis Kirschbaum.)

This month, I've experimented with SoundCloud, downloaded Scrivener, felt overwhelmed by Pinterest, revisited an email poem about seamonkeys in my underpants (it's a long story).

If you're not ready to say goodbye to the TechnoVerse yet, here is a full list of the posts in this series:





TechnoVerse wrap up & PowerPoetry.Org for teens (Tuesday 4/30)


I am happily powering down the warp engines, everyone. If you'd like, leave a comment about the recommended apps, websites and programs you've tried as a result of our series.

Good luck as your school years wind down. It's been one for the yearbooks!

http://science.howstuffworks.com/warp-speed3.htm

3 comments:

Linda B said...

I enjoyed each one for its ideas & the passion from the writer, Laura, but recently really enjoyed being introduced yesterday to Tweetspeak-such a rich site! Thank you for all of it!

HEATHER LYNNE DAVIS said...

So glad to have found this site! I'm a poet-mom but have been writing fiction and need to reconnect with the verse! So many great resources here. Will share with my 9-yr old daughter too. Thanks!! --Heather

Author Amok said...

Linda, thank you so much for all of your visits to the series. I'll tell Ann Bracken that you enjoyed her post.

Heather -- welcome! I'm glad you found the site, too. I'll be posting poems from my third grade poetry residency beginning later this week. You and your daughter might enjoy reading the poems by children close to her age.