Multiliteracies in ELA Classrooms

Instagram and Found Poetry

Here is the link to our insta-poem: http://instagram.com/368media1

Johnnie Furlong, Ceilidh Irving, Whitney O’Donnell, and Aimee Beauchamp

Purpose: 

Because of the use of imagery and strong vocabulary, we found poetry to lend itself well to visual representation. We felt that Found Poetry would be a great way to translate text into images. In our experience, students have enjoyed the process of found poetry for many reasons, the most obvious being the pressure taken off of the student to come up with their own words. Found Poetry is a great way of introducing students to new and unfamiliar vocabulary. We also found this particular way of presenting it to be interactive and engaging. The main purpose of Found Poetry is to create a new context while maintaining part of the original meaning. In this way, there is a sort of double-meaning behind each word and the newly created poem – an important process in understanding the context of poetry as a whole.

1) What process did you use to develop your idea? 

 There was a lot of discussion back and forth about different ideas. This particular snowballed from the suggestion of using Instagram as a platform. We felt that this particular avenue is popular amongst students and is a simple enough format to use that it’s easy for anyone to try out. As mentioned, we figured poetry would fit well in Instagram because they both encourage the use of imagery and subtext. Eventually the idea of Found Poetry was suggested and it was something we all felt fit the purpose of the project well.

 2) What other pre-production strategies did you employ?

While we had a main idea for our project we did not have a focus or theme for our poem. We decided that the best way to create this was to let it come about in a holistic fashion. We agreed to spend the next few days individually taking pictures of words we found meaningful or were capable of carrying a dialogue to some degree. We then reconvened to see what we came up with and whether or not we were able to sort of suss out a theme. Indeed we noticed some similarities between the images and developed this concept of the transformation of a teacher from negative to positive. From this, we were able to piece together the images in a collage fashion on Instagram. 

3) How did you assign tasks or roles within your group? How did you manage time? 

 We needed a lot of different images to create the poem and therefore we were able to just each go our own way and take pictures as we came across different words. This project actually allowed us to manage our time well because it didn’t require all of us to be in the same room at the same time. It was only in the last bit where we had to piece it together that we took some time to collaborate once more and create the poem. I guess in some sense we all had the same roles and tasks. We found that it worked really well not always knowing what types of pictures the other members were taking as we came to the conclusion that we felt a strong pull to some similar words. This was an interesting find that may not have turned out had only one person been assigned this task. For other aspects of the project like creating the Instagram account and doing this write up, it was done on a more voluntary basis and we did not find any issue with that.

4) What approaches would you use to assess this activity that take into account the 

following: a) the multimedia nature of the assignment; b) the collaborative nature of the 

assignment 

a) We chose to focus on how well students were able to use this platform to create meaning. This includes aspects such as how were the images laid out on the account, how were the images edited, what kinds of emotions are evoked from this, and what else is shown in the image besides the word. We believe that this process requires a level of contextual knowledge and understanding. Therefore, this project would be an excellent way to determine how well someone understands the role of imagery and vocabulary within the meaning of poetry.

b) This project easily allows for collaboration. As was mentioned, we were all able to take pictures on our own time and reconvene at a time that worked for everyone to sort out the images. Different ideas and themes were discussed based on the similarities between the pictures and the chosen theme was agreed upon by everyone. It was a nice balance of collaboration and individual work without requiring too much of a time commitment from all members of the group. 

5. What is the greatest challenge to using this approach in the classroom?

The challenge we saw was of course with the use of technology. There is always a question of economic status and access within projects based around new forms of technology. This project did require that we were all able to take pictures on our own time and this was made easier due to the fact that we all had smartphones capable of doing this. If a student did not have this then there would be some struggle for them to participate. However, they would still be able to take part in the collaboration. Also, this approach would require that at least one student in the group is able to access Instagram. The only other potential challenge we saw was the possibility of students simply posting images of words that do not relate to each other and therefore have no context or meaning. This would undermine the purpose of the project.