ALEX Learning Activity

This lesson should be used at the end of a poetry unit or lesson. Students will use technology tools, including the internet, word processing tools, and Canva to produce a page of original poetry which will be published in a collaborative e-book. 

This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

The student will be able to use the internet, word processing tools, and Canva to produce, publish, and present a page in a collaborative e-book. Each page of the e-book will contain an original poem written by the student as part of a previous lesson.  

The students will produce and publish a page in a collaborative poetry e-book that contains original poetic compositions.

1. The student will have pre-selected a poem that they wrote during a poetry unit.

2. The student will use Canva, a graphic design website, to design a page that includes their poem and a background image that relates to the theme or mood of their poem.

3. Students will download their Canva design and either save it to a designated drive (for teacher access) or insert it into a slide in collaborative presentation software (such as PowerPoint or Google Slides).

• The teacher should create a collaborative presentation using Google Slides or PowerPoint. If the teacher does not use collaborative presentation software, they can upload each student graphic to the presentation themselves.
• The students will download their Canva design and save it to the desktop. 
• From there, the students should go to the collaborative presentation and INSERT their graphic into a blank slide.

4. The teacher will convert the Slides to a PDF and upload the e-book to the desired website. 

Since students are publishing a work that has been previously assessed, the assignment will be assessed using the following rubric.

This activity would follow lesson(s) on various poetic forms in which students would write their own poems using models.

Reserve appropriate facilities/tools (i.e. computer labs, laptop cart, etc.) and ensure that these resources are Internet accessible.

If using Google Slides, the teacher should set up a collaborative Slides presentation to share with their class (using the share button or Google Classroom).

If using PowerPoint, the teacher should set up a collaborative PowerPoint presentation to share with their class. 

• To make book size-Go to FILE, PAGE SETUP, Click CUSTOM, Change the size to 8.5 X 11 INCHES. Click APPLY

A NOTE ON USING CANVA:

• EMAIL IS REQUIRED. If students do not have Google accounts or email they may search Creative Commons for images to use in Google Slides/PowerPoint and create their page within the presentation software instead of within Canva.

Students could create their own publication of work. This could serve as a writing portfolio or a portfolio of work from all classes. 

Publications could include video, pictures, QR codes, etc. The options are endless.

Most any publishing software could be used to produce/publish student pages.

This activity can be completed without internet as students could create a collage from magazines or draw/design their own page on paper. These documents could then be scanned by the teacher and compiled into an e-book.

This activity works best for students who have some prior experience using Google Slides/PowerPoint and Canva. 

When using Canva, remind students to only use "free" images.