ALEX Learning Activity

  

Publishing a Page in a Poetry E-Book

A Learning Activity is a strategy a teacher chooses to actively engage students in learning a concept or skill using a digital tool/resource.

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  This learning activity provided by:  
Author: Melissa Tucker
System:Etowah County
School:Hokes Bluff Middle School
  General Activity Information  
Activity ID: 2244
Title:
Publishing a Page in a Poetry E-Book
Digital Tool/Resource:
Canva
Web Address – URL:
Overview:

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.

  Associated Standards and Objectives  
Content Standard(s):
Digital Literacy and Computer Science
DLIT (2018)
Grade: 8
R6) Produce, review, and revise authentic artifacts that include multimedia using appropriate digital tools.

Unpacked Content
Evidence Of Student Attainment:
Students will:
  • produce a multimedia artifact.
  • review artifacts created by others.
  • revise an artifact based on peer or teacher feedback.
Knowledge:
Students know:
  • feedback is important in a design process.
Skills:
Students are able to:
  • create a multimedia artifact.
  • critique the work of others.
  • revise their work based on feedback received.
Understanding:
Students understand that:
  • much like the writing process, design of a multimedia artifact nets the best results when creators have the opportunity to be given feedback and revise as needed.
English Language Arts
ELA2021 (2021)
Grade: 8
13. Create and edit digital products that are appropriate in subject, occasion, audience, point of view, purpose, and tone.
Unpacked Content
Teacher Vocabulary:
13.
  • Digital product
  • Subject
  • Occasion
  • Audience
  • Point of view
  • Purpose
  • Tone
Knowledge:
13. Students know:
  • Necessary skills to create and edit digital products.
  • The intended audience and occasion should be identified before selecting a subject and purpose of a digital product.
Skills:
13. Students are able to:
  • Create and revise a digital text to ensure a clear subject.
  • Create and revise a digital text for an intended audience and occasion.
  • Create and revise a digital text to achieve a particular tone and purpose.
Understanding:
13. Students understand that:
  • Digital products can be used to communicate with a variety of audiences and occasions.
  • They should modify the subject and purpose of their digital products depending on the audience and occasion.
  • Revision is important in establishing a clear purpose and tone in writing a digital text.
  • Revision is important in appealing to a particular audience with a digital text.
  • Revision is important to articulate a clear subject and occasion for writing a digital text.
Learning Objectives:

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.  

  Strategies, Preparations and Variations  
Phase:
After/Explain/Elaborate
Activity:

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. 

Assessment Strategies:

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


Advanced Preparation:

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.
Variation Tips (optional):

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.

Notes or Recommendations (optional):

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.

 

  Keywords and Search Tags  
Keywords and Search Tags: ebook, poetry, publication, technology, writing