I loved one of the tasks for last week. We had to write a poem about our origins. I had never written a poem, the first time I saw the task I thought, ‘How am I going to do this?’ Then I forgot the I can’t, I never, no way and got to work on it.
Several things helped:
- No experience as a writer, but loads of experience as a reader.
- The topic was highly motivating.
- I immediately knew what picture to choose.
- I made a point of connecting to my past through the senses, one connection brought lots of other sensory associations to my mind.
- When you use your senses to connect to your past (I’ve also experienced this in drama classes) the scenes come so vivid.
- I had a lot of fun choosing just a few words to try to make those scenes vivid. The result was lots of other not taken photos.
I published my poem on flickr feeling lucky no eye contact was necessary.
Technorati Tags: EVO09 images4education flickr i4eorigins
Dear Gabriela,
I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams that the origins task in our images4education session would create such an interesting world mosaic of images, memories and cultural background. I am truly in awe by the richness of the poems. In the beginning, we had this feeling that you mentioned that some would say that they were not poets, but at the end we decided to keep the task to show one way of using flickr as a very powerful educational, engaging tool.
Good for keeping it!
This seems to be the reverse of Tim’s presentation, En mi pueblo no hay Cocos.
This is one of the things I love about teaching, it’s only when the action starts that you know if things work or not. And that moment is thrilling.
Thanks for the wonderful activities, Carla. And for the friendly and encouraging atmosphere you have all built up.
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