--> A 10-step guide

 

 

-->

To design and construct a digital poem or song, follow these steps:

  1. Explore the In Class Activities and examples of digital/multimodal poems (see Poetry for the 21st Century). If you want some reasons why these activities will help you construct your digital poem or song, see here.
  2. Decide: What kind of digital poem or song do I want to create? What do I want my digital poem or song to do?
  3. Consider: What do I need for my digital poem or song? To avoid copyright problems, you might explore material licensed as ‘Creative Commons'. For music, one place to start looking is CC mixter: http://www.ccmixter.org/tags

    Warning: Be careful when using work which contains indigenous content. A photo may appear on Flickr representing Aboriginal rock painting and appear to be copyright free, but who owns these images really? If you would like more information on Australian Indigenous copyright issues, see the extract on Protocols for Producing Indigenous Australian Writing on this page, or explore the Indigenous culture & copyright website here.
  4. Analyse the structure of digital poems or songs that move you emotionally and engaged your intellectually. What elements do they contain? Why were they effective? What features could you borrow or adapt for your own text?
  5. Collect digitalized sounds, words and images. (You may record, scan or film your own as well as downloading them.) Consider how these might be combined into a structure. If it helps, use a concept map or other graphic organiser to clarify the ideas and emotions you want to convey, the images/sounds/words you feel will convey them and the order or structure you think will best convey them. (If you don't have any graphic organiser software, you can download an open sourceware program called Cmap for free.)
  6. Decide on the particular structure and elements you think best conveys the purpose of your digitalized poem or song and experiment combining different elements with preproduction software (e.g. iMovie, Photostory, CeltX. and PowerPoint).
  7. Create a draft of your digital poem or song and review it. Compose a checklist of things you would like feedback on. Show it in class or it to your peers and ask them to fill in your feedback checklist. Did they find it moving or engaging? What could be improved?
  8. Before completing your final draft, go back to the Marking Guidelines. Have you fulfilled the criteria as best you can? Edit your draft version using whatever constructive criticism you've received if you think it will improve your text. Either review it yourself or get someone else to give it a final view. Is it ready to publish?
  9. Publish it to the class or on the web (or as your teacher directs).
  10. Finally - evaluate your experience of this WebQuest and post your feedback on the Guest Book or on the Facebook group page "Teaching & writing Australian Poetry in the 21st Century!" (This feedback might form part of your assessment task: check with your teacher.)

On to Protocols Extract