1. Digital Poetry-Telling for English Language Learners
An Action Research Project
By Dana Reid
Presented by: Emily Bernard

2. What is Digital Storytelling?
Using digital tools (ex: audio files, digital photographs, videos) to tell stories.
Macs  imovie
PCs  Windows Movie Maker

3. Rationale for use with ELLs
Benefit of storyboard or story-map
Simple forms
Scaffolding imperative for struggling writers

4. Rationale for use with ELLs
Use of imagery
For struggling writers, visuals scaffold writing & provide meaning in their own right.
Photography plays an important role in facilitating students’ literacy experiences (Labbo, Eakle, & Montero, 2002).
Visuals compensate for missed details.

5. Rationale for Use with ELL Students
Multitude of Literacies
Global
Technological
Visual
Information
All facilitate well-rounded
authentic learning experience

6. Adaptation of Digital Storytelling to unit on Digital Poetry-Telling for ELLs
Poetry a challenge to ELLs by default
Abstract and complex literary devices
Poetry is still useful for ELLs
Experiment with vocabulary
Freely share ideas w/o confinement to perfect grammar or structure
Digital technologies can help motivate
Alternative means of expression

7. Funds of Knowledge Theory
Adaptation of Digital Storytelling to unit on Digital Poetry-Telling for ELLs
Funds of Knowledge Theory
Students’ knowledge gained from their family and cultural backgrounds
Classroom becomes more inclusive
Types of Poems
Portrait poems
Autobiographical poems that reveal
something about the person writing the poem
Where I am from poems
Appalachian poet George Ella Lyon
Student is prompted to convey
memories of their past and hopes for their future
Spoken word poems
Poems that are free verse and meant to be read
out-loud

8. Observations during Implementation
Concerns over voice being recorded
Rustam: “I don’t want to be recorded, I hate my voice.”
Narmina expressed similar concerns when she asked, “Do I have to record my voice? I have a thick accent.”
Dana reassured them that their accents and unique voices are what makes their digital stories come alive; it allows them to personalize them.
Oral storytelling is a powerful way for students to develop their own voices.
Oral storytelling helps with self-correction.

9. Observations during Implementation
After learning Windows Movie Maker, students were extremely motivated
Engagement Theory (Kearsley & Schneiderman, 1999)
Technology can facilitate engagement in ways which are difficult to achieve otherwise.
Students wanted to come after school to keep working.

10. Use of images from personal life
Observations during Implementation
Use of images from personal life
Had option to use images from internet or bring in photos.
Images made the stories meaningful and authentic.
Ramazan remarked, “They (the audience) didn’t have to imagine it, they could really see it.”

11. Critical Reflection on Teaching Practices
Apprehension about doing digital poetry-telling
RED 746
Never used Windows Movie Maker before
Ramazan-- “tech wiz”
Funds of Knowledge Theory
I was able to set aside my teacher cap and literally get “schooled” by him in this digital literacy.
Connection & resulting improvements in his attitude towards other academic areas that I instruct him in.

12. Critical Reflection on Teaching Practices
Ramazan put digital poem on MySpace-publish
English teacher raving
Played at faculty meeting

13. Student Exemplars Takat- Grade 12 Nesime- Grade 11 Rustem- Grade 8
Rifat- Grade 7

14. Takat’s “I am Poem”

15. Nesime’s “I am Poem”

16. Rustem’s “Natural Disasters Poem”

17. Rifat’s “I am poem”

18. References
Burmark, L. (2004). Visual presentations that prompt, flash & transform. Media and Methods, 40(6), 4–5.
González, N., Moll, L., and Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers
Kearsley, G. & Schneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement theory: A framework for technology-based learning and teaching. Originally at Retrieved 2:42, 25 April 2010
Labbo, L.D., Eakle, A.J., & Montero, M.K. (2002, May). Digital Language Experience Approach: Using digital photographs and software as a Language Experience Approach innovation. Reading Online, 5(8). Available: dex.html
Sylverster, R. & Greenidge, W. (2009). Digital storytelling: extending the potential for struggling writers. The Reading Teacher, 63(4),