Indigenized Slam Poetry

Kelly and I had the opportunity to go see Shane Koyczan live this past Tuesday.  Shane is a powerful spoken word poet who is part of the inspiration for our synergy project.  Going to see his performance brought forward a few questions about the logistics of our own poetry slam we plan to hold as the community share out of our project.  With 60 students participating in our project, one of the main things we need to accommodate is the sheer amount of time it would take for students to present their poetry in front of an audience. One thought is to not have all students present, however, we feel presenting to an authentic audience is a key factor in our project that we are not wanting to give up.  Another proposed solution would be to have the students write their poetry in pairs.  With such a big project (the poem and the video) perhaps students could present together or one student could present while the other works on the video so both students would have ownership. Another though

At this point in our project, students are moving along with their worldview mind maps. Students have brainstormed the things that influence their lives the most. They are choosing five of those influences to put in their mind maps. Each of the influences have to have a visual that goes along with them. As mentioned in our last meeting, one of those images needs to have Coast Salish influences. We hit a bit of a snag with the technology.  Students are using the ipads to create their Coast Salish visuals.  We also wanted them to complete their mind maps online.  We found a website that we wanted to use, however, the website does not have the ability to save and then re visit the mind map.  We had to come up with a creative solution.  The students were to draw up a rough copy or a plan before they are allowed to go onto the computer.  This way, we could ensure that students would not lose work. We took it one step further and asked students to type up their paragraphs of their inf