Blogger #5, Jude Boyle, Period 5, 11/10/20, Cycle B

 Today’s Lesson

Aim​: How has poetic expression evolved in the 21st century?

Do Now: TEAM DISCUSSION 

With your ​TEAMS​ discuss the following; Do you believe technology and the 21st century are ruining literature as we know it? Why or why not? 

  Students were put in breakout rooms and asked to discuss their answers on this question. My team came to the conclusion that literature is not being ruined, rather it’s evolving. Another team mentioned that literature is being benefited by technology because of the fact that nowadays people can access literature wherever and whenever they can simply with their devices. An interesting opinion a student had was about auto-correct and how it gives people a free path to spelling words correctly, which leads to no longer needing to learn certain spelling. My personal opinion on this is that you can look at it from two sides, one of them is that it does not influence learning, and the other is that you can use it to teach yourself certain words. 

  Next during our meeting, Ms. Peterson presented a YouTube video from Jimmy Fallon’s YouTube Channel titled “Rupi Kaur Reads Timeless from Her Poetry Collection The Sun and Her Flowers”, where Rupi Kaur details how she went from self-published student poet to the top of New York Times best-seller with fans like Sam Smith tattooing her artwork, plus she shares a poem from her second collection, The Sun and Her Flowers. https://youtu.be/EHkFFA5iGlc 

   Students then read four micropoems made by Rupi Kaur. 

  Once again, Ms. Peterson presented a YouTube video titled “Rupi Kaur| reading from Milk and     Honey”. Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience

of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. https://youtu.be/7y4sIbnRM58 

  The students and Ms. Peterson also discussed where we can find poetry. For example, apps like Instagram and Twitter are great sources to find poetry. Surprisingly enough, you can also find poetry from song lyrics, from artists like Drake, Arianna Grande, and Lewis Capaldi. 

  After that, the next part of the lesson was about two different genres of poetry: Epic Poetry and Micropoetry. 

Epic Poetry: A genre of classical poetry; a long narrative poem that is usually about heroic deeds and events that are significant to the culture of the poet.

Micropoetry: Micropoetry is a genre of poetic verse which is characterized by its extreme brevity. In other words, a micropoem is a short poem.

                      

#micropoemchallenge     

Students are to make a poem in either Instagram or Twitter format. Both have restrictions that you must follow.       

Can Instagram Make Poems Sell Again? by John Maher

    The functionality of Instagram in the way that it operates and is used, specifically with its hashtag tool, is a major factor in the rise of Instagram poetry and the community around it. Founded in 2010 as a photo-sharing platform, Instagram is one of the biggest social networking sites in the world, with over a billion monthly active users. While users primarily see posts from other users that they follow, they can also discover new posts by searching through hashtags. These hashtags tend to be key words that relate to an area of interest, such as #fitness or #makeup, and function as a form of metadata that ‘characterize topics and discussions’.By searching for a specific hashtag, Instagram users can find content posted by other people relating to certain subjects, and therefore find other users whose interests align with theirs. This is one of the primary motivations for people who use the platform, who wish specifically to ‘seek out social relationships with other users who share similar interests’. Instagram poetry has flourished inside these hashtag communities; at the time of writing, ‘#poem’ on Instagram has over 12 million posts, and ‘#instapoet’ over 2 million. These hashtags allow insta-poets to find and connect with their audience quickly and with ease, increasing their reach dramatically.

TEAM WORK: 

Students are asked to complete the following questions together using “textual evidence” for each response.

1. According to the article, what is at least one criticism of Rupi Kaur’s contribution to the world of poetry? 

2. 2. Cite evidence in order to show how John Maher argues for the literary value​ of what he calls the “Rupi Effect”.

3. Based on your own personal opinion and the contents of the article, explain the rise of popularity of poetry on social media platforms (Twitter, tumblr, Instagram) these past few years.