Poetry in Motion: A Multimodal Teaching Tool1
Bill Templer, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur
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Introduction
Multimodality in lyric miniature
Student resistance
Exploring visualized poetry
Visualized poetry pedagogy: creating activities
Widening the aperture: video songs and ballads, jazz chants
Conclusion
Introduction
Getting learners to enjoy reading and discussing poetry in the EFL language classroom
is a challenge for all teachers. Multimodal visual poetry on Internet video – poetry in
motion -- is a rapidly expanding genre. It is a superb tool for energizing the reading and
appreciation of poems in the language classroom. This paper provides teachers with an
introduction to a range of visualized poems, some theoretical framing in terms of
multimodality and its pedagogy, and suggestions for hands-on learning tasks and
possible classroom-based research. Many of us are far better at retaining words plus
images in long-term memory. For starters, enjoy and ponder Billy Collins‘ classic
animated poem, ―Walking Across the Atlantic‖ (https://goo.gl/mvOTOS ).
The emergence and growth of poetry in motion – combining audio, music, motion
graphics, video, photography, paintings -- is the prime focus of Poetry Visualized:
http://www.poetryvisualized.com , a new multimodal arts initiative that was
unfortunately discontinued after this article was originally published. Here a no. of their
videos still accessible: https://goo.gl/2WDr9u , likewise here: https://goo.gl/olMSwT ,
although many videos formally online have been unfortunately deleted. Elizabeth
Barrett Browning‘s Sonnet 43 ―How Do I Love Thee?‖ (1845) is a playful example of
an animated Peanuts visual rendering of this classic love poem: https://goo.gl/UfD6s6 .
This visual poem exemplifies another prime kind of ‗play genre‘ for literature in the
language arts classroom in Cook‘s (2000) sense of experimental play-centered
pedagogies, and is in full tune, I would argue, with Alan Maley‘s (2008).conception of
the ‗aesthetic approach‘ in EFL materials that needs to be inventively expanded in our
1
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 4th International English Language Teaching
Conference, Penang English Language Learning & Teaching Association (PELLTA),
Georgetown/Penang, Malaysia, April 22-24, 2009. This present paper was published in Humanising
Language Teaching, 11/5, October 2009. See: http://www.hltmag.co.uk/oct09/sart06.htm
classrooms, and in teacher education and development. Contrast the Browning sonnet
with the Ghana-born Jamaican poet Kwame Dawes‘ fantasy ―Tornado Child,‖ which
students find powerful and haunting, here the text: https://goo.gl/LeYcFo and the poet
reading it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-guTTBeivg . An animated version
formerly online (2009) is alas no longer available.
On
youtube,
Poetry
Everywhere
of
the
Poetry
Foundation
and
Poetry
Visualized
(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/video)
(https://goo.gl/3ZxsVu) ever more video‘d interpretations of poems are being uploaded
regularly on youtube. Teachers will be surprised by how inventive and beautiful some
of these creations are, a number designed by students. Browsing there, anyone can
discover ever more of their favorite poems, from Shakespeare‘s sonnets to classic U.S.
poets of the 19th century, such as E.A. Poe, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, figures
like Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath and on to contemporaries such as Billy Collins,
Naomi Shibab Nye, Lucille Clifton, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, the current
poet laureates of the English-speaking world, Kay Ryan (U.S), and Carol Ann Duffy
(Great Britain), and others.
Multimodality in lyric miniature
Many such videos are highly imaginative, combining image, music, the text of the
poem, its reading as performance, and aspects of a text‘s ‗visual‘ interpretation. This
also contributes to enhancing skills in ‗visual literacy,‘ a core element in the impact of
comics and graphic novels (Schwarz, 2002, 2008; Derrick, 2008) on learners, and the
entire gamut of video games (Gee, 2003), often in their first language. Multimodality as
an interdisciplinary research focus centers on exploring the ―multiple modes (e.g.
spoken, written, printed and digital media, embodied action, and three-dimensional
material objects and sites) through which social semiosis takes place‖ (O‘Halloran,
2006, p. 7; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). Visual literacy ranges from better
comprehending gesture, facial expression, photographs to aspects of performance, use
of space, clothing, visual angles and much more. Music may also play a prime role in a
multimodal mix. Visualized poems incorporate many of these dimensions, and the
present article argues that they can ignite imagination in special ways, tapping students‘
multiple intelligences (Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005; Gardner, 1999), and energizing and
sharpening their ―emotional literacy‖ (Goleman, 1995; Upadhyaya, 2008), empathy and
emotional competencies. Experience indicates they can motivate reluctant learners,
learning to better read reality through the prism of fantasy (Wagner, 1999).
Responding creatively to student resistance
Poetry tends to be the Cinderella in most EFL classrooms. Based on an empirical study
of attitudes towards studying literary texts in English at school and variables in students‘
backgrounds among 110 Form Five students at two northern provincial Malaysian high
schools, Siti Norliana (2008) found that ―students express negative attitudes towards
reading poems and novels. Almost 70% of the students find poems demanding,
followed by novels, with a total of 62%. Poems are considered challenging as ‗every
word has its underlying meaning‘, the language is deemed difficult, especially in archaic
poems like Sonnet 18. The themes for both genres are seen as ‗dull.‘‖ Her study also
suggested that ―learners of a higher socio-economic status will also have positive
attitudes towards studying literature compared to other students‖ (p. 5), and this
dimension of ‗class in the classroom,‘ (Finn, 2009), especially in the case of rural
students with little access to reading materials in the home, also impacts on their interest
in genres like poetry. She notes: ―A total of 85.5% respondents would like to have
audio-visual support in learning literature. […] Students suggest using drama, watching
videos […] using computers and the Internet to make lessons more interesting‖ (pp. 910).
This paper sketches some concrete ways to begin to incorporate poems in motion in the
EFL classroom, from the pre-intermediate level, and even earlier, via ‗jazz chants‘ with
learners of any age.
Exploring visualized poetry
For starters, several short visual poems I have used with very positive response are
Robert Frost, ―Dust of Snow‖ and Billy Collins: ―Walking Across the Atlantic,‖ ―The
Country,‖ and ―The Dead.‖ Frost‘s simple winter poem about a man and crow in the
woods is transformed here into a statement on a young schoolboy, winter hardship and
social class in America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lqOkgq2chY . ―The
Country‖ by Billy Collins is a modern fable about mice and fire, http://goo.gl/z67j1x
Collins develops a web of surprising metaphors, and insights burnished with humor.
―The Dead‖ is a reverie about the spirits playfully watching over us like guardian
angels, ―looking down, through the glass-bottom boats of heaven, as they row
themselves slowly through Eternity‖ http://goo.gl/ECYKjR . What is his fantasy poem
―Walking Across the Atlantic‖ (https://goo.gl/mvOTOS ) really about? Walking on
water? Wild imagination projected as an impossible 1st-person tale? Activities based on
these poems are suggested later below.
Robert Frost‘s ―The Road Not Taken‖ is one of the most popular poems in the
American canon. My Malaysian students all learned this poem in high school, but never
saw it in a visualized form: http://goo.gl/IaISVo ; here with Frost himself reading:
http://goo.gl/nFHxF0 . It is about the big decisions we all must make, going our own
way. Campbell (2007) discloses she had a copy of this above her desk while a student, a
poetic icon in her maturation: ―a reminder to me that I had not taken the safe route of
going to college in state with most of my friends‖ (p. 148). Here a musical rendition of
Frost‘s ―Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,‖ a classic poem about nature and
death: https://goo.gl/p3D1QQ . There are some other visualizations of this poem online,
including this memorable reading by Frost himself: https://goo.gl/wbDfTu .
E. A. Poe
Edgar Allan Poe‘s famous love poem ―Annabel Lee‖ has numerous visualized
renderings. Students can explore these, compare them, and choose their favorite. One
learning task is to ask inquire how they themselves would imagine making a video of
the poem. Here are three attempts to visualize ―Annabel Lee‖: http://goo.gl/knLw3x ;
http://goo.gl/0CHuyn ; and in an InuYasha manga version: http://goo.gl/rUc1pd .
Poe‘s dark poem ―The Raven‖ has many video renditions online, some with music,
some animated, inviting student comparisons. Here a reading: https://goo.gl/DLMKju
by Christopher Lee. My Malaysian students all agreed that this is a major new tool for
energizing poetry in the primary and secondary schools. Campbell (2007, p. 155)
recommends ―poetry set to music‖ as a multimodal teaching angle, mentioning ―The
Raven‖ as sung by The Alan Parsons Project, a British rock band (1975-1990), from
their 1976 album on Poe‘s tales and poems https://goo.gl/7yvbw4 Here is a strong
visualization of the poem, https://goo.gl/cMH4Ud and here another:
http://goo.gl/ErkYo8 .
Kay Ryan, poet laureate 2008The current poet laureate of the United States, Kay Ryan, is a lyric voice full of humor,
wisdom and humanity, and her short poems are quite comprehensible to midintermediate learners. Here she reads, and responds a bit in interview:
http://goo.gl/iQXN9o . My students especially appreciated her poem ―Home to Roost,‖
which is about the mistakes we make and how we reap what we sow, read here:
https://goo.gl/dZY4sq . But it is so broad in implication that it can seem germane to
some very personal things in your own life, and to current events like the crisis in global
capitalism. Kay herself comments about 9/11 in this connection. The text here:
http://goo.gl/FFrz2C .
Carol Ann Duffy, poet laureate of Great Britain, 2009Carl Ann Duffy has many poems appealing to young adults and children. In one unit, I
asked students at University of Malaya to read her extraordinary love poem ―Anne
Hathaway,‖ which projects the persona of Shakespeare‘s wife, talking about her
husband and their love, here the poem in motion: http://goo.gl/hwECAS and here
another visualization: https://goo.gl/xeJlqN . In a written activity, my students compared
and contrasted the sentiments and powerful imagery in Duffy‘s poem with two poems
by angry wives in Maley & Duff (2007), pp. 39-40. One of the poems there is the
classic ―To the Ladies‖ by Lady Mary Chudleigh (1656-1710), a noblewoman and
feminist poet of the late 17th century: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-ladies/.
Another is the anonymous poem ―Unhappy Housewife.‖ All deal with the theme of
marriage, and the two in Maley & Duff with patriarchy, and the domination of women
by men, especially as wives.
Poets for Palestine
A special poet is the Palestinian-American Naomi Shihab Nye, who also writes about
Palestine, as in the poem ―For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, Age 15.‖ Mohammed was
killed by what the Israeli army called a ―stray bullet.‖ Naomi reads the poem in a video:
http://goo.gl/8bPh6P (here the text: https://goo.gl/2Wz4Z0 ). Political but very human
and compassionate, hers is a voice in solidarity with the innocent victims of violence
everywhere. The poem is a stepping stone to discussing an important global issue: peace
and justice in West Asia. Remi Kanazi, a young Palestinian-American poet from New
York, performs his poems in ‗poetry slam‘ style and with real force and conviction. His
―Collateral Damage‖ treats a topic like Naomi Shihab Nye‘s poem on Gaza, but with
broader implications for wars everywhere in our time: https://goo.gl/2G6VCJ . Remi has
a growing number of poem performances on youtube, all compelling, and is editor of an
anthology of Palestinian poetry in English (Kanazi, 2008).
Hiroshima
Peace is also the powerful focus of Nazim Hikmet‘s classic poem on the Hiroshima
child: http://goo.gl/Und2if . The text is simple, haunting, a plea for end an end to war
and violence. I have used this video with intermediate-level students, especially on
Hiroshima Day August 6.
“I, too, am America”
Given the new Obama presidency, teachers can include a classic short poem of AfricanAmerican literary tradition, Langston‘s Hughes‘ ―I, Too‖ (1926). It has now taken on a
fresh topicality.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the
kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They‘ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I‘ll be at the table
:
I, too, am America.
A number of video renditions of this poem are available, here one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CUKyVrhPgM
and
https://goo.gl/YYIXnd
.
here
another:
“And still I rise”
The poem can be combined with the graphic history by Laird et al. (1997) Still I Rise: A
Cartoon History of African Americans. It challenges many assumptions students may
have about the history of African-Americans, their social exclusion over centuries and
dreams for equality. Schwarz emphasizes that graphic texts can, in unique ways,
implement critical literacy in the classroom: ―literacy that affirms diversity, gives voice
to all, and helps students examine ideas and practices that promulgate inequity‖ (2006:
62). Commenting specifically on Still I Rise, she notes: ―An uncomfortable book for
white readers with its unrelenting statements on racism, this graphic novel is
informative and well researched and bound to encourage further research‖ (Schwarz,
2007, p. 8). Students can here construct a thematic bridge to a graphic narrative, here in
the form of a graphic-comic history (Derrick, 2008).
They can then go on to another poem, watching the video of Maya Angelou‘s ―Still I
Rise,‖ from which this graphic history takes its title. The full poem is here
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/still-i-rise/ . It ends:
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's miraculously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Here
a
visualized
interpretation
of
the
end
of
goo.gl/KALyUQ. The full poem, Maya reading: http://goo.gl/szotpb
the
poem
. It is a lyrical
springboard for discussing African-American history, especially in the light of the
present conjuncture of change. So a teaching unit can build from a visualized poem to a
graphic history, on to another visualized poem, and then a short video overview of
African-American history since 1952, which ends with the poet in a memorable
interview. It can also extend out to a classic poem about slavery by Lucille Clifton,
―Mulberry Fields‖ here just a reading https://goo.gl/ghKJgc , or to slam poetry like
Daniel Beaty‘s ―Knock, Knock,‖ a very powerful piece: https://goo.gl/66PDhx .
Clifton‘s ―won‘t you celebrate with me‖ is a powerful short lyric of courage, ―born in
Babylon / both non-white and woman‖: http://goo.gl/TO2wZK Her ―homage to my
hips‖ is in a similar more playful vein: https://vimeo.com/36987057 .
Gwendolyn Brooks
Among the poems my own students at U of Malaya love most is ―We Real Cool‖ by
African-American poet Gwendolyn Brooks, about ―cool‖ guys who drop out of school,
hang around the pool hall, ―lurk late, strike straight‖ and ―die soon‖:
http://goo.gl/6oKPGa . Here a young African-American mimes in a striking pose as
Gwendolyn reads her own poem: http://goo.gl/jefTeh It is also instructive for students
to listen to other young people telling how much they love certain poems and why, here
responding to the poem‘s brevity and message: For personalizing a student‘s relation to
text, it is of course also effective to just watch or hear poets reading their own poetry,
much available on youtube and at the Poetry Foundation video section online.
Sylvia Plath
A striking poem with visualization is Sylvia Plath reading her classic ―Daddy‖:
http://goo.gl/V4WveR , as is her reading of ―Lady Lazarus‖: http://goo.gl/PfT3tG .
Sylvia is one of the most singular voices in modern American poetry, and recorded
these poems in 1962, shortly before her suicide in 1963.
Shirley Lim
In Asia and Africa, students can also find videos of poets from their own countries who
write in English, or other languages, such as Shirley Lim, and her famous poem
―Monsoon History‖: http://goo.gl/F3iteo This video, prepared by students in a
multiliteracies training course at the English Language Teaching Centre, Malaysian
Ministry of Education, proved especially fascinating to our Malaysian students – it
embodies an indigenous voice, with imaging that is evocative. Indigenizing poetry in
the ESL classroom is another key desideratum of a curriculum that seeks to better
connect with students, their life worlds and identities.
Visualized poetry pedagogy: creating activities
Multiple visualizations: comparison and analysis
Among the many possible activities building on poetry videos, students can compare
different visualized versions of a given poem they like, and also discuss the kind of
video they would make if they could, as suggested in Campbell (2007, pp.164-165),
with ideas for setting, animation, costuming and music. Some students may wish to try
their hand at doing such a video. Campbell finished her book before the blossoming of
youtube, but her pedagogy foresees the creation of videos for poems like Dickinson‘s
―Because I could not Stop for Death.‖ She asked her students: ―So, if you were making
a video of this poem, what would Death and Immortality be wearing‖? (ibid.). Today
there are numerous versions of this poem on youtube; here one example:
http://goo.gl/yuB6tF A Dickinson poem extremely popular with young adults is ―I‘m
Nobody‖, here in a student‘s film version: https://goo.gl/hdAwRM . Your students with
film-making skills could also be doing such visualized poem versions. For Shakespeare,
students can compare Sonnet XVIII: http://goo.gl/xXbgQB with David Gilmour‘s
version
as
a
song:
http://goo.gl/N5alr5
Drawing a visual response
The National Association of Comics Art Educators has numerous exercises, articles,
handouts, study guides and syllabi at its web site (http://www.teachingcomics.org ).
Students can respond to poetry by drawing what the poems evoke in their imagination, a
special form of ―graphic reader response.‖ Drawing their own comics to tell the basic
narrative of a text or to invent a comic of their own (Carter, 2008) is a form of active
multimodal production by students that is worth far more hands-on experimentation.
Such visual responses go far beyond the visualizing activity ―Sketch to Stretch,‖ which
often entails a small drawing or sketch to reflect some mood, metaphor or emotion in a
tale (Dennis-Shaw, 2006). Comic-making ―stretches‖ visual literacy skills further. A
high school class practice-taught by one of our 4th-year teacher trainees in metro Kuala
Lumpur recently produced a number of graphic responses in comic panel form to poems
they had read, several quite imaginative.
A spectrum of learning tasks
Teachers looking for a diverse spectrum of possible activities can explore Maley &
Duff‘s (1989) rich array of suggestions, especially ―preparing for the poem‖ (pp. 17-34)
and ―working into the poem‖ (35-69). My students, as teachers soon to be, have found
their discussion of ―poetry‘s unique advantages‖ in TEFL classes (pp. 8-16) particularly
cogent and convincing. Maley & Duff (2007) also offers many good selections for
activities with poetry, including clear and compact lesson plans. Collie & Slater (1987)
have useful suggestions on ―warm-up‖ and ―follow-up‖ learning tasks on several poems
(pp. 226-246), including Wole Soyinka‘s ―Telephone Conversation‖ and Theodore
Roethke‘s ―My papa‘s waltz,‖ a classic though controversial poem in the modern
American canon; Roethke‘s poem has sparked a number of visual interpretations on
youtube.
Useful are also the activities centering on examining imagery, sound and figurative
language described by Campbell (pp. 155-163), and learning to ―converse with poetry‖
through dialogue journals (pp. 154-156). One ‗reader response‘ learning task she details
is called ―live the lines‖: she describes in detail how she got her students to experience
the possible meaning of Whitman‘s classic line ―I loaf and invite my soul‖ at the
beginning of ―Song of Myself.‖ Campbell‘s students engaged in various kinds of quiet
observation and then wrote in class about how they had discovered ways in effect to
―step back, slow down, and really listen to one‘s inner voice‖ (p. 167).
Pupils at a secondary school in metro Kuala Lumpur read the poem ―Prayer of the Tree‖
by Samuel Alodina (Ghana) in connection with learning about the ‗Chipko movement‘
to save trees in India. The poem is here: http://goo.gl/TqUTs6 . They then made a
collaborative class poster, signed by each student expressing thanks for something trees
give them in their everyday life. Students were encouraged to watch the video on
Chipko: http://goo.gl/EHCCBl . They also could think about doing their own video of
such a poem, some in a class will have these skills.
Honing multiple intelligences
In a meditative imaging activity, after viewing the poetry animation of Collins‘
―Walking Across the Atlantic,‖ students can imagine they themselves, eyes closed, are
walking across a vast sea. Students are then asked to describe in a paragraph, or a small
group exchange, what they saw in their mind‘s eye, the sounds they heard in their
inward ear, the tactile sensations they felt in this meditation on crossing the Atlantic ―on
foot‖ [!]. They are instructed to allow their imagination to ―create the situation […] as
vividly as possible. Focus on what you can see, hear and feel‖ (Puchta & Rinvolucri,
2005, p 119). Alternatively, they can imagine they are the mouse who discovers fire in
the animated poem ―The Country,‖ and can write or speak a kind of interior monologue
by the mouse: what she may feel and ―think.‖
Collins‘ animated poem ―The Dead‖ can be compared with Dickinson‘s visualized
poem ―Because I Could Not Stop for Death,‖ since both thematize the ultimate question.
Students can be encouraged to write a paragraph, perhaps even discuss in small groups
how they feel about death, how they have experienced the death of friends, loved ones,
animals. They can attempt to articulate some thoughts about life‘s meaning, spiritual or
otherwise. Both poems engage what Gardner calls ―existential intelligence‖(Gardner,
1999, pp. 59 ff.). The visual poem ―The Dead‖ also evokes images of protective spirits
of the dead hovering nearby, a belief common in many traditional Southeast Asian
cultures.
After watching visuals of Frost‘s ―The Road Not Taken,‖ students can be asked to
imagine a journey they go on, with an imagined landscape passing by around them.
Later they come to a fork in the road, and look down what becomes ―a road not taken‖:
―You think about this turning but decide against taking it (Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005, p.
133). After finishing their journey through an imagined landscape, students are asked to
draw a picture and write a page about that road not taken, and the landscapes they saw,
heard and felt.
In both these activities, they are also activating what Gardner has termed ―naturalist
intelligence‖ (ibid., p. 11; Gardner, 1999, p. 48), which develops a powerful sensibility
for the natural world.
Another imaging activity asks students to listen eyes closed to a video poem, such as
Poe‘s ―Annabel Lee,‖ with spoken text and music, and then write a paragraph about the
pictures they saw ―as they listened, the smells they experienced, the feelings they had,
the daydream they went into‖ (Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005, p. 30), or their thoughts and
wonderings. Then students in small groups can share what they have written. They can
also act out a mini-drama based on the poem. All this engages them more deeply with
the text, and with modes for its visualization and enactment, honing ―emotional
intelligence‖ and empathy (Goleman, 1995). One fascinating prism is applying insights
from the unique drama pedagogy of Dorothy Heathcote (Baj, 2004), guiding learners to
―understand human experience from the inside out,‖ evoking ―the drama of our
humanness‖ (Wagner, 1999, p. 25), but that extends beyond this paper‘s scope.
Widening the aperture: video songs and ballads, jazz chants
The version by Dan Samples of Frost‘s poem ―Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening‖ (see above) is a superb example of poetry into song. A natural further step is
to explore songs and their texts directly, in animation, such as the Beatles‘ ―Eleanor
Rigby.‖ https://goo.gl/r5CCP0 also included in the film Yellow Submarine, as on this clip
(https://goo.gl/bStQta ). Ballads, a rich Internet genre, are another poetic focus. Many
traditional American ballads and folksongs are contained in the Max Hunter Folksong
Collection: http://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/ , such as Child Ballad #84: ―Barbra
Allen‖ http://goo.gl/K7F1uw; compare with a
video version by Bob Dylan:
https://goo.gl/Iacw89 .Labor songs are another rich lode, many now with video, as here
in songs of struggle sung by labor activist Anne Feeney: https://goo.gl/IeSczJ . Can
jazz chants (Graham, 2006) form a kind of bridge in EFL for students to working with
poetry in new ways? Students can experiment, inspired by chants by Carolyn Graham
http://goo.gl/D8TY7J . Such chants engage the body as well as the mind and voice, and
could be done to simple poetry, such as haiku. Action research is needed.
Conclusion
Students and teachers can experiment with visualized poetry in motion in the classroom.
In various modes of classroom-anchored qualitative and quantitative research (Burns,
1999), educators can examine how poetry visualization can become a powerful tool for
student motivation, enhancing proficiency in language, and sheer fun in opening
students up to lyric poetry and ballad more broadly. Case study is another window of
qualitative inquiry, looking at the ―particularity and complexity of a single case, coming
to understand its activity within important circumstances‖ (Stake, 1995, p. xi; .).
Carter‘s (2007, p. 24) call regarding graphic novels also holds for visual poetry: ―More
success stories are needed, particularly via practitioner-based essays detailing use of
graphic novels in actual classrooms.‖ One excellent under-utilized approach is to use
focus groups to elicit student response; they can interact in small groups as they discuss
their experiences working with poetry in motion with the researcher/moderator (Flick,
2006, pp. 189-203).
Teachers can also look at particular aspects of multimodality (Bateman, 2008;
O‘Halloran, 2006; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006), and how word and sound cum image
in dynamic fusion act to shape and enrich multiple literacies (Schwarz, 2007; 2008) and
engage multiple intelligences (Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005; Gardner, 1999; Wagner,
1999), schooling emotional intelligence and emotional literacy (Goleman, 1995;
Upadhyaya, 2008) in the EFL classroom. The website of Poetry Visualized as it has
been preserved online in a partial form down to 2016 can serve as one prime compass
for future explorations in these still largely uncharted waters of poetry pedagogy, and
that of the Poetry Foundation and its video series Poetry Everywhere in the United
States another. A natural link can be forged from lyric poetry to the multimodal genres
of popular song, folksong and balladry. Some of our students are remarkably
knowledgeable about such music, and all love it.
Can students be more readily ‗turned on‘ to poetry through work with visualizations? I
am certain they can. Let‘s experiment!
References**
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Carter, J.B. (2008).The comic book show and tell: A lesson in comic book scripting.
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