I’ve had an idea for a project rattling around my end-of-summer brain that is half-baked. For now, I’m going to call it Project 41. The plan would be to have four different groups of students in four different places and/or at four different levels (elementary, middle school, high school, college) reading and responding to one poem (that’s where the 4 and 1 come from). I’ve noticed that interpretation of poems is often based on life experience, and so it would be great to have people in different geographic locations and stages in life interpreting the same thing and having some dialogue about it.
Ideally, each of the four groups would read the poem and discuss amongst themselves. Together they could come up with a general interpretation of the poem. The next step would be a forum for the different groups to share their thoughts with the other groups of students.
The lingering questions that need to be answered:
-Is there an actual benefit to this or does it just seem cool to me?
-What would be the best way for the students to share their thoughts on the poem with the students in the other three groups?
-Which poems would work well for this kind of assignment?
-What guidelines or guided questions should the groups be given?
-What questions or logistical issues have I not thought about yet that would affect this assignment/learning experience?
If you have any answers or further questions, please comment.