E-Venture/Lesson 2: Wordles and Tagxedos

A- Day Word Clouds: My American Literature class inspired my second EVenture, word clouds.
As we explored the foundations of American Literature we discusses the principles that shape our culture.  For one of their first homework assignments, my A-day class wrote a list of ten principles that govern how they live and behave.  I created a PowerPoint tutorial for students that were interested in creating a word cloud based on their beliefs.  I received over fifteen emails for an assignment that warranted no grade.

B-Day Word Clouds: One the first day of class, my juniors each received a print of a classic American painting.  In their free-write journal, they wrote the story of the painting. Who were the people? What did they do? What did they believe?  How was the setting significant? What happened in this moment in time? After we shared their varied responses, I offered them the choice to either write a poem about the story behind the art or create a word cloud.  Again, I was surprised by  their willingness to do something that would not "graded" for accuracy.


PowerPoint Link:
Word Clouds

Examples:
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2426393/Ten_Principles
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2420821/i_believe
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2419946/Believe