Poetic Response Discussion Boards

For my 21st century lesson, I used my team's existing wiki page (link goes to the page for the first poetry unit) to engage my students in discussion about a poem we read together in class. After reading the poem, I asked each student to post a response in the discussion area to the following question: "Why does Catullus call himself "the worst poet" and Cicero "the best lawyer"?" We discussed what should be included in a response, including connections to the historical and cultural context, connections between the two authors, and their personal reaction to the poem. Students had five days to post their response in their class period's discussion, after which I locked the discussion. In the next step, the students are reading the responses from each class and choose one they agreed with, one they disagreed with, and be prepared to explain why in a whole class discussion (which will be today and Monday). This activity corresponds to the following National Standards for Classical Language Learning: Standard 1.1 Students read, understand, and interpret Latin or Greek, and Standard 2.2 Students demonstrate an understanding of the perspectives of Greek or Roman culture as revealed in the products of the Greeks or Romans.

Some really cool things started to happen as my students completed the initial response. I had to administer a MAP test in the computer lab during the class period after we read the poem. With the time left at the end of the period, I encouraged students to go to the wiki and complete their responses. Students started discussing their responses with each other before posting, and I saw some working together on the writing skills, giving feedback like, "You kind of repeat yourself there," and "I think what you mean is ..." Also, students who posted later started making comments in their response such as, "Like XX said ...", which indicated to me that they were reading other students' comments and incorporating them into their thinking. I believe that this will enable my students to engage in a richer and more meaningful class discussion about the poem, because they have already done some pre-thinking about it and will have read other people's thoughts before discussing it face to face. In previous class discussions, I have found that some students are reluctant to volunteer their opinion in case they sound stupid. Since everyone's thoughts are already out there for everyone to see, we will be able to use the technology to support and encourage a richer class discussion.