Poetry and Claymation: How Odd Pairings Aide Learning

Campers read their poetry and show their claymation to parents and friends

 For the fourth year in a row, I have spent part of my summer teaching high school students up at Camp Newman in Northern California.  In the past, I have concentrated on teaching video storytelling in the Arts-based camp session and also in the Social Action-based camp session, alternating between the two.  This summer I decided that I wanted to bring something different to the campers, something that would marry head, heart and hands together to engage the whole camper.  So I decided to enlist my friend Hillary Homzie to help me create a new class called "Poetry and Claymation"  You can read all about what we did in the article "Fearless Campers Use Clay and Poetry to Express Emotions."

Both of us decided that it would be best to split the 90 minute sessions by using  the first half of each class to write poetry and the second half, working with clay and cameras.  Having this nice balance between head and hand-based work really worked for the campers.  

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Mental Note to Self: When working with students, use two seemingly different activities happening at the same time to balance out left and right brain engagement.

 Campers were surprised at how two very different activities could complement each other so well.  They felt that when they could move freely between the two activities, depending upon their mood, or their process, it really helped to keep them engaged. Once we got them going with a few days of splitting the class in half, time-wise, we let them decide how they wanted to spend their time thereafter.  Some campers chose to spend 90 minutes one day focusing totally on claymation and then the next day, totally on poetry.  Other campers chose several days of just claymation and then poured out their poetry on the last day of class.  They seemed unsure at first about writing poetry, but seemed to grasp the concepts on their own time, and then, really surprised us at the end!

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Natural Differentiation: Having two simultaneous and intertwined activities gave each learner the chance to engage in each activity when they were ready and at their own speed.  

 Even when we, as teachers, worried about a camper missing out on one activity, they all came through in the end because it was creative, it allowed them to find their own voice, and ultimately, they saw value in balanced end product.  It took trust on our part, as teachers to allow that unfold.  I will be taking this dual-activity concept into the school year next year, for sure.  I may even have to do this project with my Video Storytelling class.  It would be a great way to start the year off!