Ms. McKamey is a teacher consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project.

Eleventh-graders in Ms. McKamey's English class devoted nine weeks to a poet-in-the-classroom unit, "Youth Speaks." As the culmination of the unit, students worked in two-person teams to create short movies ("digital stories").

In preparation for the project, students first recited poems they had written to an audience of their peers. Then, they teamed up in pairs to revise their work with an emphasis on the poetry techniques of refrain, alliteration, and antithesis. Some students collaborated to create "blended" poems while others worked individually on their own projects. Finally, workshop participants created their movies by recording finished poems as voiceover, integrating digital images to represent the poem's figurative language, and adding music, titles, transitions, and other effects.

To view the digital films and hear the students recite their poems, click on an image below.