Today, something very interesting happened: I asked my B Block English 12 class to write love poems in 140 characters and by the time I repeated the class in D Block - an hour and half later - #ibblk was trending third!
Now, I have to admit that I don't often pay attention to what is trending, preferring to read the tweets and retweets of people I follow, who in turn, I hope will have the latest and greatest news and opinions. It was actually one of the students in my D Block class who noticed it and by then, there were comments from other twitter users who weren't connected to my classes in anyway whatsoever:
"What the heck is #ibblk?"
"Can someone tell me what #ibblk is?
It began as a Valentine's Day activity - there were balloons around the room and unopened treats on desks... I knew there was no way we were going to have any serious conversations around what we were currently reading, so I thought we'd have a break and write - what else - poetry! (I had planned on reading and discussing poetry in the next month anyway.) I gave students the time to compose (what they deemed) poetic tweets and asked them to hashtag: #ibblk.
I am a bit embarrassed by the quality of the tweets; the poems are not really that great. I can say that because my B Block students admitted to just having a bit of fun. They also didn't like the 140 character limit and felt bound by rhyme. My D Block students were a bit more creative with sound and image (especially since I tweeted about it earlier)... in hopes of trending too, I think!
This isn't the first time I've done tweet poems, but the fact that #ibblk actually trended today was surprising. My students got a kick out of it and realized that they do have voices and that other people can and do read what they write - even if it's just out of curiosity or trend. It became a lesson, too, in understanding audience and the great responsibility of leaving something meaningful even when "just tweeting".
