KOTESOL International Conference 2016
(Concurrent Session)
Rebekah Gordon, US Department of State English Language Fellow Program
Less Is More: Using Erasure Poetry in the ESL/EFL Classroom
Abstract
In the past few years, the concept of "blackout poetry" has been popularized by Austin Kleon. In short, "blackout poetry," or erasure poetry, is a form of found poetry in which poems are created from already-written text, such as newspapers, dictionaries, novels, or advertisements by crossing out, or "blacking out," the unnecessary words and letters. The process of creating erasure poetry forces students to work backward which exposes them to grammatically correct input which they must digest in a creative manner to create their own poem. Workshop participants will learn about the pedagogical roots of found poetry, see several examples of erasure poetry, and get a chance to try it out themselves. Finally, ways of integrating erasure poetry in the ESL/EFL classroom will be discussed.
Biographicals
Rebekah Gordon is currently a renewing English Language Fellow at Southwest University in Chongqing, China. She received her bachelor's degree in special education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master's degree in TESL from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She was previously a Fellow in Ethiopia and has also taught English in the USA, Japan, France, and South Korea. Rebekah enjoys teaching writing and has a particular interest in using technology and active learning techniques.
Return to the list of Concurrent Sessions at the KOTESOL 2016 International Conference
