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How much analysis can you fit into a hashtag?

#Microanalysis

After watching Justin Timberlake's #hashtag video, I was inspired to apply hashtags to Frankenstein.  Natural progression, right?

The assignment was to write down three lines or passage from Frankenstein, each in big letters on its own slice of paper.  That was it.  some students wrote all three quotes on one paper.  We made it work.

Next, I gave each student six or seven post its and had them imagine the quotes were tweets or status updates and then create hashtags for the quotes.  If they liked a hashtag, they could favorite it by drawing a star or a heart on it.

My students didn't all follow directions exactly, but the activity was engaging and we had an excellent discussion.  It was a good strategy to use to discuss many short passages quickly because instead of talking about each quote as a whole class, we focused on which kinds of hashtags were trending.  For instance, we noticed lots of the hashtags referenced Raskolnikov, God complexes, and nature.  It was a quick gateway to get into some thematic discussion.   As an added bonus, we already had text support for our ideas about theme.  It was like going backwards-- usually we discuss themes first, then find support.  Here, we just took passages we liked and allowed the themes to emerge on their own.

Some of the hashtags referenced pop culture.

This lovely student didn't exactly follow instructions, but the ideas were great.

I think #InferNO was my favorite.  Half of the class read Dante's inferno as an independent assignment earlier this year. Clever and relevant! 

 I will definitely use this activity again.  It worked well with 10 students, and I don't know how it would go with a class much larger than 20, depending on the maturity level and focus of the students.  Perhaps next year with freshmen, I might split them into two large groups.




Poetry Unit

This is the bulletin board I put up (with the help of some students) to celebrate the poetry students wrote on day 3 of the project.  Stay tuned for a more detailed rundown of the unit.

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