The Irish Dancer

We recognized St. Patricks Day one day early when I showed the class a short animoto I made of an old 14th century poem called "Ich am of Irlonde". I call the translated poem "The Irish Dancer.' One old version of the poem goes like this:

Ich am of Irlonde



Ich am of Irlonde,
And of the holy londe
Of Irlonde.


Goode sire, praye ich thee,
For of sainte charitee,

Com and dance with me
In Irlonde.

The class figured out what most of the Old English words meant before I showed them a translation. Next, I used the poem as a model and inspiration to make up a few "invitational" poems of my own. The class then was challenged to write their own poem They could use the examples given and write a poem about a place they knew well or would like to visit, invite someone special to that place, and ask them to do something fun there together. The poems came quickly as I find this type of modeling is an easy way to write thier own poetry.

Later I showed the class how to work with the animoto website. I purposely made my animoto above a 30 second animoto as parents can sign their kids up at home for animoto and they can make short 30 second animotos together for free. That is plenty of time to get a quick video made for sharing, including videos with poems.

Later we went to the computer lab to start our animoto poems. Only one student has finished so far, but we should get the rest done this week. Cameron came up with a  poem about Australia that may have you thinking twice about eating at The Outback. Other student videos will be put up here when they are finished.



This web page has a video that shows how to use animoto. It does not show how to add text, but my class knows how to do that already. Animoto is a great website. Have fun with it!