Enhancing a Classic Project with the Help of Technology

Digital Profiles in Poetry: An Updated Silhouette Project
By Joanne Fortunato

I can remember doing this silhouette project when I was in the 4th grade. In those days the teachers were still using the overhead projector as a means to capture your profile silhouette. Today the project can be done with a digital camera and a software program that has drawing tools. Each student needs a buddy to take the profile picture of themselves. While the one digital camera was being passed around the other students were to work on the poetry aspect of the project. Joanne Fortunato assigned for the students to write a self expressive poem. The students were to create an acrostic poem using the letters of their name. Fortunato made it very clear that mundane words such as "nice" or "awesome" were not acceptable. Having students look up adjectives that described themselves helped them to increase their vocabulary. It also made the students use books such as the dictionary and thesaurus to find synonyms of words. Once the silhouettes were on the computer the students could them add pictures or patterns within the silhouette to make it more creative and representative of themselves.

Now that digital cameras are becoming easier to use and less expensive I would definitely use them as a way to capture students' silhouettes. This project is such a classic and very memorable to students. By incorporating an acrostic poem using the student's names and positive adjectives that describe them it helps the students to view themselves in a positive light. Software programs that allow students to edit their picture and add drawing to their profile makes this project more relevant to the times.