#poetrywars game scoring system and analysis
Power Poetry's founder, Roland Legiardi-Laura, often says that "words are weapons." Words can empower people, even those most disenfranchised, to transform their lives and impact their communities. This is especially true of poetry, a type of writing that reflects the world around us and probes that which cannot be seen. It is an art form that is both transformational and engaged.
“If you don’t learn to write your own life story, someone else will write it for you,” is Power Poetry’s mottol. It is the world’s first and largest mobile/online poetry community for youth. When Power Poetry launched in April 2012, we had no idea that by today over 135,000 young people would be submitting their writing to our digital community every day, every hour. And from working with these young people, we have learned that poetry, and digital writing more generally, deserve a rightful place in our educational system.
BUILDING LITERACY THROUGH POETRY
#poetrywars, and its associated content, grew out of a partnership between the SumAll Foundation and Power Poetry. The SumAll Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to doing social good by analyzing data. Together, the organizations have embarked on a journey to analyze digital poetry writing and its relationship to the literacy crisis.
The goal of the partnership between Power Poetry and SumAll is to leverage technology and the tools of big data to bring poetry back into the center of the education conversation. We also aim to use data analytics to help youth improve their language skills anywhere they write--and in particular with social media. We believe that we need to bring a new kind of language education to places outside the classroom, where youth are using language most: online.
We believe that:
Poetry can diminish the literacy gap. Just as there is an achievement gap, there is a literacy gap. Our research has shown that poetry can help to close it.
Digital writing matters. Youth now do 40% of all writing outside of class--on blogs, texts, apps and social media. This writing matters--and it can be leveraged for educational innovation.
Education technologies must be optimized for mobile engagement. To ensure that edtech does not widen the achievement gap, we must ensure that educational products are optimized for the spaces where low-income youth are most likely to connect: smartphones.
RELATED CONTENT
Project Summary: How Poetry and Technology Can Save Literacy
Game: #poetrywars
Infographic: OMG! We SRSLY Have a Literacy Crisis.
SumAll Foundation Project Page: Poetry, Technology and the Literacy Gap
White Paper: The Power of Poetry, Social Media and Data in Narrowing the Literacy Gap (coming soon!)
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