Thank you for the honest discussions, polling questions, and feedback on the Beatnik Cafe on the Live Blog yesterday.
The Beatnik Cafe improves each year due in large part to feedback from students from the year prior. Here is some history of the Beatnik Cafe:
-Integrating songs from CD's during actual performances didn't occur up until a few years ago. By the way, this was the first year that multiple, complete songs/rap performances were presented (great job Elmariachi, Super40 and Georgia)!
-Integrating slides from PowerPoint really started happening when the SMART Board first arrived (because of the availability of the LCD projector and the fact that the board can be moved/fits the projected image, versus an overhead screen that is not wide enough). Skatestar101, Hockeyqueen, Football star and Cheese4 did a wonderful job of selecting images that added additional meaning to each of their poems this year.
-Three years ago I had a student record a video of their performance on a mini-disk (a small CD) because they were not going to be present at the Cafe. This is the only time that anyone has presented a poem that speaks to their heart virtually. This is also the family that coordinated the donation of most of the laptops that we use in school.
-Five years ago was the only time that I had four musicians write lyrics, music and perform on instruments live at the Cafe. With Riliegh on flute, Mark on drums, and Hannah and Dawnielle on the mic, that quartet sizzled. I was invited to a Middle School talent show last year that had performances from three of those four students. It was awesome!
I really enjoy giving fifth graders the spotlight to have their voices heard, and the Beatnik Cafe continues to be a highlight of our classroom conversations/creativity each year.
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