I'm Dr. Janette Hughes (call me Janette) and, along with Dr. Sue Dymoke, I'll be moderating our Wiki-ed Poetry project and participating with you in poetry related activities and discussions. I'm excited about this project because it brings together a number of elements that interest me, including: preservice teacher candidates' ideas about and experiences with poetry as students and how they feel about teaching poetry; the possibilities for reading, writing and discussing poetry in a digital learning environment; the pedagogical use of a wiki as a collaborative writing space; the gathering together of teacher candidates from two different countries to read, write and discuss poetry. I'm also hoping that we can invite published poets, including Dr. Dymoke, to share their ideas and work with us and perhaps even to work through a poem in progress with us.

I'm Dr Sue Dymoke (call me Sue). Like Janette I am a teacher educator and a researcher who works with trainee English teachers. I am also a poet and, later in October, I will be sharing some of my current work in progress with you and asking for your feedback. I am excited about the potential that this wiki offers us all for sharing and developing our understanding of many aspects of poetry including: its distinctive qualities; our reactions to written drafts and our views on the challenges of teaching poetry. We both very much hope that you will want to explore ways of using this digital environment to open up new spaces and opportunities for poetry. In setting up this wiki we want to help you to switch students on to poetry and enable them to enjoy it long after they have left the classroom.

Janette has created a number of groups below using colours for group names.  These groups serve two purposes: 1) only one person can edit a wiki page at a given time so this gives us some flexibility, and 2) they are approximately 60 people discussing poetry in this project and a smaller group will be more manageable for you. Sue and Janette will assign you to a group, and this will be your "home" or "base" group where you will discuss the topic of the week or share a draft poem.  Please feel free to read what other groups are talking about too and to contribute posts to their wiki pages as well. Let's start by having you introduce yourself to the group.

2008/2009 Groups

Red Introductions

Blue Introductions

Green Introductions

Purple Introductions

Orange Introductions

Pink Introductions

Yellow Introductions

Turquoise Introductions

2007/2008 Groups

Sonnet

Haiku

Ballad

Free Verse

Cinquain

Epic

Limerick

Ode