Discovering a New Ekphrasis

Whether piping music through ear buds, scrolling through social media, binge-watching TV shows or movies, playing video games, interpreting or creating memes, or, yes, even reading books and magazines, students today are inundated with media.

As educators, we cannot pretend our pupils are not influenced by what they hear and see. After all, the people currently trying to profit from engaging their attention are called influencers. We can encourage our students to think more deeply about the media they’re immersed in and articulate insightful responses through the creation of poems that explore the media they experience.

This kind of ekphrastic writing–making art in response to other art–is often taught starting with Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn and then proceeds through various poems in response to paintings about Icarus falling into the sea. While that mode of ekphrasis can be extremely worthwhile and enlightening, it’s not focused on the art most students interact with on a daily basis. Through a series of dynamic and practical writing exercises, this workshop will show teachers how they can help students connect the art they encounter with both their own personal experiences and their observations of the broader world around them. By offering an easily accessible process, the exercises in this workshop will provide teachers a blueprint they can use to help students respond to contemporary art and popular culture in meaningful ways.

About our facilitator:

Jeff Kass teaches Tenth Grade English and Creative Writing at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. He’s the award-winning author of Knuckleheads, Independent Publishers Best Short Fiction Collection of 2011, as well as two full-length poetry collections, My Beautiful Hook-nosed Beauty Queen Strut Wave and Teacher/Pizza Guy, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book. Currently a featured poetry instructor with the Michigan Learning Channel, he’s taught poetry classes and workshops to thousands of students and teachers, and is a recipient of a prestigious 2023 Jack Hazard Fellowship for writers who teach in public schools. His newest poetry collection, True Believer, consists of poems that spin around and through Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Schedule for the Day:

9am – 9:20am – Welcome and introduction (light refreshments provided)

9:20 – 10am – Warm-up Exercise #1 – Writing as archaeology

10 – 10:10 am – Break

10:10 – 11:00 am – Exercise # 2 – Ekphrastic writing connected to personal experience

11 – 11:40 am – Lunch (provided)

11:40am – 12:30pm – Exercise # 3 – Ekphrastic writing connected to global issues

12:30 – 1:15 pm – Open Mic Sharing

1:15 – 1:30pm – Reflections and Wrap-up

Host or Publisher Michigan Learning Channel