Ten Penny Players

The Process of Poetry & Technology

Small Press Publishing with students in NYC Alternative High Schools, Special Education, and Inclusion Programs

Question 1 Will “ risk” youth and at students with disabilities, who creatively express themselves, develop a sense of personal merit through desktop and online publishing?

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one. A. J. Lieblin (1904-1963)

The greatest social theme of our time is the empowerment of those previously regarded as powerless. Richard Kostelanetz literary critic, and editor of The Avant Garde Tradition in Literature

In the 1980s, the dissemination of the personal computer, enabled student writers with poor graphomotor skills to compose legible copy, and facilitated its storage and transport.

In 1986 Ten Penny Players began using Commodore 128s, IBM clones, Apple IIs, Bank Street Writer, PW, and 5” ﬂoppy disks to bring poetry and small press publishing to “at risk” and special education students in NYC public schools.

Students with disabilities and those attending alternative schools and programs -- including incarcerated youth, many of whom had registered reading scores below the average for their respective ages. were encouraged to write poems and to prepare their work for publication in chapbooks that were printed in small editions.

While student authors received ten gratis copies, the surplus (of editions of 50) was made available to teachers to use in their classes.

“The mish-mosh of your life becomes a story. You’re not a troubled kid. You’re an author by becoming one of a community. Here is a sense of a kid embracing literacy.” Alison Kofﬂer, poet

I like to write poetry because I like to express my feelings and tell the world about different things without giving a boring lecture. Anthony

Streams OnLine (SOL) is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) which is an open source license.

Question 2 Do students, using technology, write at a level radically different from their reading skills or oral language skills?

The SOL project began in late December 1998. The tool was introduced to two alternative school programs by January 1999 for Alpha testing.

Frederick Douglass Literacy Center was a NYC Board of Education site in Brooklyn that served 17-21 year olds testing below 6.0 reading levels.

Island Academy is a NYC Board of Education site on Rikers Island jail that serves 16-21 year old incarcerated youth (including those with disabilities).

The literacy center reported more enjoyment and enthusiasm to get back to SOL than when students used a word processor.

Students prepared their own chapbooks, when they added work to SOL.

Immediate feedback motivated the students to write expressively in order to be published in their own chapbooks. There was an increase in the production of publications and the number of participating teachers and students.

Chapbooks!

Poets and mentoring teachers worked with student authors to edit, design, print, and digitally format chapbooks.

By year 2, SOL used the Internet domain name--- sol.tenpennyplayers.org and grew from 2 to 23 different NYC high school collaborations.

The 2003 NYC schools reorganization stopped further SOL development. But, in terms of use, SOL was clearly a success!

23 collaborations 1,997 student authors 663 teachers, poets, and mentors 6,284 original works 2,876 comments

Question 3 What is the transformative result when technology is applied to the process of writing, being recognized as a writer, accumulating a body of work, and being published?

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Ten Penny Players

by guestdfa073ed on Nov 06, 2008

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