Genius.com

I like poems. I love a certain type of poem---the riddle. With a riddle, the poet uses beautiful, vague language to describe something. The reader tries to figure out what it is. In a way, you can think of all poems and songs as riddles. When I was young, I spent hours thinking about my favorite songs. What were they about? What did they mean? I wished for a way to look up song-meanings like you look up word-meanings in the dictionary. I got my wish in 2009.

Genius.com. This website lets people add annotations to songs and poems. I can go to Genius.com and look up my favorite song. I find that someone annotated the song; I read the annotations and learn about the song's meaning.

Or, I can add an annotation to the song: I can write about what the song means to me, and someone else can read it.

The magic of Genius.com goes further. You can use it to annotate anything on the web---news articles, press releases and blog posts. This lets authors publish their works on the web and then add annotations to them. This lets the reader view the work through more than one lens.

How can kids use this in WITS? Let them write; let them post their work on a class-blog; let them annotate their work. What can they do with the annotations? They can explain references; they can talk about what inspired them; they can even make fun of themselves!

Or, the kids can annotate each other's work. They can offer feedback; they can give praise; they can give suggestions. This will add value to any lesson about Revision.

Requirements

• Computer
  • Windows, Apple or Linux
• Internet Connection
• Web Browser
  • Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, etc
• Genius Browser Bookmarklet (Web Annotation only)
• Account on Genius.com