Around the Interactive Communications and Simulations office (ICS) in the School of Education, Prof. Frederick L. Goodman frequently resorts to the paradoxical comment that ICS and the International Poetry Guild are "well-known as the best-kept secret in education."
The International Poetry Guild (IPG) began as "a response to a call from the field," says IPG Director Jeffrey A. Stanzler. Ray Wilcox, a high school English teacher doing graduate work with Goodman, had participated in the Arab-Israeli Conflict simulation with a group of his students, and suggested that ICS do something for English teachers and students.
Wilcox worked with ICS Director Edgar Taylor, Goodman and Stanzler, who was then a graduate assistant at ICS, to take the idea of a poetry simulation and bring it to life on Confer, the U-M’s pioneering computing conferencing system. IPG made its on-line debut in 1990.
Participating schools, which subscribe to IPG for $325 a semester, have come and gone over the past five years, but IPG has built a core group of schools that keep coming back. Last year, 60 schools participated in high school and middle school versions of IPG, with 19 U-M students serving as mentors to the young poets. Participation truly is international, with students coming from Department of Defense schools in Germany, Japan, Korea and Great Britain; several Canadian schools; and various schools across the United States.
Unlike activities such as theater or sports, poetry is often solitary, Stanzler notes. IPG links young poets with "peers in other schools and the U-M student mentors, who take their work seriously and honor the effort that goes into the work."
In addition, "IPG allows students a chance to utilize computer technology, and to learn from people other than their everyday teachers," says Mechelle Zarou ’96, a creative writing major and IPG mentor from Northville, Michigan.
The IPG process is relatively simple. Students enter their poems into the guild via modem. The students at each school are then able to access all of the poems entered by all of the other schools. The mentors respond to students’ poems, offering advice, constructive criticism, and lots of encouragement. They also enter items into the conference on a number of different poetry-related topics, such as poetry readings, poetic techniques, and the work of famous poets.
Telecommunication technology is the tool that enables IPG to exist. Using nothing more than a personal computer, a modem and a telephone line, participating schools connect to IPG, uploading their poems and downloading poems from the other schools. The technology has its drawbacks, however. "It’s very hard to convey an attitude of friendliness over the computer," says Zarou; on the other hand, she notes, "It’s good, in a way, because it encourages all of us to understand the impact of words and to not take them lightly."
M.Q. Thorburn ’95, an English major from East Lansing, Michigan, is Michigan Today’s student intern.
Readers may contact ICS by phone: (313) 763-5950; fax: (313) 763-1504; or e-mail: info@ics.soe.umich.edu or the Web Home Page: http://ics.soe.umich.edu/.
. . . October 1995