Hi Anna!

I love the way your poetry module anticipates real barriers—especially unfamiliar vocabulary—before they derail learners. Embedding glossaries and text-to-speech feels spot-on for an online, self-paced format. A couple of ideas that might layer onto the supports you’ve outlined:

  • Chunked audio commentary. Alongside the poem’s TTS track, consider short (30-sec) “pause-and-explain” clips where a narrator briefly unpacks a tricky image or cultural reference in plain language. This mimics the quick clarifications students might get in a live classroom.
  • Interactive annotation. Tools like Hypothesis or basic in-platform highlights let students tag lines they think contain a metaphor or personification and leave a note explaining why. Seeing classmates’ annotations (even asynchronously) can kick-start the kind of peer dialogue that’s otherwise missing in solo modules.
  • Culturally varied poems. Including texts from different traditions not only widens engagement but also lets English-language learners bring background knowledge to the table—turning them from “novices” into resident experts on certain references.
  • “Device swap” practice. After identifying, say, a simile, prompt students to transform it into a metaphor (or vice versa). That quick rewrite forces deeper processing and shows that devices are choices, not just labels.

Your scaffolded approach already builds confidence step by step; sprinkling in these collaborative and creative elements could keep motivation high, too. Excited to see how the module evolves—poetry can feel intimidating, but with supports like these you’re turning it into an inviting puzzle instead of a wall of opaque language.

Great work!

Link: https://annaedci335.opened.ca/weekly-reflection-3-inclusive-design/