Rap Genius is not just for rap, it's a platform for annotating ANY TEXT
• Genius is home to hundreds of literary, historical, scientific, and musical texts--it's a free, online literature anthology or history textbook!
• Students and teachers can view crowd-sourced, Wikipedia-like explanations of texts line by line
• At Genius, students don't just read summaries of texts as at other “study” sites, but read the works of literature themselves alongside annotations
• Explanations on Genius can include images, video, links, etc. that bring texts to life
• Students and teachers can use our Glossary of Poetic Terms to explore textual examples of literary devices on the site
Genius is a COLLABORATIVE ANNOTATION PLATFORM
• Students and teachers can explain and suggest explanations to cla**ic works of literature and primary historical sources--if it's beautiful language, it's on Genius! (or will be soon...)
• Students and teachers engage with each other and with a broader intellectual community online--it's the E-ACADEME!
• Students and teachers are empowered to become knowledge producers instead of pa**ive recipients of knowledge
• Students can add videos, images and links in their arguments, practicing multimedia presentations sk**s-- Genius is the evolution of the book for the "ADHD Generation"
• Students can literally make an*lytic connections between various works of literature, and between cla**ic literature and popular culture and history, by hyperlinking texts on the site
• The built-in Genius IQ™ feature of Genius rewards excellent annotation and high-performing students
• Genius user profile pages double as student portfolios to streamline feedback and a**essment
Genius can be used as a collaborative annotation platform for any text a teacher uploads to the site
• Teachers can house course texts at Genius (as long as extant copies do not exist on the site)
• Students access course texts online free of charge (plus free of labor, cost, and daily frustration of photocopies!)
• Students can collaborate on explaining and annotating a course text online
• In-cla** discussion is enriched and energized by the online forum of Genius, and the online forum continues and develops cla** discussion
• Teachers and students become editors of a course text, not just readers and discussants, contributing to online public knowledge
• The cla** contributes to a growing archive of texts and annotations that is the future of reading, thinking, and writing online!
Genius can help students cultivate a number of TRADITIONAL ACADEMIC SKILLS such as…
• Annotation
• Reading Comprehension
• Close Reading
• Research
• Literary an*lysis
Genius also helps students cultivate a wide range of sk**s within the emergent field of DIGITAL LITERACY…
• Multimedia Presentation
• Visual Rhetoric/Visual Rhetorical an*lysis
• Digital Citizenship
• Expanded Audience
• Social Reading, Thinking, and Writing
For more information on using Genius in the cla**room, contact Jeremy Dean, Education Czar at Genius.