WORDLE

wordle.net

WHAT IS A WORDLE?

A Wordle is a web tool that takes text the user types in and create word clouds, where the text is randomized into different shapes and styles. The default setting for a Wordle word cloud takes the text and makes words bigger depending on the frequency on the word in the text (wordle.net/create). Wordle also allows the used to eliminate common words in the language of origin, such as "such," "as," and "and." Wordle's basic settings also allow you to alter the word cloud's font, directionality of text, and color palette. After creating the word cloud, Wordle allows you to print the word cloud or save them to the online Wordle gallery (wordle.net/gallery).

The site also contains an FAQ board, a forum for users, a gallery of saved word clouds from other users, and separate link for advanced word cloud creation (wordle.net/advanced). Advanced Wordle settings include the ability to insert phrases into the word cloud instead of just words, the ability to "weigh" certain words so they have a bigger frequency, and the ability to color each word individually to the Hex palette color the creator desires. Wordle is free, easy to use, and very customizable, though it has some flaws. Some of these flaws include limiting font options, not allowing phrases without individual weighting, and the inability to export the Wordle as a .jpeg image without saving the Wordle to the online gallery.

WAYS TO USE WORDLES IN THE THEATRE CLASSROOM:

Finding Image Concepts

In theatrical production, all visual elements should be supported through the plays texts. Therefore, designers and directors look for recurring image concepts in a play, which can be important objects to the play action, characters, colors, or settings. Wordles can be used to find these image concepts easily, especially for a digital text or play, as it will find the most repeated words in the play and make them the biggest in the wordle. Then, students can look at these image concepts or develop image concepts from them. For example, here is a Wordle of The Trojan Women by Euripides: 

Notice that Hecuba's name is the largest, as the play revolves around her. Excluding the Old English pronouns thee, thy, and thou, the next eight words that are most prominent in size are Chorus, Troy, Talthynius, child, home, death, Andromache, and mother (if size is hard for some students to judge, Wordle can propagate a list of word frequency under the language settings). Seeing this, students can start designing image concepts around the city of Troy (buildings, ruins), loss of home, children and motherhood, and death. With death especially, students can pick colors that invoke death, like black, white, and blood red, and change the Wordle palette to use these colors (as I have done).

Creating Advertisements

Using Wordle's advanced features, students can create dynamic advertisements for plays as part of a unit on learning publicity. Below is a digital banner for a performance of John Van Druten's Bell, Book, and Candle I designed a couple of years ago:

I was able to go to the Wordle settings to make certain words have more "weight" and thus be larger, as is necessary for advertisements (most royalty agreements require the author's name to be no less than half the size of the play's name, so this is also a good introduction to students learning about royalties). The advanced features also allowed me to choose my own color palette and orientation for some words. In grading this for student work, an instructor can evaluate the color choice, readability of text (i.e. don't choose a font that will make people strain and stop reading), and that the Wordle contains all necessary information, like play title, author, performance dates, performance venue, ticket price, time of performance, and various words that tie into the central themes of the play. These ads work exceptionally well for emails (attaching the .jpeg as a signature or banner) and bookmarks that you can give out at the school library when students check out books.

Guess the Wordle

One of the most difficult subjects to make interesting is theatre history and learning the theatrical canon of plays. A fun way to test theatre knowledge is to develop word clouds for important plays in the theatre canon and have students deduce what play the Wordle represents. Here are a couple examples:

Guess the play. Give up? The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Here's another one:

This musical? West Side Story. Another way to use the Wordle for theatre canon and history can be clues to a certain period or author. Like the one below...

...that points to the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare

SOME HELPFUL LINKS FOR WORDLE USERS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhL5D9nz5aI: This YouTube video features an introductory tutorial on how to use Wordle, both in creating a word cloud and embedding the word cloud into digital media.

http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/2011/04/02/free-tools-challenge-10-word-clouds-with-wordle/: This short piece by educator Ronnie Burt describes how Wordle works and discusses how teachers can uses effectively and some pitfalls of using Wordle in a lesson.

http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/10/top-20-uses-for-wordle.html: Another blog by a teacher, this time by educator Rodd Lucier discusses the top 20 uses for Wordle he has found in his own classroom.

http://livebinders.com/play/play/3017: This LiveBinder was compiled by teachers with tips on how to use Wordle in a classroom. This particular link goes to a Google Presentation with 52 tips on using Wordle in the classroom.

http://www.tagxedo.com/: A program similar to Wordle, Tagxedo creates word clouds with advanced setting like Wordle, but also has a shop where the Wordle you create can be printed on posters, banners, t-shirts, and coffee mugs (ideal for if you love your word cloud and want it printed on promotional items).

-Page created by Brandon Coon, University of Northern Colorado