Find a newspaper you can mark up or some book pages. (Sometimes libraries weed old books because they are damaged or no longer current. Whatever you do, don't tear up a new book!) You can also use an online tool like this digital Black Out Poetry generator.

Look at the page for words that speak to you or stick out in some way.

Using a pencil, put a box around 10-20 words. Make sure you never pick more than three consecutive words, that is what keeps this from being a copyright violation.
Look for words and phrases that stand out to you from the words you boxed. Think of how these could be a statement or a poem.

When you think you have a good idea of your poem, go the next step before blacking out all of the other words on the page. (Or make sure you watch all of video 2 so you can see how to draw your circuits!)

As you begin to finalize your poem, you are going to create circuits with your boxed words.

To do this, you'll need to understand how Makey Makey works! Take it out of the box and plug in the red USB cable. Then using your hands, hold EARTH and press any of the inputs on the front of your Makey Makey. (Up arrow, down arrow, left arrow, right arrow, space, and click.) 

You can extend any of these connections by plugging an alligator clip into the silver spots, and even extend it further by drawing with graphite! (aka pencil lead!) Just make sure that you make your drawing thick with graphite and that you make boxes around your words, but keep the drawings from touching.

You can then alligator clip directly to your drawings. You may want to use an index card fr stability or you can put your drawing on a clipboard and use the metal on the clipboard for your EARTH connection.

The best thing about drawing your circuits is that you can erase your mistakes! Watch this student troubleshooting. Or watch the whole video tutorial here.

You will make a voice recording for each black out drawing. So make sure you draw around clumps of words you want to be read together, or even around "stanzas" of your poem. 

More advanced blackout poetry: In the second half of the video, you can see my more advanced circuit drawings. I gluesticked my poetry pages to a sheet of paper and drew my circuits so that it looked more like abstract art. To connect the drawing from one page to the next I added conductive tape like a patch or a bridge. Without the tape, my circuit would only close on the white paper. The tape helps the electrons flow to the rest of my black out boxes on the book page. It helps to test your circuits as you are drawing. I don't do any coding or go to any specific webpage. Instead I just turn my computer on and plug in the Makey Makey to see if the lights are lighting up when I touch my drawing.

If you are recording poetry, make sure your voice matches the mood and tone of the poem you are sharing. Practice what you will record multiple times before recording. 

It's time to incorporate Scratch and record voices for your poem!

In Scratch 3, navigate to  the Sound tab, and look for the "add sound button" a blue circle on the bottom. Click on the microphone and record your poetry. Then drag the red bars to where you want your sound to start and end

You'll have some editing choices  I used the "slower" effect to make my voice sound like someone else! The echo effect sounds really neat too.

Going Further: Have your poetry animated in the digital world as you interact with your poem in the physical world! See this teacher's example.

Makey Makey Sampler

You can record your voice samples in our Sampler app and connect straight to Makey Makey for a plug and play experience!!

Click on the microphone to record. Press and hold to record. (You have a limit of five seconds)

Press to test your sample, and click on the sound wave to trim.

Name your sample and save it to the library. (It will only be stored for this session, so if you like all your recordings and want to use them again. Make sure to export your sample pack once you have all your samples recorded and placed on the sampler. (Video tutorial) 

Place all your recordings on the sampler where you want each Makey Makey input to play.

Then Export your sample pack.

Save the exported sample pack to your drive our Google Drive and then you can upload your sample pack when you are ready to plug it to your poetry.

After completing your poem, recording your voice, and troubleshooting to make sure your poem is playable, create a gallery of poems and share your work with others!