9th Grade Poetry Translation Projects

9th graders in Robert Schuster's class are completing their Poetry Translation Projects! Basically, students in the 9th grade had to find a poem written in a language other than English (and which they didn't read in class) and then attempt to translate it into English without looking at, listening to, or reading any extant English translations. They were encouraged to choose a poem written in the world language they are studying. Their goal was to produce a product that was simultaneously faithful to the original work's content and style as possible, intelligible to English readers, and beautiful to listen to aloud—obviously, this was a difficult task because these things are often in conflict with each other. They were allowed to enlist the help of friends, teachers, parents, or anyone else who could help them with interpretation and translation, and in the end, they read both the original versions and their translations to each other over a multi-class celebration of poetry! The translations will be printed out and put up on billboards in the Math/Science building (most likely) so that others can read them.