2021 Post #28 -- Musings On Mother's Hands

by Nawal Qarooni 

A creator’s ability to hone in on one object, item or body part and describe its weight, meaning and importance is a skill that student writers, too, can replicate in their craft. It’s one that can lead to homages and odes, broadening gratitude for things that might go unnoticed without a keen writer’s eye. In its simplest form, it can lead to emotional musings about individualized objects that beg for reflection.

Nate Marshall, in his poem titled "my mother’s hands" from his latest poetry book, Finna, brings alive descriptions of hands as a salve in hardship, outlining childhood memories in a small slice of time.

In the classroom, we might share this poem and ask students:

• How does his mother’s hands care for him?
• What message does he glean from his mother’s massage?
• How does he use repetition in the poem?

Once students have had time to digest and discuss the poem, we might ask them to generate their own lists of items, objects or body parts that are especially meaningful, and carry emotion or story. When I feel stuck generating ideas, I close my eyes and recall moments where I cried or felt like screaming; where I was worried or scared. In a simple T-chart, model brainstorming like this aloud.

For example, I would include:

my daughter’s slim wrists → carries emotions about my last daughter.
my grandmother’s headscarf → flashbacks to memories of her laughter and everyday smiles.
my father’s handlebar mustache→ and how it represents, for me, what he wanted but didn’t achieve in life.

These body and item connections evoke strong emotion and memory that support the creation of poetry similar to Nate Marshall’s. Once students brainstorm lists, set a timer and ask that they try their hand at a poem- perhaps weaving in repetition, perhaps never sharing it. I leave it up to students whether or not they choose to share. Yes, there’s power in having an audience and writers are fueled by feedback but at the same time, some writing is personal, cathartic, and for the creator alone.


Further reading:




Nawal Qarooni is an educator, writer and literacy coach based out of Chicago, IL. She designs learning experiences alongside teachers and is mother to four multilingual, multiethnic kids, who very much shape the way she understands learning. You can read more about her work at NQCLiteracy.com and follow her on Twitter @NQCLiteracy.

2021 Post #26 -- A Phone-Scroll Self-Portrait

 by Brett Vogelsinger

Every teenager -- and most adults -- can be seen in their native habitats scrolling through their phones sometimes.  While the term "doomscrolling" has emerged as an etymological outcropping of our lives over the past year, there can also be a pleasanter sort of scroll to try on your phone. Wandering through photos of better times you have almost forgotten about can bring a sense of warmth to a cold and lonely season. 

Jonathan Potter's poem, "Self-Portrait with Wife" is an excellent example of the power words have when they are inspired by and create images.  

Potter's poem seems simple enough, at first, a list of the details of an image of two people with photographic accuracy.  But the words used to capture these images are powerfully suggestive of backstory and plot: "our bed of bliss," "the laundry basket empty," "your son's painting" and "the almost hidden books." What do each of these snippets suggest about these characters?  What do they show but never tell us about the people in the portrait? 

Challenge students to scroll through their own phone and find a "self-portrait" with another person.  Capture the details in the photo with words, even the unintended details of the background, clothing, positioning, and light.  Suggest some of the history of these two people without telling the reader about them.  What might their footwear (or lack of it) imply, like it does in the poem we just read?  What fragment of a story do the surroundings of these people tell, like that smudge on the mirror in Jonathan Potter's poem? Has anything been cropped from this photo, and what might this suggest to a reader, if we let them in on that secret? 

Every developing artist creates a self-portrait at some point.  Developing poets can too.  Make it a self-portrait with a second person, and possible plots emerge at the edges.  

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA. He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers. Follow him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2021 Post #8 -- Reflections of Hope in "My Mother's Eyes"

by Andrew Schoenborn

Looking into a mirror or even catching a glimpse of yourself in a darkened window allows you to see yourself objectively and, depending on the circumstance, subjectively. The image we see can be practical, if we are grooming our hair, or produce an emotional response, if we find ourselves looking inward. What visions, emotions, experiences, hopes, and dreams, however, might emerge from the reflections of ourselves we find in the eyes of another? What do they see in us that we may not see in ourselves? How might hope spring from those reflections?

Today let’s ask students to listen to the words of the Chilean-American author Marjorie Agosín. In her poem “My Mother’s Eyes,” Agosín shares the hope she sees for herself in the reflections of her mother’s eyes.

Marjorie Agosín begins her poem: “My Mother’s Eyes”:

My mother's eyes
are cities
where birds
nest
where voyages of the ill-fated
come to rest
where water is a mirror
of sung secrets.

Explore the places these eyes have seen and the unique qualities held in the eyes. Use those moments to shed light on lessons learned as well as adversity they have overcome. Seek, in those perceptions, the qualities you admire that are transmitted and, therefore, reflected back to you.

A writer’s composition is strengthened by the intentional choices made and the effect of those choices on a reader. As a composer of images and words, a writer is in control and powerful pieces are crafted when the author reveals their unique (and sometimes unexpected) perspective that seeks to uplift oneself and others.

Process:

Read “My Mother’s Eyes” and welcome her words into the classroom to set the tone for inspiration and let Marjorie Agosín lead the way. Like Agosín, ask students to begin their poem with “My mother’s eyes…” and see where you end up.

What do you think they see? What do you see when you look at her?

Or, change out the person: “My friend’s eyes…,” “My grandfather’s eyes…,” “My significant other’s eyes…,” etc. Choose the eyes that inspire hope, peace, grace, joy, or a sense of belonging for you.


Sample poem:
“My Grandmother’s Eyes (Inspired by Marjorie Agosín)” by Andy Schoenborn



Photo by Andy Schoenborn

I

My grandmother's eyes
are rolling pastures
where roots
grip tradition
where neighbors weary of work
come to rest
where the good earth is keeper
of whispered words.

II

My grandmother's eyes
are rolling pastures
of coarse corn
strengthening the grip
of a calloused hand.
I approach them
and on the threshold of her eyes
a boy is looking
for himself in the clear blue skies,
in soft sands of insecurity.

In my grandmother's eyes
I also encounter myself
because into them
I move,
to find the steady rhythm of peace
and love
in rolling pastures endured, with humility, for me.


Reflecting on the Strategy:

From time-to-time students may be asked to reflect on their thoughts, actions, and deeds. It is challenging sometimes to reflect upon oneself and see the goodness that lives inside. However, when asked to reflect on the qualities a loved one sees in us, students are invited to encounter and embrace positive self-talk.

This poetry writing strategy creates a win-win-win in the classroom. Students win because they are encouraged to visualize themselves in positive and purposeful ways. Teachers win because they are able to share pieces of themselves while modeling vulnerability. And, poetry wins because words will be viewed through a new lens that encourages the sharing of personal perspective through poetry.

Further Reading:



Andy Schoenborn is an award-winning author and high school English teacher in Michigan at Mt. Pleasant Public Schools. He is a past-president of the Michigan Council of Teachers of English, teacher consultant for the Chippewa River Writing Project, and Region Rep for the Michigan Reading Association. His first book, co-authored with Dr. Troy Hicks, Creating Confident Writers was published in 2020. Follow him on Twitter @aschoenborn.

2021 Post #6 --An Honest Poem

by Angela Stockman

Too often in my work with young writers, I’m reminded of how daunted many are by the prospect of creating a poem. This is what happens when we diminish what writing truly is. It’s not the use of written words alone, and it never has been. Writing--and especially poetry--is multimodal expression.

Rudy Francisco reminds us of this in My Honest Poem. Watch and listen, and as you do, document what you notice about the expressive modes that shape his composition. Pay attention to the way he uses his voice. Study his gestures. Notice how he moves his eyes and when. It isn’t a keyboard, pencil, or paper that makes his hands power tools. He’s still using them to craft poetry, though. Watch.

Here’s what’s exciting: When we invite writers to craft poems using more than written words, we ignite hope in the hearts of many who refuse to define themselves as writers, let alone poets.

Francisco’s performance is a perfect mentor text for those eager to compose honest poems of their own.

Begin by defining the six different modes of expression (see below) and inviting writers to analyze them inside of different multimodal compositions. Consider the choices each poet made regarding message, mode, form, and outlet. Notice how some poets need to speak their words while others use illustrations. Some prefer to situate photographs within a page, wrapping written words around them. Others may do all of these things and more.

Consider sharing Francisco’s poem with your students. Use it to challenge common assumptions about what poetry is and how we compose it. Then, invite them to get beyond the use of written words themselves. The chart below might help all of you imagine the possibilities.

Further Reading:

Angela Stockman is an instructional designer, writer, and professional learning facilitator who serves teachers of writing. She is the author of three books on this topic, the most recent being Creating Inclusive Writing Environments in the K-12 Classroom: Reluctance, Resistance, and Strategies that Make a Difference (Routledge, 2020). You may find her on Twitter @AngelaStockman.

2021 Post #5 -- Kaleidoscopic Thought

 by Brett Vogelsinger

Since childhood, I have always loved the mirrored, sparkling, shifting imagery a kaleidoscope can offer. For this mini-lesson, it might be fun to have this YouTube video of hypnotic, kaleidoscopic imagery projected on a screen as students enter the classroom:

The poem "Thought." by Alice Dunbar-Nelson was recently featured by the Academy of American Poets in their Poem-a-Day emails, a subscription I highly recommend.  

It goes like this: 

Thought. 

A swift, successive chain of things,

That flash, kaleidoscope-like, now in, now out, 

Now straight, now eddying in wild rings, 

No order, neither law, compels their moves,

But endless, constant, always swiftly roves. 

The poet catches my eye when she says thoughts are "kaleidoscope-like," and in keeping with this simile, continues to shift from comparison to comparison, image to image for the remainder of the short poem. Reading the poem makes me pause and tune into my own stream of consciousness, that subtext to our experience in any moment that often escapes our notice. 

After reading the poem, I might ask the class to comment on "What does Alice Dunbar-Nelson observe about human thought? How does the way our thought patterns work relate to those kaleidoscope patterns we were watching on the screen a moment ago?"

Next, we could pause for sixty silent seconds with this aim: Just tune into the kaleidoscope of your own thoughts. In the course of sixty seconds, where does your mind go. What shifts happen and what forms emerge? 

Then, in our writer's notebooks, we can craft a short poem that tries to put those shifting thoughts into words. Remember, it could be figurative instead of literal, and it doesn't have to make pure, perfect grammatical sense, much like Dunbar-Nelson's poem. 

Georgia Heard's new book of children's poems, My Thoughts Are Clouds: Poems For Mindfulness, helps readers to do what this lesson emphasizes, pausing in the moment to bring awareness to just what is going on in our mind. In stressful times, teaching students how to do this, then putting some of their thought into words that will not be judged, assessed, or graded, can serve an important emotional purpose in our classroom. This kind of pause can provide a balm in anxious or divisive times.  

And our students do well to remember that whoever they are and whatever their aspirations, their thought is "endless, constant, always swiftly roves."  

Further Reading

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past ten years. He is the creator of the Go Poems blog and the author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Writing in All Genres.   Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

  

2021 Post #1 -- Small Moments

by Linda Rief

So many of our students believe that their lives are so uninteresting that there is nothing to write about. But so often, those small moments are some of the most important moments. Kaylie, one of my former eighth graders, shows us just how special a certain moment is when she describes a night walk with her dad.

Read Kaylie’s poem “Night Walks” out loud to your students while they have copies in front of them. Tell them you will read it a second time and ask them to underline any phrase or line that feels important or holds significance for them.

Night Walks
by Kaylie M. (8th grade)

When I was little
The sky danced with new stars
My dad bundled me up
And took me out for night walks


Cradled in his arms
He pointed out the Big Dipper
The Little Dipper
The North Star
Beetlejuice

I don’t remember the story of Beetlejuice
But I remember it was significant
Because my dad pointed it out to me
Beetlejuice is yellow
Far away from Earth

And I know that the older you get
The more distant you become
Farther and farther away from those
Who captured you in their warm embrace
Never reluctant to offer comfort
When it was needed most

The stars
Glistened in the bright sky
Elegant
Full of life’s greatest secrets

Cradled in his arms
Protected by his warm embrace
His breath cool against my cheek
We watched the stars spin
Above the earth and life as we knew it


After reading the poem twice, and underlining any lines or phrases, you can try this:

Write out anything Kaylie’s poem brings to mind for you.

Borrow any line that you underlined and write as fast as you can for two to three minutes, letting the line lead your thinking.

Think about the “small moments” that might have happened while you have been “sheltering-in-place” at home: Write as fast as you can for three to five minutes to capture the essence of that moment.

After finishing this first draft writing, go back to see if there is some line or phrase you want to slow down and develop. Write more. Or simply take some time to extend what you said in only two to five minutes.


Further Reading: 



Linda is an instructor in the University of New Hampshire's Summer Literacy Institute and a national and international presenter on issues of adolescent literacy. She is the author of The Quickwrite Handbook, Read Write Teach, Inside the Writer's-Reader's Notebook and forthcoming from Heinemann Heartfelt Transitions: Using Poetry to Inspire & Deepen Reading & Writing. In 2020 she received the Kent Williamson Exemplary Leader Award from the Conference on English Leadership, in recognition of outstanding leadership in the English Language Arts. Twitter handle is @LindaMRief.

2020 Post #30 -- One of Those Days

by Brett Vogelsinger

If you keep a writer's notebook with classes of young people, then you have heard the words "I have nothing to write" before.  Sometimes, we (in our heads) write this off to a bad attitude in our our writers. But as we know from our own writing experiences, sometimes there are days when the words do not want to cooperate, and the empty page mocks our attempts to find something to say.

Professional writers feel this too, and the new poem "One of Those Days" by Jason Reynolds, published as part of his National Poetry Month writing project, captures this feeling well.

When your students say they have nothing to write about, encourage them to write about that feeling. Try putting words down that convey the failures or weaknesses or cacophony of words that will not fall into line.  Students may even find it useful to borrow the opening lines of this poem: "There are days when . . . "

As I share this poem with my students this week, I realize that it will meet some of them finding relief from the pressures of school in their new, stay-at-home lives. Some will be having trouble staying motivated now that they know we will not be returning to our building this year.  There are others whose pressures at home are intensified by this isolation. There are those whose parents work in health or public safety, and they fear for their parents' lives.  There are some who will be deeply saddened by the sheer horror of a pandemic, and others who are trying to avoid the news entirely and escape into another world through reading, binge-watching, or gaming.

Every one one of them is navigating something new.  So am I. So are you. 

The words for this do not always flow.  Right now, our lives don't always flow. 

These experiences can steal our capacity to find  words to express ourselves, and they can offer new reflections about which to write.

In this, the last Go Poems post of 2020, I'd like to thank you, our readers, for visiting the site, many of you on a daily basis, and sticking with us through the abrupt "swerve" of COVID-19.  Our first post of this year was called "What is Worth A Swerve?" -- how fitting that now seems!

Keep reading poems and sharing them with your students.  Words, carefully stitched and tailored as they are in poetry, can help us feel less alone, even when it is one of those days when we struggle to shape words into a poem of our own.

Take care, stay at home, and be safe.

Further Reading:




Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA. He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers. Follow him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2020 Post #29 -- What Is Your House?

by Brett Vogelsinger

It is unprecedented to include two poems by the same poet in a single, annual series of Go Poems posts, but since "unprecedented" is the word of the day, it seems fitting.

Earlier this month, I shared how Idris Goodwin's poem "Say My Name" can inspire students to write about their own names.

Just days ago, Goodwin released a new poem, dedicated to all the children and parents trying to stay productive, creative, and sane while stuck at home.  It echoes the ideas about our human need to be creative that we read earlier this week in "Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale," but this time in practical, spot-on terms that children and adults need to hear in the spring of 2020.

Today's poem is called "Your House Is Not Just a House."

A challenge we might bring to students in a quickwrite during a live teaching session or via an online learning management system:  What is your house?  In what ways is it not "just a house" right now?

Share this poem and this prompt to see what your students create!

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past ten years. He is the creator of the Go Poems blog and the author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Writing in All Genres.   Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2020 Post #26 -- Engaging With Ekphrastic Poetry

by Andy Schoenborn

As the winter’s chill gives way to the warming months of Spring it becomes easier to see the world through fresh eyes. March and April are months filled with new beginnings as well as recollections that are worth celebrating with words. These are months beckoning us to take out our phones and capture pieces of them in photographs.

Today let’s ask students to take out their phones, peruse their camera rolls, or snap a picture of something beautiful. Using a photo of their choice let’s have fun with an Ekphrastic poem by responding to the image in verse.

Mini Lesson:

Briefly explore a simple photography technique called the Rule of Thirds. This technique asks users to make intentional choices with any subject to improve the composition and balance of an image. Ask students to notice how an image gains or loses appeal based on the choices a photographer makes.

With photography, and poetry, an artist’s composition is strengthened by the intentional choices made and the effect of those choices on a viewer. As a composer of images and words, a writer is in control and powerful pieces are crafted when the author reveals their unique (and sometimes unexpected) perspective. 

Process:

This writing strategy puts the “Go” in Go Poems as you invite students and yourself to explore the environment of the classroom, hallways, or outside. They have five-minutes to snap, browse, crop, and filter. Then write to the selected image for five minutes.


With the Rule of Thirds photography technique in mind, either crop an existing image or, if inspired, snap one of your own that causes you to either see the world with fresh eyes or recall surfacing memories.

• You may apply filters, if you choose, or stay true by using no filter at all.
• Once you have settled on an image, respond to it in verse.
• When sharing, please include the image or link the image that inspired you.
• You have five-minutes to find an image and five-minutes to write.

Go!


Sample poem:
“For Us” by Andy Schoenborn

Photo Febiyan on Unsplash by Click to Enlarge Image 

I have found you shaking,

bones rattling,

in the wind

and am reminded of my grandfather

whose wooden reach stretched further than

was comfortable.

Grounded in dark, hard earth

he pushed through life – lifting the soil.

Unearthing fragmented crust

the smaller parts defying gravity, clinging.

On erratic branches we grew from him.

Wild.

Disorderly.

(not) straight.

Until our reach sprouted new limbs.

Fragile saplings hardened too soon.

Themselves growing protective leaves

–like serrated lives –

unsure of the future.

Hard, brittle, and shaking in the wind

we were

lifted

by he who was daring

enough to push

through the hard,

impacted earth – for us.


Reflecting on the Strategy:

In the classroom, students are often asked to put phones away. While I ask students to do this as well, I recognize the way students interact with their devices, photography, and digital communities. When teachers encourage their students to use unexpected mediums, in this case their phones, students feel understood and validated.

This poetry writing strategy creates a win-win-win in the classroom. Students win because they are encouraged to use the tools in their pockets in productive ways. Teachers win because they will experience student engagement and the joy of writing to self-chosen ekphrastic prompts. And, poetry wins because words will be viewed through a new lens that encourages the sharing of personal perspective through poetry.



Further Reading:



Andy Schoenborn is an award-winning author and high school English teacher in Michigan at Mt. Pleasant Public Schools. He is a co-facilitator of the monthly #TeachWrite Twitter chat and first book, co-authored with Dr. Troy Hicks, Creating Confident Writers will be published on June 2, 2020. Follow him on Twitter @aschoenborn.

2020 Post #25 -- A Poetic To-Do List

by Brett Vogelsinger

This week, two inspiring, creative educators -- Austin Kleon and Katherine Schulten -- brought a poem back to the surface of my attention that I had forgotten about for some time.  "Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale" by  Dan Albergotti is a bittersweet look at what we can do with a period of confinement, ennui, boredom.  In times like these, the poem feels both realistic and empowering; it is a poem that wears a wry grin. 

I brought this poem to my students during a live class meeting via video conference this week and asked a quick question after our first read. "Why do you think I chose this poem to read with you now?" Of course, that was an easy pitch, and students had no problem identifying links between the idea of being stuck "in the belly of the whale" and being confined during this period of stay-at-home orders and mass quarantine.  Fewer of them, though, were aware of the biblical allusion in the title, to the book of Jonah. 

A student read the poem a second time on our video conference, and I proposed this question: "What do you notice about the structure of this piece?  How is it built?" Your students may note the fact that is is a "to do list," it is made up of short sentences, and that each sentence begins with a verb, the grammatical structure of a command.  One student pointed out to my class that the first few items seem realistic, and the poem seems to become more whimsical, then more philosophical as the list progresses.  I thought this was a particularly astute observation.  

"Let's try writing one like this!" I said to my students.  "Call it something like 'Things to Do While Stuck at Home' or 'Things to Do During COVID-19.'  There is one catch.   Let's take the first three things that come to your mind and exclude them from our list.  We want to avoid stating the obvious in poetry."  All classes chose the same three things to exclude:  sleeping, watching TV, and playing video games.  

After a few minutes of drafting, I gave them an assignment to complete after our video conference class time ended.  Students could revise their first drafts and post the revised version on a collaborative writing space on OneNote.  I would provide feedback for everyone's revised drafts before next week.  

Here are some memorable excerpts, written by my students: 

Paint the walls. Sing in the shower. Pull weeds from the dirt. Buy a blanket to cuddle up in. Go for a run. Laugh with joy when you're with your family. -- Brielle G. 

Make your bed
Wash your clothes
Dust everything in your room
Because apparently
Your room is disgusting
Although you don't see it
Anyway
Build something with wood and nails
Doesn't matter what it is, just build
And finally
Make your family LAUGH -- Christian P. 

Pace the concrete sidewalk. Walk among the trees. Get out and live a little.
Try something new. Change your surroundings.
Look up and open your eyes. See the world around you. Move outside your bubble. -- Shayne S.

I am grateful for how this poem helped me to see my students' present situations and perspectives while also allowing us to talk about poetic structure, theme, and grammar.  It brought us back to a Writer's Notebook style of response that I have missed since our last day of school, which was refreshing and necessary and lively.  

Further Reading: 

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA.  He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers.  You can find him on Twitter @theVogelman.  

2020 Post #11 -- Poems Found in Feedback

by Sarah Gross

When I talk about poetry with my students it often elicits a groan.  We can usually get past the horror when we start reading contemporary poetry together and they realize, “Hey!  I can make sense of this!” because most of their experience with poems in the past is “old and boring” (in their words).  

But writing poetry?  That’s pretty terrifying for many of my students.  They either tell me outright that they can’t write poems or they sit in front of a blank document paralyzed by perfectionism.  How can they write a poem like the ones we’ve been reading?  Who will want to read their words?  It’s just too hard to write poems!

For that reason, I like to start with found poems.  Found poetry takes existing lines and reworks them for a new poem.  Students can make found poems from newspaper articles, other poems, novels, and any other text.  

My favorite found poem to share with students right now is “Dear Amy Nehzooukammyatootill” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.  The poem takes lines from individual emails Nezhukumatathil received from high school students about her work and combines them into a new piece.  In an interview with superstition (review), a literary magazine, she says, 

“After receiving dozens of these emails, I noticed some repeated sentiments, almost chant-like, so to me, when reading all of these student emails together, I was very much drawn to the sounds first, content later. Of course I found the humor of dozens of high school students telling me quite openly and honestly what they thought of my first book and I was truly charmed and amazed at the lack of filter in their responses. The poem itself is just a tiny fragment of various responses that I received in a 24 hr period, but I think Annie Dillard talked about found poems best when she said, “…Turning a text into a poem doubles that poem’s context. The original meaning remains intact, but now it swings between two poles.”

Reading the poem and the interview immediately made me think of the feedback students receive all day long in school.  What would it look like if students followed Nezhukumatathil’s example and created a found poem from the feedback they receive?

For this activity, I ask students to read “Dear Amy Nehzooukammyatootill” as we listen to the recording on the Poetry Foundation website.  After we read it together we talk about what a found poem is. Students pull out their favorite lines from Nezhukumatathil’s poem and we discuss what the students might have meant when they included a particular line in the email versus what Nezhukumatathil means when she includes it in her poem.

Finally, I challenge students to create a quick found poem from the written feedback they have received from teachers.  We use Google Classroom for grading, so students can go back through their last few pieces and copy individual lines of feedback in different classes.  If they have hard copies of recent tests/assignments they can also pull lines from those.  

As a closing activity, ask students to share their poem with a neighbor (if they are comfortable).  

Further Reading:

Sarah Gross is one of the co-organizers of NerdCampNJ. She teaches in central New Jersey and loves spending time outdoors. Follow her on Twitter @thereadingzone

2019 Post #30 -- The Poetry of Prose

by Travis Crowder

One of the beautiful things about poetry is that is touches all other genres. Poetry dwells within prose, both fiction and nonfiction, sometimes subtle and other times striking, but always trying to nudge us past the ostensible. Authors use poetic language to move their writing and to help us see the world through their eyes. Words, the molecules of ideas, envelope us, nudging us to think deeply about their function. Sometimes they seem to rest in the palm of an open hand, inviting us to use and to lean on them, to pull them into our own way of writing and speaking. This part of author’s craft is majestic, and I love introducing students to how authors use words to convey meaning.

Just a few days ago, conversations about author’s craft centered around the use of short sentences in prose. I mentioned to students how powerful short sentences could be, but like many things in reading and writing, showing works better than telling. During independent reading, I asked them to collect short sentences (usually 1-4 words) form their books on sticky notes. I came to class with my own collection of short sentences from my book, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, pictured here:





Under the document camera, I began arranging the sentences into the form of a poem, paying attention to the meanings of lines, of how fractured sentences could be fused into new ones, of how meaning changes when lines are extracted from context and blended with something else. As I arranged the sentences, I thought aloud, telling students that adding or removing words from the original sentences was acceptable.

After a few minutes of crafting in front of them, I invited them to do the same. Students worked for about ten minutes with the sentences from their independent reading. During this time, I asked them to mold them into the shape and feel of a poem, read it aloud to themselves, then revise their original poem by swapping lines, interspersing their own lines of original thought, isolating words on a single line to draw attention to them, and so on.

After collecting short sentences from Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow, Levi wrote:

I am alone.

In the house.

I let them pull me in.

Deep down.

Black as night.

Nothing in my mind.

I turn it off.

I stare at the computer.

Years goes by.

But I am not.

....... died.

In my mind.

I feel free.

But in my heart.

I am gone

The arrangement of sentences—filled with haunting lyricism—mesmerized me and his other readers.

Brittany, while reading Flawed by Cecilia Ahern, found this poem of sentences:

A light goes on for me.

I have people.

My hearing is this afternoon.

She makes a face.

I smile at her in thanks.

And then we are inside.

He tips his hat.

¨Do you agree?¨

I silently fume, then think hard.

¨Absolutely.¨

The room erupts.

I jump up.

I pass out.

The blend of dialogue gives her poem a different edge. Characters’ names were in the original version, but I encouraged her to remove them so the reader could create the voices and names. 

Finally, students shared their poems with a classmate and posted it on a class Padlet. I also shared mine.

Grief was different.

an ocean of dark

I could not read.

I had resisted,

but soon said yes,

and felt the rush

of numbing waves.

Grief has no distance

until the morning,

when streams of light

streak the sky.

Stretching Their Thinking

Creativity exploded with this activity. I wanted students to deepen their awareness of the utility of short sentences while also appreciating author’s craft. After students posted their poems on the Padlet, I gave them time to read their classmates’ poems, identifying the one they were drawn to the most. Inside their notebooks, they copied the poem and wrote their why: What caused them to choose this poem? What word or line stands out the most to them? How does this poem make you feel? Time was provided to share poems that resonated and to celebrate their craft.
I asked students to tell me how their thinking had changed about short sentences. They answered, “We had no idea short sentences could be so powerful.”

And now, they have beautiful poems and a method of reflection that they can return to again and again.

Further Reading:

Travis Crowder is a 7th grade ELA teacher in Hiddenite, NC, teaching ten years in both middle and high school settings. His main goal is to inspire a passion for reading and writing in students. You can follow his work on Twitter (@teachermantrav) and his blog: www.teachermantrav.com/blog.

2019 Post #28 -- A Concrete Clock Poem

by Brett Vogelsinger

When it comes to concrete poetry, students are often impressed with its combination of simplicity and cleverness.  And that's the thing about concrete poems: like masterful acrobats or skateboarders or dancers, they make artful maneuvers look easy.  As some people work on movement to play with gravity, the concrete poet plays with negative space, the blank page, and the shape of words in original and sometimes humorous ways. 

One of my favorite concrete poets is Bob Raczka and his book Wet Cement contains a poem that will ring true to students and teachers everywhere.  It is called "Clock" and the picture below comes from the Kindle preview on Amazon:  

Why not challenge your students to create a smiple clock poem that sets the hour and minute hands at a different time: wake-up time,  lunch, bedtime, game time.  Or you might challenge them to change the form and still write about time: a sundial, an hourglass, a digital clock, an iPhone.  This quick introduction to a sub-genre of poetry in a shape that students of all ages and artistic abilities can handle may do more than just inspire them to create a concrete poem.  Poetry is about moments, and this exercise moves them to think of a poemworthy moment.  Maybe the following day in class, that same moment can be crafted into a poem with line breaks and stanzas.  

The writer's notebook awaits!

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA. He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past six years and is the creator of the Go Poems blog to share poetry reading and writing ideas with teachers around the world. Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2019 Post #27 -- Still Life

by Allison Marchetti

One of the greatest lessons we can give our young writers is to pay attention. Nature walks, writer’s notebooks, guided imagery--all of these are wonderful tools for sharpening the writer’s focus. Another tool is the still life in words.

Jim Daniel’s poem “Work Boots: Still Life” describes a pair of work boots drying in the sun. Like an artist painting the tiny details of a thing, each line reveals the hidden layers and larger-than-lifeness of an ordinary pair of boots. The poem builds to reveal much about its wearer, to whom the boots offer the “promise of safety | the promise of steel.”

Daniels’ poems make holy ordinary moments. They are snapshots of everyday life--brushing your teeth at the sink with your sister, a pair of workboots left to dry in the sun, reading in bed with your littles close--written in beautiful, simple language, and they reveal a hidden beauty that is there simply if you pay attention.

Lead your students in an exercise that will help them pay attention to something ordinary and paint a still life in words:

Choose an inanimate object in your bedroom or home that has some significance behind it: that pair of shoes you always reach for, the old hoodie, the stuffed animal you can’t bear to pack away.

Make a two column chart in your notebook. In the left-hand column, describe what you see in plain language. Like a painter, look closely, making your way around the entire object, seeing it from multiple angles. What’s there that you’ve haven’t noticed before, even though you’ve likely looked at it thousands of times? A tiny rip at the seem, some dried chocolate smeared by little hands?

In the right column, make a list of “deeper meanings”: think about what this object means to you, where you’ve used it, or worn it, memories associated with it, etc.

Use Jim Daniels’ poem to think about how you might pair each description with a deeper meaning. Play around with interesting and unexpected similes and metaphors that breathe life and story into this inanimate object.

Consider borrowing Daniels’ syntax in the last three lines: A ____________ reveals a ________, a __________, the ______________ to tie it all together.

Offer the option of bringing in a picture of the object and pairing it with the typed poem for a beautiful still life gallery walk in your classroom.

Further Reading

Allison Marchetti is co-author with Rebekah O’Dell of WRITING WITH MENTORS and BEYOND LITERARY ANALYSIS (Heineman). She is the co-founder of Moving Writers, a blog for secondary writing teachers. She lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia.

2019 Post #24 -- Reading and Writing Outdoors

by Sarah Mulhern Gross

Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day” is one of my favorite poems to share with students. It’s one of Oliver’s best-known and most-quoted poems and has been included in a few of her anthologies. It strikes a chord with many high school students as they are beginning to think about their lives beyond high school. It’s also a great way to get students to slow down and observe nature for a few minutes.

Begin by giving students a copy of the poem and let them read along as they listen to Mary Oliver read it. I like to take my students outside for this activity, so I use my cell phone to share the audio. Ask your students to mark the phrases or lines that strike them in any way while they read the poem. After students have read the poem and listened to Oliver read it, have a brief discussion. I always point out to students that “The Summer Day” sounds like a prayer to me, and this makes sense because Oliver frequently talked about how the forest was her church. Ask students what their “church” might be. Where do they feel spiritual? Where do they feel safe and at peace?

After a brief discussion, give students a few minutes to write. Ask them to let the sights and sounds of the outdoors guide their writing as they try to answer the question “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I don’t give my students too many guidelines here as I just want them to write. Their response can be in prose or poetry form, and if they really get stuck I encourage them to sketch.

You could easily extend this activity into a full lesson by having students choose something outside (a tree, a blade of grass, a bird, a bug, etc) and center their response around it like Oliver centers her poem around the grasshopper. They could spend 10-15 minutes making observations about what they see, hear, smell, feel and (maybe?) taste while observing their species of choice. Oliver’s poem can serve as a mentor for their response to the question in her final line.

For more on Mary Oliver, check out this excellent New Yorker piece: Mary Oliver Helped Us Stay Amazed

For a brief Go Poems idea for Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" click here.

Further reading:

Sarah Gross is one of the co-organizers of NerdCampNJ. She teaches in central New Jersey and loves spending time outdoors.