2022 Post #26 -- Go Inside a Stone

by Katherine Schulten

Back when I was a brand-new teacher in 1987, I had the life-changing good fortune to be part of the New York City Writing Project’s month-long summer institute, where I was introduced to ideas about teaching and learning that have been foundational to everything I’ve done professionally since.

One sweaty afternoon, to break up a day of sitting, reading and writing, the two facilitators introduced us to this exercise, which I immediately stole for my own classroom and used successfully for years.

Directions:

Begin by putting students into small groups, and giving everyone a copy of Charles Simic’s “Stone.” (Note: Though you can substitute any poem, this one has never failed me.)

Don’t read the poem aloud or tell your students anything about it. Just invite them to read it to themselves quietly at least twice, marking it up on a second read. For instance, they might underline the words, phrases and lines that stand out for them.

Then, give them the following instructions:

"You now have 30 minutes with your group to come up with a way to perform this poem that brings it alive for the class. You can do anything you want as long as you follow two rules: Every member of the group must be involved, and, at some point in the performance, we must experience the entire piece as it was originally written."

As they work, circulate and answer questions as needed. (My students always went into a frenzy of discussion and planning, calling me over for questions like, Can we use props? Make costumes? Add instruments? Percussion? Sing it? Incorporate dance moves? Repeat words? Sure, I’d say, whatever – as long as you follow the rules I’ve already given you.)

When the 30 minutes is up, establish an order in which the groups will perform. Then, sit back, watch and prepare to be amazed at all the different, yet intersecting, interpretations your students will offer. In fact, the real magic of the exercise might be how deftly it shows students that there is no one “right” reading, and that a good poem offers you something new every time you encounter it.

I’ve done this exercise in both 75 and 60 minute classes, and longer is better. But no matter how much time you have, save a few minutes for reflection at the end. You can ask, “What now stands out for you about this poem?” or “What do you want to remember about it?” and invite students to first write in response, then discuss as a class. Even after this reflection, however, don’t be surprised if your students come to class the next day still wanting to talk about “Stone” and process the experience.

Further Reading: 

Katherine Schulten has been an editor at The New York Times Learning Network since 2006. Before that, she spent 19 years in New York City public schools as an English teacher, school-newspaper adviser and literacy coach.

The Learning Network has scores of additional ideas for National Poetry Month. For instance, from now until April 21, your students are invited to contribute to a collective poem on the subject of “small kindnesses.”

2020 Post #24 -- A Diamond-Shaped Puzzle

by John Waite

Layli Long Soldier’s “Obligations 2” comes from her first full-length collection, 2017’s Whereas. It is an amazing poem that will challenge students on a couple levels. While the language is very simple, the structure is a puzzle with many answers. I can imagine students engaging with this poem both in terms of its content and its form. Possible discussion questions include:

1. What is the subject of this poem?

2. What is Soldier’s attitude toward grief?

3. How different are the different readings based on how you choose to progress through the poem? Is it possible for them to be contradictory?

4. Why would an author give the reader so much freedom in how to read a poem?

5. Since each reader can have a different experience, can the poem really be said to mean anything for certain?

6. What choices does Soldier make for the reader, and why?

7. How does Soldier’s choice of verbs help create complexity?

8. How does repetition function in the poem?

9. What word might you replace the word “grief” with?

Another possible exercise would be to have students try to create a similar poem, though possibly shorter.

Further Reading:

John Waite an English teacher at Downers Grove High School in Illinois.

2020 Post #14 -- We Lived Happily During the War

by Carol Jago

If you haven’t yet discovered Ilya Kaminsky’s play in verse, Deaf Republic, you have an extraordinary shock to your poetic system in store. No volume of poetry has had such a powerful impact upon me as a reader in a very long time.

Let’s look at the very first poem in Kaminsky’s play, "We Lived Happily During the War". Read it aloud to the class and then ask students to read it once more to themselves, noting an image or phrase that struck them as intriguing or perplexing.

Put students into small groups and invite them to:

1. Read the poem aloud once more.

2. Share the lines they noted.

3. Discuss what they think the poem wants us to know.


Together as a whole class, consider Ilya Kaminsky’s use of repetition. How does it affect our understanding of the poem?

Ilya Kaminsky was deaf until he came to the United States. Invite students to reflect upon the idea of a deaf poet. For further reading on this subject, see Kaminsky’s essay that appeared in the New York Times, “Searching for a Lost Odessa and a Deaf Childhood: A poet returns to the city of his birth.”

“I turn off my hearing aids and walk up to walls, touch them with my fingers. This is the act of a fool who touches the skin of time and walks through it.” -- Ilya Kaminsky

Further Reading: 

Carol Jago has taught middle and high school for 32 years and is past president of NCTE. She is associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA and the author of The Book in Question: Why and How Reading Is in Crisis. (Heinemann 2019).

2019 Post #21 -- History Written By the Victors

by Mike Melie

Before students read the poem "Enlightenment" by Natasha Tretheway, have students consider and discuss the following quote from Winston Churchill: “History is written by the victors.”

What does Churchill mean? How has America been a “victor” throughout its history - who has it defeated? What would America’s history look like if its history was told from the point of view of one of the groups that it had “defeated”?

After reading the poem, discuss the title: What is the “enlightenment” referred to in the title? Who is enlightened during the course of this poem, and what is the nature of his/her enlightenment?

Next, choose one or more elements of the poem to explore with greater depth.

Paradox: A paradox is a joining of two things that are seemingly impossible to connect together, which forms a contradiction. Example: “I can resist anything but temptation” -Oscar Wilde OR “All [men] are equal, but some are more equal than others” -George Orwell. What examples of paradox or contradiction do you see in this poem? What is the author’s purpose in including these seeming impossibilities?

Analysis: The speaker states, “For years we debated the distance between word and deed...as if to prove a man’s pursuit of knowledge is greater than his shortcomings, the limits of his vision.” Compare Jefferson to the speaker’s father. What were their “pursuits of knowledge”? What were their “shortcomings”? Does one outweigh the other, and is it fair to judge someone’s legacy in these terms?

Tone: Briefly research Sally Hemings here and here. Consider the speaker’s tone (attitude towards the subject matter) when discussing Hemings in the poem. How would you describe this tone? How would you describe the father’s probable tone when discussing Hemings? Support your answers with evidence from the text.

As a closing activity, ask students to reflect on the poem and to apply Churchill’s quote above. As a “victor” in American history, how is Jefferson traditionally portrayed in elementary and high school history classes? After researching more about Sally Hemings, does her story change your view of Jefferson’s accomplishments? Why or why not?

For a post using another one of Natasha Tretheway's poems, click here.

Further Reading:

Mike Melie is an English Teacher and Instructional Coach at Downers Grove North High School in Downers Grove, IL. He is one half of the Trojan Poetry web series with his friend and colleague, John Waite, in which they make poetry accessible for students through conversation (and laughter). You can find Trojan Poetry on YouTube and Twitter; you can also follow Mike’s blog on equity issues here and contact him at mmelie@csd99.org.

2019 Post #16 -- A New Lens for The Sonnet

by Carol Jago

Teaching the sonnet is a ubiquitous (and too often tedious) poetry lesson focusing on accented syllables and rhyme schemes. Most of us begin with Shakespeare. The next time around, consider starting instead with Terrance Hayes’ “American Sonnet for My Once and Future Assassin.”

In this sonnet Hayes reflects upon the structure and purpose of the form (much as Billy Collins does in his poem “Sonnet.”)

Before handing out copies of the poem, have students listen to the audio recording of the poet reading his sonnet.


1. Draw students’ attention to Hayes’ reference to Jim Crow as “gym and crow.”

2. Give students their own copy of the sonnet and ask them to read it and choose a line that struck them for whatever reason.

3. Have students share the line they chose with a partner explaining why it stood out, puzzled, or otherwise interested them.

4. Read the poem once more to the class.

5. Discuss: Where has Terrance Hayes conformed to the “rules” of the sonnet form? Where has he broken those rules for greater artistic expression, calling the form “part prison / Part panic closet”?

6. What do you think the “beautiful catharsis” entails? Who or what is changing?


Now read one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.


Further Reading:

Carol Jago has taught middle and high school in Santa Monica, CA for many years and served as president of the National Council of Teachers of English. Her latest publication, The Book in Question: Why and How Reading Is in Crisis is now available from Heinemann (2019).

2019 Post #12 -- The Mask

by Trevor Aleo

In a time where our students spend years crafting curated versions of themselves on social media, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” provides a context to discuss the growing dissonance between our inward and outward facing selves. Though the poem was originally meant to convey the double consciousness originally articulated by W.E.B. DuBois (and re-examined in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out”), the idea of hiding pain behind a veneer of happiness is an increasingly relatable one in our social media driven world. Though the symbol of the mask may not be a subtle one, Dunbar’s sing-song iambic tetrameter, spiritual allusions, and chilling refrain convey the inescapable universality of “the mask.”

After reading the poem, ask students why Dunbar believes people wear masks. Then, ask them which ones they wear and why. Does the anonymity that masks provide empower or isolate us? If we know we’re all in pain, why do we continue to hide it from each other?

To start engaging in some learning transfer fun, ask students to write out three situations in which people “wear masks” to hide their true feelings. Then, ask them to start looking for similarities and differences in each example. What do they notice? What are some emergent patterns that occur across all three examples? Based on the inferences they’ve made about masks, ask them to articulate the relationship between one or more of the following concepts: power, isolation, identity, fear, acceptance, empathy, and anonymity. For example, a group might note that “Anonymity helps people feel powerful and allows them to overcome fear,”

To test the mettle of their statement of conceptual relationship, ask them to provide an additional context that proves their statement to be true. In the group example stated above, students might cite Jack’s evolution once he put on the face paint in Lord of the Flies.

Further Reading:

Trevor Aleo is an English teacher in the DC suburbs. He has a passion for instructional innovation, finding the intersection of pop culture and pedagogy, and incessantly asking his students “Why?” You can find him pontificating on the state of American culture and education on Twitter @MrAleoSays.

2019 Post #1 -- Deleted Scenes from "Famous"

by Brett Vogelsinger

Welcome back teachers, poets, writers, and students to our first post of the 2019 National Poetry Month season!  Subscribe now via email so you can catch every post and add new selections to your repertoire of poems to share with students.  On this site, you will also find engaging methods, questions, and media to provoke powerful thinking in your classroom.

Naomi Shihab Nye is a familiar name to many teachers who share poetry in their classrooms. Her poems are accessible and profound. They balance provocative, relevant commentary on our world with a sense of joy and possibility that children need to hear in their reading at school.

Her poem "Famous" is one of her best-known poems, but the title is slyly misleading. Instead of celebrating fame in the red-carpet sense of the word, it turns an eye on commonplace things "like a pulley . . . or a buttonhole . . . because it never forgot what it could do."

After reading the poem with students, discuss this question: "What is she doing here with the title and the concept of fame?"  Then, in their notebooks, invite students to create an imaginary "deleted scene" from this poem that fits the spirit of the original.  They might begin with her refrain "The _______ is famous to the ________" to shine a light on a different sort of fame. The opening lines of the last two stanzas also work well for this prompt: "I want to be famous to _______" or "I want to be famous in the way ________." My students wrote about the "fame" of jeeps, staples, touchscreens, pen caps, and tree trunks in their notebooks, to name a few.

When you visit the link to today's poem, be sure to watch the film adaptation of Nye's poem at the bottom of the page.  The creative pairing of video imagery with lines from the poem could spark a discussion all of its own.  In a later post, we will look at another video from the Poetry Foundation's Poem Movie collection.

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.

2018 Poem #27 -- Over Our Heads On Purpose

by Brett Vogelsinger

Teens have an complicated relationship with poetry.  On one hand, we have some students pouring their hearts out in private, personal journals or publicly alongside the Instapoets without even an invitation from a teacher; on the other hand, we have students who perceive the genre as pretentious and irrelevant, who roll their eyes the first time a teacher mentions the word "poem."  How do we bridge that gap and invite students from both ends of this spectrum to learn something new with us? 

One trick is finding a poem with just the right level of challenge. 

As teachers we are sometimes told to "pitch it where they can hit it," encouraged to give students reading and materials that allow them to experience success.  We are also told to "scaffold" so that students can grasp challenging texts and tasks as we gradually reduce our level of intervention and support.  

Students can also benefit by pitching a poem where they cannot hit it yet, as long as the poem is a brief one.  We can then challenge them to join us in building a scaffold. 

One such poem is "Landscape" by Robin Coste Lewis. The poem is approachable in that it is short and none of the words are, in isolation, unfamiliar or intimidating.  The poem itself, however, is not completely understandable on the first read.  Invite students to ask questions of the poem and determine how they might unlock more meaning. 

For example, one of the first questions that arises with this poem for me and my students:  Who or what is "Mamere?' Why the references to borders and fires? Is this a poem about an individual or history or a conflict?  How might the copyright date of 2018 be significant? How might we find answers to these questions? 

We talk about how we might research the meaning of "Mamere" and how the poet's background and biography might influence our reading of the poem.  How might we connect this to something else we have read? How can we reach the poet to ask a question?  Where is the poet being intentionally ambiguous? Where does she want us to be a little confused? 

I will not share my own interpretation or research on the poem here.  I invite you instead to explore it with your students and model with your students what it looks like to be a little bemused and perplexed in your reading and the joy of finding your way out of a more challenging poem.  Both the natural poets and the skeptics may find this approach engaging in your classroom, especially when your own 

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He is the faculty adviser for the school literary magazine, Sevenatenine.  Besides his annual blogging adventure on this site, he has published work on Nerdy Book Club, The New York Times Learning Network, and Edutopia and you can follow him on Twitter (@theVogelman).

2018 Poem #20 -- Pairing Poems

by Michelle Ambrosini

When I have paired a poem with another poem or with an image, my seventh grade students have shared prolific responses. Pairing “Always” and “Hope is the thing with feathers” allows students to enter the discussion of a big idea using both modern and classic text. By inviting students to sketch Dickinson’s “thing with feathers,” I ask students to make meaning through drawing as well as discussion.

Always

There will always be the waves

rushing in, tumbling out; 

the moon, the fog, the orange

of the morning sun. 

Sadness is not forever.

But let hope be. 

Let it sit by seaside towns,

drift among villages, 

wander in cities. Let it linger

in schools and shipyards

and factories. 

Let it call to you with the scent 

of cinnamon, the taste of mint,

the faraway chant, the chime 

of the clock.

There will always be the babble

of streams, birdsong, 

the whisper of wind. 

Sadness is not forever. 

But let hope be. 

Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Hope is the thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson

First, students read aloud “Always” by Rebecca Kai Dotlich in pairs -- alternating stanzas or one as the first reader. (I have not yet shared Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the thing with feathers”.) The first question I ask is “What do you notice?”

Students turn and talk and then we share our observations as a whole group.

Students notice the poet’s use of repetition of words: the first and fourth stanzas end with “Sadness is not forever. But let hope be.” They notice the pattern the poet employs in various lines. “There will always be …” starts the first and fourth stanzas. “Let it …” is repeated in the second and third stanzas. Another pattern students notice is the listing of three words or phrases: “the moon, the fog, the orange”; “sit by seaside towns, drift among villages, wander in cities”; “schools and shipyards and factories”; "babble of streams, birdsong, the whisper of wind”. The rhythm the poet creates using repetition demonstrates how rhyming is not needed to create poetry’s mellifluous sounds.

Next, we discuss the poem’s message. If students need prompting, I ask them to consider the title and the repetition. Thanks to the repetition of the final lines of the first and fourth stanzas, students recognize that the poet is contrasting sadness from hope, urging readers to stay hopeful. When students consider the title, they connect this message to the poet’s imploring that remaining hopeful happen “always.” Moreover, as the second and third stanzas describe, staying hopeful happens everywhere and in everything--“by seaside towns... among villages...in cities...schools and shipyards and factories” and “with the scent of cinnamon, the taste of mint, the faraway chant, the chime of the clock.”

Now, I share Dickinson’s ““Hope is the thing with feathers.” Students read it aloud in pairs. Again, I ask students to point out what they notice. Given our recent discussion of Dotlich’s poem, students focus primarily on Dickinson’s metaphor for hope: “the thing with feathers.” They point out the lines that extend the metaphor: “perches,” “sings the tune,” “never stops,” “sweetest… That kept so many warm.” Then, I purposely ask students to sketch a bird in the margins of their paper, thinking about the parallels between a bird and hope as Dickinson describes.

The conversation grows to encompass Dickinson’s message about hope. Students notice the connections between Dotlich’s and Dickinson’s messages. Both promote the beauty of hope and highlight its ubiquity. I introduce the words ubiquity and ubiquitous because both poets show the sentiment that hope is ubiquitous. Dotlich shows this through repetition and pattern and Dickinson shows this through the extended metaphor. Students notice slight differences between the poets’ messages, too. While Dotlich urges readers to remain hopeful despite sadness as “advice” (according to one student), Dickinson “testifies” (again, a student’s observation) that hope is pervasive--in the “chillest land” and “strangest Sea.”

Since students have recently read Pandora’s Box during the Greek mythology unit, they draw connections to the ancient Greeks’ story and how hope remains in the box despite the release of all the world’s evils. We had discussed Greek myths as ancient people’s way of making sense of circumstances they did not understand. Both Dotlich and Dickinson share their understanding of hope in their poems. During a quick write session, I ask students to write about hope--a sketch, a poem, a memory. Students respond in a variety of ways--describing a time they felt hopeful or hopeless, drawing their own metaphor for hope, creating a character who brims with hope. 

Further Reading:

Michelle Ambrosini teaches seventh-grade English at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA.

2018 Poem #6 -- Our Many Worlds

by Rama Janamanchi

One of my favorite poems to teach is Joseph Legaspi’s “Amphibians.” It is a short poem which offers so many avenues for discussion and teaching that we often reference it as we go through our unit. The activity I am sharing below is one that I use when I introduce the poem.

We begin with reading the poem. Each student reads a line until punctuation indicates a significant stop (the period, the semi-colon, or colon). Then we read the poem again chorally. Once we are done with the choral reading, I ask them to list amphibians they know and picture those amphibians, their habitats, and whatever else they know about them.

The students then write down their own habitats: Where do you live? Then they list one activity they most closely identify with. Then we go into identity more broadly. Once they have listed about five or six words they use to identify themselves, we talk about similarities in the room. We begin with activity: all the basketball players stand together, all the gamers gather together and so on. Then they find them moving around the room and shifting groups based on race, hobbies, being the eldest, being adopted and so on. As they position themselves into different groups, they note the people with whom they share these groups.

Once the activity is done (about 7 minutes), we talk about Legaspi’s line: “Immigrants give birth to Americans.” Our many identities converge into the shared experience of the activity, of being students, of being learners. At the close of the activity, we read the poem again. I usually then ask them to reflect on the poem in their journals to give them more time with the poem.

Further Reading:

Rama Janamanchi teaches at a private high school for students with language-based learning differences. Twitter: @MsJanamanchi410

2018 Poem # 3 -- But There Is This

by Jeff Anderson

Poetry has the capacity to help us see what is common through new eyes.  Before reading the poem "You Can't Have It All" by Barbara Ras, I ask students, “Have you ever heard the expression, 'You Can’t Have It All'?" After gauging students' familiarity with this expression, I say, “Some say we’ve heard it often enough that it's a cliche, but I’m in love with the way Barbara Ras uses the well-worn expression in a fresh way, making it the opposite of cliche. Let me read it aloud to you, so you can observe how Barbara Ras uses the expression." (When reading this poem aloud, I generally remove the line about the skin between a man's legs without fanfare, though this is at the discretion of the teacher of course.)

“How does Barbara Ras make the cliche do work?” I ask the students after reading this poem.  In our discussion, I highlight that concrete, everyday experiences become worthy of our focus, our appreciation, our gratitude. 

“To me, poetry is meant to help us pay attention,” I say, " to focus on all the wonderful world and all it gives us. Writers pay attention to things that might note be noted or recorded on first glance. We look again at the simplest things, like the way Ras sees a clown hand in a fig leaf." 

We read the poem a second time, for poems are meant to be read at least twice. This time our goal is to note what Ras feels she can have and start letting thoughts of what you can have in life begin to come to the surface “like the white foam that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot."

This opening can be extended into a full writer's workshop, wherein students write their own “You Can’t Have it All” poems, focusing on making the simple sublime. You can’t have it all. But there is this and this and this. Each poet has the unique capacity to see those things. I invite students to call out to others by giving them voice, by making poetry, stringing together words and experiences you—only you—care about. 

Further Reading: 

Jeff Anderson is a writer of middle grade fiction and a professional developer for teachers who has been sharing writing strategies with students and teachers for 25 years.  His books for teachers include Mechanically Inclined and Patterns of Power.  Learn more about his work at www.writeguy.net or on Twitter @writeguyjeff. 

Go Poem #24 -- Sketch This Poem

by Brett Vogelsinger

We read the poem "Little Citizen, Little Survivor" by Hayden Carruth about a rat living in a woodpile, observed by a man starved of the natural environment he knew well as a boy.  The only direction I give is "You now have three minutes to sketch this poem in your Writer's Notebooks.  I will do the same in mine.  Your time begins now."

Part of the fun of this challenge is its impossibility. There is too much to possibly sketch in three minutes, so each reader must decide where to focus, what images are at the crux of this poem.  Moreover, they assume a certain perspective from which to view the poem.  Sometimes I see a long view of the house with the woodpile; the rat is too small to be seen.  Others sketch the rat's tiny nose from bird's-eye view as it peeks out from the woodpile.  Some ignore the woodpile altogether.  I once had a student sketch a bird feeder, zooming in on the detail that this speaker craves interaction with nature.

Sharing these sketches give us a natural entry point to identify what stands out to us in the poem and why, how we visualize as readers, and what matters most in this piece.  I encourage you to enter this activity without too many scripted questions, but rather watch as the kids interpret visually and then explain their thinking.  Questions and ideas emerge organically from these drawings. 

Brett Vogelsinger teaches freshman English students at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA where he starts class with a poem each day. Follow his work on Twitter @theVogelman.

Further Reading:

Go Poem #10 -- Rhythm That Runs Downhill

by Michelle Ambrosini

"Afternoon on a Hill"

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing  
   Under the sun!  
I will touch a hundred flowers  
   And not pick one.  
 
I will look at cliffs and clouds
   With quiet eyes,  
Watch the wind bow down the grass,  
   And the grass rise.  
 
And when lights begin to show  
   Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,  
   And then start down!

I project the poem onto the board, and first each student reads the poem independently.  Next, I ask students to notice what word or phrase stands out to them as I read the poem aloud.  

Students turn and talk to their table partners and share their standout words or phrases and explain their reasoning:  “Why did that word or phrase stand out to you?” I ask.

Students volunteer their standout words or phrases, which I underline on the board.  Their responses typically include “hundred flowers,” “cliffs and clouds,” “quiet eyes,” “grass rise,” and “lights begin to show.” The reasoning most students share for these words or phrases is these simple images are ones that they can easily visualize.  

We discuss how the writer does NOT describe each image with an abundance of figurative language.  I ask students to think about how the poet creates the sensation of standing at the top of the hill without this abundance of imagery.  

Now I re-read the poem aloud, asking students to notice the sound of the poem. Students typically begin by noting the rhyme pattern (2nd and 4th lines of each stanza).  

Students notice the poet’s use of repetition of “I will.” Repetition or pattern is a style choice that we have discussed throughout the year, specifically how writers can create rhythm through repetition as well as rhyme.  Students comment on the poet’s pattern in each stanza (longer line of 7 or more syllables, shorter line of 4 syllables).  We discuss how this pattern, too, creates rhythm.  

I then read the poem aloud a final time, asking students to close their eyes and to visualize themselves at the top of a hill.  When I finish reading aloud, I ask the students to share what happened in their visualization when they “started down!” Most comment that they run or roll down the hill at a fast pace.  I note that the poet created a rhythm using rhyme, repetition, and punctuation (students notice the exclamation points too) that propels them forward down the hill.  

Michelle Ambrosini teaches seventh-grade English at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA.  

Further Reading

Go Poem #7 -- Taking Poetry to the Court

by Tracy Enos

Whenever I bring a piece of writing to a class, I always ask the same two questions: What do you notice? What stands out to you?  With poetry, it’s helpful to read the poem twice.  The first time it sinks in.  The second, you read with your pen, circling, underlining, jotting notes, taking notice.

I teach 13-year-olds, so sometimes what stands out to them surprises me.  Their honesty and innocence helps me to see the unexpected detail.  With the poem “Fast Break”  by Edward Hirsch, in addition to our faithful and true, “What do you notice?”  I also ask them, “What is going on here?”  One of the first things they notice is that the poem is all one sentence.  One action-packed, detail-rich, glorious sentence.  Then we discuss what’s happening.

This poem is a beautiful example of showing action.  Poems about sports are usually goldmines to 8th graders, but it’s the visual action of this poem that makes it even more appealing and brings it to life.

“The shot that kisses the rim,” “the gangly starting center,” “orange leather,” and “the lay-up against the glass” -- these are images my kids know.  Hirsch has created snapshots of common territory in the world of a teenager with the power of language.  We talk about the action, maybe even acting out the descriptions, if your class is dramatic.

If there is time, we draw our own images to reflect the “camera” on the poem.  This leads to yet another wonderful conversation about the need for writers to paint pictures in their reader’s head.  Hirsch does that so well.

If we are in an imitation mood, having the kids try to write their own action filled event is always a good time.  Maybe a scene at a skate park, a football game, concert, lunchroom, or even a video game.  Trying to, “legally,”  keep the poem one sentence is both an exercise in creativity and grammatical power.

The poem is also fun to compare and contrast with Ernest Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat”.  Thayer’s poem is exploded into many stanzas and the action is slowed down to create suspense.  Thematically, it’s also fun to explore the difference between Casey’s one man show and Fast Break’s team effort.  

Ultimately, students enjoy the quick action and realize that poetry doesn’t have to describe ethereal  philosophical issues or feel like a guessing game.  It can be as comfortable as a basketball and as familiar as the sound of a swish through a net.  

Tracy Enos is in her 8th year of teaching English in West Warwick, Rhode Island, where she has the pleasure of learning with and from amazing 8th graders every day at Deering Middle School. 

Further Reading