2022 Post #21 -- What Hushes Us

by Brett Vogelsinger

Hayden Saunier's poem "I Need to Live Near a Creek" is so short and lovely and calming, and students enjoy writing their own variations of it.  The poems helps me teach two things: assonance and self-knowledge. 

First, we read the poem twice and I ask students, "What sound do you hear repeated here several times?" Naturally, they pick out the rhyming words, "lush," "rush," and "hushes."  I have them next identify what is the vowel sound in all those rhymes.  "OK, here's something really cool.  That "u" sound is hidden four other places in this poem. Can you find it?"

the

because

of

up

"And it just gets cooler - that vowel sound creates a little bit of a lullaby sound in the poem doesn't it, especially when you put it with the "s" and "sh" sounds sometimes.  And that sound effect matches the whole point of the poem -- knowing what brings you calm, what hushes you up inside."  

Of course teenagers love learning that these repeated vowel sounds have a fun name: assonance. 

This year, we read this poem days after the Alex Dimitrov poem, "Love," which I wrote about two days ago on this blog.  So this time I had them create a poem that begins with the words "I need" and told them they could use them once like Saunier or repeatedly like Dimitrov.  

After inviting a few quick share, I tell them one last gem from those two words.  When resolving conflict, "I need" statements are generally productive, so much better than telling someone "you should."  So these words not only help you know what brings you calm, but help others know it as well. 

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.

2022 Post #8 -- Writing Outdoors

by Sarah Gross

“Scratch” by Jody Gladding is a great mentor poem for students of all ages and teachers can use the poem either in the classroom or in the schoolyard. Spending time outside is beneficial to students’ health, both mental and physical, so if possible do this activity outside!

Hand out a copy of the poem. Ask the students to read the poem through once. On the second reading, ask them to mark up what they notice. Who is/are the speaker(s)? How does Gladding use fonts and bolding to tell the story of her poem? Have students highlight the two voices in the poem and read it out loud.

If students are not familiar with the junco, a sparrow common in most of North America, have them look up photos of the bird. Why might Gladding have focused on this specific bird in her poem?

After discussing the poem together, pair students up to write their own poem using Gladding’s text as a mentor. Students should pick a season and write two sets of lines: one set of lines should be from the perspective of a plant or animal they are familiar with and one set should be from the perspective of a human. Gladding focuses on the actions of the speaker and the junco in spring. What else can students write about? Challenge students to keep their poems short, like Gladdings’, and focused on small actions taken by the two voices in the poem. Students can also illustrate their poem.

This activity can be a lot of fun to do outdoors, whether sitting on the sidewalk outside the building or in a forest/field near school. If necessary, spend some time brainstorming a list of animals and plants in the area that students are familiar with to help them get started with the non-human voice in the poem.

Further Reading:

  



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

2021 Post #21 -- Murmuration

by Sarah Gross

British poet Linda France created “Murmuration”, a collective poem, as a way to celebrate the natural world and help people recognize the ongoing climate crisis. Hundreds of people submitted lines of poetry and France joined them together into a stunning poem that celebrates nature. The five hundred submissions, married to each other line by line, create the language equivalent of a flock of birds diving and soaring, rising and flying, floating together; it’s a murmuration. Artist Kate Sweeney then created an animated film that brings the poem to life.

A celebration of nature, “Murmuration” is a gorgeous collection of images and language that reminds readers of the interconnectedness of the environment. Despite the climate crisis we are facing, readers are left with a sense of hope and wonder after reading/watching.

After watching the animated poem, explain to your students how France and Sweeney worked with lines submitted by the general public to create a poem celebrating nature and the environment. What would the challenges be in this kind of work? What are the benefits of creating a collaborative poem to address our relationship with nature?

Then challenge your students to create their own class “Murmuration”. Ask your students to compose a few lines using France’s original prompt.

Students should compose 1-3 lines of any length. The lines must celebrate the natural world and can begin with either “Because I love…” or “What if…” If they need inspiration, tell students to think about their favorite outdoor spaces. It could be their yard, the schoolyard, a lot on their street, or even a tree, flower, or bird in their neighborhood.

Have students submit their line(s) to a shared document or survey form. Together you can combine all of the lines into a collaborative class poem. Depending on how much time you have, you can revise the poem, mix lines together, and maybe even create illustrations! You could even create an animated slideshow to share your class poem with the wider world!

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

2021 Post #16 -- A Meditation on the Wild Things

 by Brett Vogelsinger

Listing images, objects, and ideas in our Writer's Notebook is always a fun way to get the internal gears turning and ready to write. To introduce Wendell Berry's poem "The Peace of Wild Things," I start by asking my students to write "wild things" in their notebooks and take two minutes to list anything that comes to mind under that heading.  Under the document camera, I start my own list each period. 

A toddler throwing a tantrum?  A rushing river? Yellowstone?  Animal from The Muppets? A herd of deer?  A raucous concert? (And yes, I might be slipping in a review of our recent vocabulary word "raucous" on that last one!)

It's intriguing how the word "wild" can bring to mind things that are quiet or loud, outdoors or indoors, human or otherwise.  

We watch the video animation of Wendell Berry's poem, read by the poet:

We watch the poem a second time, and this time I encourage students to start a second list, this time capturing a few key words that they find striking in the poem.  Words like heron, grief, day-blind, and grace might make their lists. 

Briefly, we discuss this: Can things be at the same time wild and peaceful? How is it that the poem refers to wild things and is yet so still?  

It is not uncommon for Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are to come up in this conversation. 

Finally, in our notebooks, we take a few minutes to write about one of the wild things on our list.  There is no pressure to make our words take the form of a poem or sound anything like Wendell Berry's. His poem is a backdrop for our thinking.  

I do invite students to consider whether there is something surprising or ironic about the wild thing they chose to elaborate on in their notebooks.  Might they borrow one of Wendell Berry's words we listed to write about it? Do they find peace in their wild thing, or something else?  

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 #28 -- Toi Derricotte's "Cherry Blossoms"

by Brett Vogelsinger

I recently asked students what they noticed they had more time to do during the days of our state's stay-at-home order. One student told me, "I'm taking long bike rides again," and then added after a slight, shy pause, "and I'm noticing flowers a lot more."  

There is a vulnerability in 21st century teens acknowledging that they look at flowers.  

You have likely noticed that this great pause we are taking tears down some of the walls that prevent us from sharing that kind of vulnerability.  Teachers unabashedly confess their love of their classes and their chagrin at being torn unexpectedly from their students.  Students express what they miss about school, and the strange new discoveries they are making in confinement, pulling out old crates of Legos, watching backyard birds.  

The poem "Cherry blossoms" by Toi Derricotte, is about pausing to take notice of flowers.  It is also about togetherness, and the common bonds we enjoy during warmer seasons and our shared interactions with beauty.  While our shared interactions may be on hold right now, our common bonds are not, beauty is not.  

The first and last stanzas of the poem seems to resonate more than ever right now: our desire to "mingle our breath" and our simultaneous need to be "patient" with social distancing. The crux of the poem creates tableaux of the kind of moments we are craving to return to again.  

There is no special assignment to go along with this poem.  If you use a poem of the day with your class, it is important to have days where there is no writing, no analysis, no wisdom nugget you specifically hope to impart.  Just enjoy the poem. Share it.  Marvel at it's beauty, it's relevance, it's heart. 

And for the fascinating story behind "the friendship of the cherry trees" in Washington D.C. see the National Park Department's page here.  

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.

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.