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 #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.

2020 Post #27 -- The Stories of Tattoos

by Brett Vogelsinger

One of my favorite poets I have discovered in the past few months is Ariel Fransisco.  I've shared several of his poems with my classes, but one short piece that provokes some great conversation and writing is "Poem Written in the Parking Lot of a Tattoo Shop While Waiting For an Appointment."  Sometimes when sharing a poem that is brand new to me for our Poem of the Day routine, is simply put the question to students:  What do you notice?  What should we talk about in this poem?

They are experienced readers of poetry by this point in the year, and invariably they find something I missed in my own reading of a poem.

In this poem, we end up talking about the speaker.  Is this the speaker's first tattoo?  Why is he getting one?  Will he go through with it? The line "I'm in search of any kind of permanence" becomes central to our conversation.

I ask students "How many of you will likely get a tattoo someday?  How many of you think you never will?  Why? And why are tattoos so popular right now?"  This could be a conversation or a writing prompt, but in the course of talking as a class, students began to tell stories of family members and their reasons for getting tattoos, some of which opened my eyes to people's quest for "permanence," often using tattoos to record a painful loss or deep devotion.  These personal stories  looped us back to talking about the speaker in the poem again.

Further Reading (out 4/21/20):

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 #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 #23 -- You Say, I Say

by Chris Kehan

I love using music in the classroom to teach reading strategies and of course to ignite writing.  "You Say" by Lauren Daigle is very inspiring.  Hand out copies of the lyrics and play the song.  Allow your students to listen to the song as they read along with the lyrics.  Discuss what they think the lyrics mean.

Have your students divide a page in half (in their Writer’s Notebooks) and label the left "You Say" and the right "I Say."  Have them list what the lyrics say from both vantage points (example: You say I am strong, I say I’m weak). 

Then have students think of someone in their lives that is close to them or knows them well (i.e. parent, friend, teacher, etc.)  They can jot what they think that person would say about them under the "You Say" column and how they might counter this under the "I Say" column.  Model your own "You Say, I Say" so they feel more comfortable doing their own. (example: You say I’m organized, I say it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes planning to look that way) 

Return to the part of the song that is the refrain/chorus and have them put their ideas into the format of "You say I am _____ when I ____." These lines will become their poem.  You can have students use line breaks and some white space between the "You say __" and "I __ " parts so it looks more like a poem.  They can close the poem with an "I believe" statement of their own.

"Most People Are Good" by Luke Bryan is another good song/lyrics to use to get young writers to jot down what they believe about things in their world.  They can write "I believe" poems using these lyrics as a mentor text.

Further Reading: 

Chris Kehan is a Library Media Specialist in the Central Bucks School District and a proud fellow of PAWLP (PA Writing & Literature Project) whose passion is teaching reading and writing to all grade levels and ages. Follow her on Twitter @CBckehan

2020 Post #22 -- Poetry in a Time of Coronavirus

by Tricia Evans

For forty years, my spring break pilgrimage has been the same. But just like many other timeworn traditions, my spring break isn’t following the normal trajectory this year. Instead of hikes up craggy Baldy mountain, the soothing music of the Frio River, flame wrapped marshmallows, and family communion, we have chosen social distancing. This is a spring break none of us envisioned. With schools closing, sporting and entertainment venues shuttered, and a constantly shifting newsfeed, life has been disrupted and we find ourselves the subjects of a historic moment.

Recently, in his Twitter feed, Kelly Gallagher provided a reminder that each of us is a historian, and encouraged the chronicling of this unusual time.

Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s When the World as We Knew It Ended is a powerful mentor text for this purpose.

Read the poem aloud,. Ask students to identify the moment in history Harjo is describing. Why is it important for writers to preserve history for future generations?

Consider why Harjo chose a poem as the vehicle for this historic accounting.

After reading the poem a second time, ask students to annotate the poem for structure and then do this collectively under the document camera.

Allow students to take a line, an idea, or borrow Harjo’s structure and craft a poem with the intent of capturing this historic moment for future generations. Some students might benefit from the scaffolded structure below.

Stanza 1
We were (Recount a moment before you heard of the coronavirus.) 

Stanza 2
Big picture showing this moment as it is witnessed on a large scale. Wow your audience with FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE & IMAGERY! 

Stanza 3
We had been watching (a noticing before this moment)

Stanzas 4 and 5
We saw it from (Zoom in. What do you notice? How is life around you different? The same? What are people around you doing?)

Stanza 6
We heard it. (What are you hearing from your family? Your friends? The news? Social media?)

Stanza 7
But then (Conclude with a shift that serves as a reminder of the good that continues to exist in the world today and in the future.)



Allow opportunity for student historians to publish on platforms like Padlet, Flipgrid, or in your personal classroom collection. Celebrate student voice!


Further reading:

Coronavirus Lesson Plan  compiled by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle

Tricia Evans works with curriculum and instruction at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo, TX. She believes in the power of words, classrooms, and positivity to change the world.

2020 Post #21 -- Words of Comfort

by Brett Vogelsinger

Since reading a poem is a daily ritual in my class, patterns develop in our poetry selections.  One of those patterns -- yes, a pattern students observe in much of the literature we read in English class -- is that writers often tackle dense, heavy, depressing topics.  Poetry is no exception.  And I would argue it is important to bring these types of poems to our students.

However, we also live in an age of crushing anxiety, and each year I see more students struggle to maintain their emotional health.  I want to be sure that English class, and particularly a routine that begins our class period most days, does not deliver a daily dose of doom.  Picture the Pavlovian effect of that for a moment:  Bell rings, gloomy poem emerges on the screen, discussion of humanity's darkest moments ensues. . . what might be the effect of that day after day after day on our students?

Derek Mahon's poem "Everything Is Going To Be All Right" interrupts this pattern when we need something to reassure, comfort, or uplift our class.  The poem does not ignore that the world is full of problems, just as English teachers do not, but it does remind us of the healing power of nature, of the importance of taking time to observe and notice, of cycles and hope and the potential to begin again.

Dr. Katherine Dahlsgaard, a psychologist who specializes in childhood and adolescent anxiety, recently spoke to teachers in my school district about the science of hope.  She said that "teachers are ambassadors of hope."  If I am to be such a teacher, I must introduce my students to the power of words not just to identify problems and give them voice but also to explore solutions, find peace in the face of turmoil, and provide comfort when we feel lost.

So I leave you with Derek Mahon reading his own poem in a video, and a question to pair with this poem for students:  What brings you comfort in troubled times?

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 #20 -- Rituals in Difficult Times

by Allison Marchetti

Rituals in Difficult Times

As a mother of two littles, I have been doing my best to keep our days at home as predictable and familiar as possible during these strange times.

We’re still getting dressed and brushing our teeth in the morning. Still taking the dog for a walk first thing. Still snuggling in my four-year-old’s bed at night for stories. Still making pancakes on Sunday morning.

My daughter points at the sky. “Airplane, Mommy!” Planes still fly. The squirrels in our backyard still take their share of the seed in the feeder. The rabbits still munch grass in the cool light of dawn.

This short, simple poem, “The Return,” by Jonathan Greene, reminds us that, despite COVID-19’s disruption to our lives, “some rituals/ of this good earth/ continue.” And what a comfort that is to both old and young.

Perhaps it will bring some calm to your students to think about the rituals of their lives that have not stopped, that will continue to ground them in the present and keep them focused on the good.


Here’s what working with this poem in your classroom might look like:

1. Read the poem out loud.

2. Discuss what you notice about the poem. Here are a few things that might come up, or that you might draw their attention to:

• 3, 4-line stanzas
• The poem follows a simple pattern: The first stanza explains, in simple terms, the “ritual.” The second stanza paints an image of this ritual. The third stanza feels like a refrain, or a mantra, that bears repeating.
• First-person. “We” and “us” could be anyone, observing this ritual. Anyone who is looking for this reminder.
• The simple, descriptive language: “They find their old nests / teach their young to fly”
• The repetition of the word “return”

3. Encourage students to talk (or email or Zoom -- however they might be communicating from afar) about the various rituals, both inside and outside of their homes, that continue during these strange times.

4. Invite your students to write beside this poem, perhaps borrowing the frame:


We are heartened

when…





They remind us,

for now, some rituals

of this good earth

continue.



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.

2020 Post #19 -- Something You Should Know

by Rebekah O'Dell

If we English teachers could get together and dub a Reigning King of Poetry, I submit it would be Clint Smith. Smith, an English teacher himself, has been a favorite of many high school English teachers (especially those in the #TeachLivingPoets movement) in recent years due to both his incredible verse and his willingness to Skype with students and support teachers.

But let’s be honest: while Smith’s poetry is not difficult, it is heavy.

Teaching middle schoolers, my class needs scaffolding -- a strategy to help students make the figurative leaps of metaphor. And a scaffold to help students build confidence and write like Smith a little bit at a time. Naturally, the poem I chose to introduce Smith is his brilliant “Something You Should Know.”

Here’s how we did it in about 10 minutes of class time:

• Read the poem aloud (project it or give a copy to students so they can see the words on the page, too. They’ll love seeing the trick at the beginning with the title flowing into the first line!)
• Turn and Talk: The title of the poem is “Something You Should Know”. So, for the speaker of this poem, what is the thing that you, the reader, should know about him or her? What story does the speaker connect with this secret?
• Share Out: This is a great time to talk about the idea of metaphor -- the speaker reveals his fear (being exposed and vulnerable) by telling us a story about something different (hermit crabs). Smith builds the metaphor by combining his secret with an experience. 
• Grab Your Notebooks: Invite students to begin by building a metaphor in the same way that Clint Smith did. Give them a few minutes to try in their own notebooks.

I promise students they won’t have to share this, but they do have to try it. If a student or two finishes quickly, you can invite them to build additional metaphors!





Once everyone has built a metaphor, they are ready to try a bit of Smith-inspired writing. Most of my students are not ready to launch into a full poem at this point, so we build confidence by approaching it in a smaller chunk:



Students choose to either write the first four lines (which focus on the experience/story part of the metaphor) OR the last four lines (which focus on the secret or the “something you should know”). Trying four lines is usually relatively undaunting. For students who are ready for more, they can choose to try BOTH the beginning and the end of the poem, or they can just keep writing -- fleshing out their poem as a whole.


Here are a few samples of students in my 7th grade trying their hand at this activity.


Something that you should know

is that when I was younger,

I remember watching a movie about birds.

My favorite part was the scene about the owls.

The silent but powerful creatures that only come out for a short amount of time.


Mathias




Something you should know

is that when I was a kid, I would help my mom prune flowers

I snipped the dead ones

but observed the buds that were shut up tight


June




Perhaps that is why I'm afraid of forgetting.

Perhaps that is why, even now, when I so desperately want to share how I feel,

I don't, I lock it away.

Because the outcome can be even more upsetting than forgetting.

Magovern


You’ll notice that some mimic Smith and others riff off of his lead. Either way, this activity leads students to a greater awareness of how to create powerful metaphors themselves and gives them a bit of poetry they can build on later!

Further Reading:

Rebekah O’Dell teaches middle school English in Richmond, Virginia. She is the co-founder of MovingWriters.org and the author of a number of professional books. You can find her on Twitter @RebekahODell1 and at movingwriters.org.

2020 Post #18 -- I Am and I Am Not

by Linda Rief

COVID 19 has shut down many schools for the next few weeks, preventing so many of you from participating in those activities that make the school experience so important to you: athletics, drama, musicals, jazz band, orchestra, Mathcounts, Robotics, outdoor ed, community volunteer work, etc.

As you read the following excerpt think of the “Try This…” prompts in terms of what you are experiencing right now, at home or at school. You could start with the line “I am a… but…” or grab any one of the ideas and write as fast as you can, outrunning the censor in you that often stops the writing.

Read the poem out loud to yourself once. Then read the prompts underneath the excerpt, to see which one appeals to you the most. Then read the excerpt again, and write nonstop as quickly as you can for two to three minutes in response to any of the prompts. You are writing to find writing, trusting that the process will lead you to some surprises, some things you didn’t expect to write.

An Excerpt from Chapter 2 from The Running Dream (Van Draanen)

(from The Quickwrite Handbook, 2018, Heinemann)

I AM A RUNNER.

That’s what I do.

That’s who I am.

Running is all I know, or want, or care about.

It was a race around the soccer field in third grade that swept me into a real love of running.

Breathing the sweet smell of spring grass.

Sailing over dots of blooming clover.

Beating all the boys.

After that, I couldn’t stop. I ran everywhere. Raced everyone. I loved the wind across my cheeks, through my hair.

Running aired out my soul.

It made me feel alive.

And now?

I’m stuck in this bed, knowing I’ll never run again.



Try This (as quickly and as specifically as you can for 2-3 minutes):


Write out anything this excerpt brings to mind for you.

Borrow any line and write as fast as you can, letting the line lead your thinking.

Think about something you are passionate about (something that “airs out your soul,” “makes you feel alive”) and write down everything that makes this activity so important to you.

Start with the line “I AM A ___________ ", and fill in the blank, describing all that you do, think, feel, experience while doing this activity.

Change the line to “I am not a ____________", expanding on all the reasons why you are not whatever it is.

Her last two lines say she will never run again. What has stopped you, or has halted you temporarily, from doing something you love doing?


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

Further Reading:

Linda left the classroom (reluctantly) last June (2019) after 40 years of learning from eighth graders. She misses their energy, their curiosity, and their desire to read and write. She is an instructor in the University of New Hampshire's Summer Literacy Institute and a national and international presenter on issues of adolescent literacy. Her latest two books are The Quickwrite Handbook (2018) and Read Write Teach (2014), both published through Heinemann. Her Twitter handle is @LindaMRief.

2020 Post #17 -- A Harlem Renaissance Classic

by Donte' Demonbruen

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. Langston Hughes was an African American writer whose poems, columns, novels and plays made him a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920's.

It was during this time that Hughes first began to write poetry, and one of his teachers introduced him to the poetry of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman both of whom Hughes would later cite as primary influences.

Langston’s 1926 poem "I, Too" is a riveting poem that sparked much conversation during the Harlem Renaissance but is still very much relevant today in 2020. Hughes focused on the importance of being accepted and treated equally in America, two important topics in today’s society.

As a class, read the poem aloud and when finished, take a few moments to allow those words to sink into the minds of the students who just experienced Hughes's writing. Ask students how those lines relate to the world we live in today in America. Are we still fighting the same exact fight for equality or are we battling new demons? If the students respond with "we aren’t battling the same demons," then what demons are we battling?

 

Further Reading: 

Donte’ Demonbreum is a senior English major currently studying English education at a four-year public university in Clarksville, Tennessee, Austin Peay State University. Donte’ enjoys reading young adult literature in his free time and being with family. He graduates from APSU this spring with an English degree and a minor in professional education. You can follow him on Twitter @MrDemonbreum.

2020 Post #16 -- Star Dust

by Rama Janamanchi

This year on Valentine’s Day, NASA celebrated the anniversary of one of our most famous self-portraits and I found myself falling in love again with the Voyager photo of the ‘pale blue dot.’ I am reminded each time I see the image of the feeling of being awestruck. I felt similar awe when I held my children right after they were born. I was filled with wonder at the possibilities they embodied even as I was humbled by their fragility. Ada Limon’s poem, “Dead Stars,” reminds me forcefully that we need to create space in our routine for those moments of awe. It is too easy for us to forget the extraordinary panorama against which we lead our mundane lives. 

Before the kids come into the room, I place these images in different parts of the room. Two are from NASA’s Hubble Telescope and two are of neurons firing. 

We read Ada Limon’s poem - silently, then chorally. 

Students walk up to the images and write down a brief description of each image. Then they walk around again and this time they add emotions to their description. We talk about the similarities between images of the brain and the Hubble images. We list the similarities in how they look and how they make us feel. We talk about how the feeling of discovery when we recognize our connections to the stars. 

We read the poem again. Students read silently, then chorally. We highlight moments of discovery in the poem. We write down our own rediscoveries of the ordinary.

Further Reading:

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

2020 Post #15 -- A Simple Poem to Explore Text Complexity

by Don Kemball

One of my favourite poems to use early in the year with students is the Roger Stevens poem, “I did not eat the goldfish”.

We use the SWIFT format (Structure, Word Choice, Imagery, Figurative Language, Tone/Theme) when reading our poems to break down the various elements we see. What I love about this poem is that the truth of its meaning does not come out until students begin to share the imagery the poem creates for them -- the movie they see in their heads.

Many students struggle to find meaning beyond the literal, but when their colleagues begin sharing the idea of a cat in a tree who clearly ate the goldfish, they begin to see that a poem can say one thing, but mean another -- even the direct opposite of what it says.

We springboard from here to discussions of other times people will say one thing but mean another. We connect to real life events as often as possible. This usually leads to a conversation about politics and important world issues. We then bring it back to our independent reading and talk about the difference between literal, figurative, and implied meaning in our texts.

While this may sound simplistic for secondary learners, I still struggled with these ideas in my upper high school years. It wasn’t until Ms. Patterson used a similar poetic text in class that I was able to see the importance of reading for different kinds of meaning. That made all the difference for me and is one of the reasons I use a Poem of the Day strategy in my class.
Further Reading:

Don Kemball is an elementary teacher in the York Region District School Board, just North of Toronto, in Ontario, Canada. He has been teaching a variety of subjects in various situations for more than 15 years. He can be found at @dkemball on Twitter and Don Kemball #GridPal on Flipgrid

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).

2020 Post #13 -- Shel Silverstein and Poetic Nostalgia

by Matthew Johnson

Three years ago, in an attempt to get students excited about an upcoming poetry unit, I asked them to bring in their favorite poems. I expected that most would bring in favorite songs or little poems that had grabbed them along the way, but instead nearly 30 of my 60 ninth graders independently brought in a poem by Shel Silverstein. Volumes of Where the Sidewalk Ends populated my desks, and while I have my own fondness for Shel Silverstein, I was at first deeply annoyed by this. Bringing him in felt like a mockery of the class and the assignment. Obviously, “Peanut Butter Sandwich” has no place in a high school–or so it seemed to me at the time.

I was stuck though, so I begrudgingly let each student talk about his/her/their favorite poet, and as I listened to them, it quickly became clear that the vast majority of students who brought in Shel Silverstein weren’t trying to be funny or to make a snarky statement about the class. They brought in his poems because reading them was the last time that they truly connected with poetry or felt that it wasn’t over their heads.

This day was a revelation for me. Up until that point I’d been the sole selector of poems in my classroom, and while the poems I selected undoubtedly worked for some students, I’m sure others didn’t connect with them as much as I’d like. But by asking students to help me supply poems, I could broaden the reach of the class and form interesting and novel bridges between what the students already love and the curriculum.

Take for example the Shel Silverstein poem “Whatif,” which several students identified as their favorite. I decided to use this poem to discuss how poets use rhyme and repetition in the next class, and I have never seen so many students so quickly identify nuanced craft moves around rhyme and rhythm, moves like the purposeful capitalization of Whatifs to emphasizing their bigness or that Silverstein uses an AABB rhyme scheme in the vein of a nursery rhyme until the line “Whatif they start a war?/Whatif my parents get divorce?”–potentially showing the narrator’s fear of her family falling apart. Further, and even more amazing was that every single student–even those who’d told me they didn’t like poetry–leaned forward, amazed to see me taking this suggestion from one of their childhoods so seriously on the board in a high school class.

So this National Poetry Month, definitely share your favorite poems with students, but when trying to plan poems that will excite and engage students, don’t forget about the best co-conspirators possible: the students themselves!

Further Reading: 

Matthew Johnson is an English teacher from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also a husband and father, and over the last decade he has read, thought, and written about how teachers can balance teaching with all of the other important roles they play in their lives. His work has been published by Principal Leadership, Edutopia, ASCD, The National Writing Project, and the National Council of Teachers of English, and his weekly thoughts on how to be a better teacher of writing in less time can be found on his website www.matthewmjohnson.com. When not teaching, reading, or writing, he can often be found in the kitchen, his garden, or out on a run through the gently rolling hills of Southeast Michigan.