2021 Post #17 -- A Poem a Day (The Same Poem a Day)

by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

A year ago, at the start of the pandemic in the U.S., we wrote a guest post entitled “In This Together,” celebrating the teachers and administrators who have risen to do heroic things on a daily basis to help families in their learning communities. We praised families, too, for stepping up to comfort and educate children and lamented over the jumbled mix of emotions that we all were feeling over the COVID-19 situation. We urged readers to seek relief in poetry for several reasons, such as the way poems often point to the good things in life, especially the small good things, bringing us slivers of hope and joy when we are lost.

Fully a year later, we feel the same way about the ability of poetry to provide relief, but we’ll admit that the message of optimism might be wearing thin—especially for students. How many times can they hear “things will be better” before they tune us out?

More than we might think. A few years ago the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research released a study that shared the following: people often replay a favorite song hundreds of times. The study’s authors called this “extreme re-listening” and suggested that people do not tire of listening to songs that they choose voluntarily. We think it’s time to apply this concept to the sharing of poetry, especially with poems that incorporate movement and can provide a quick “brain break.” One exemplary poem for this purpose is “Everyday Use” by Zetta Elliot from HOP TO IT: Poems to Get You Moving, our latest anthology (featuring 100 poems by 90 poets). You can read the text of the poem here, but we hope you’ll also play the video of Zetta Elliott reading her poem. It takes less than a minute, so you can even play it daily for a week, or several times in a day—and then give the link to it to your students for them to play (when they feel like it) at home.

You might even want to give students a homework assignment simply to listen to a favorite poem—any poem—three times in a day. You can provide them with a list of audio or video links gathered from Poets.org, PoetryFoundation.org, PoetryMinute.org, or in the Poetry Video Library at No Water River; you can also find many poetry readings at our Pomelo Books Vimeo site. To give you a start, here are links to several additional poems from HOP TO IT, read by the poets themselves, that will lend themselves well to some extreme re-listening (and brain breaks) at home.


“Any Weather” by Rebecca Balcárcel https://vimeo.com/477187936

“At the Eye” by Padma Venkatraman: https://vimeo.com/477200215

“Chair Dancing” by Xelena González: https://vimeo.com/476495197

“Clear, Cool Blue” by Jacqueline Jules: https://vimeo.com/477197161

“I Smile with My Eyes” by David McMullin: https://vimeo.com/476499247

“The Artist” by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie: https://vimeo.com/504939468

As we said last year, if any of these poems resonates especially strongly with your students, please spread the word. We are still #inthistogether.



Further Reading:



Sylvia Vardell is Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University; her current work focuses on poetry for children, including the nationally recognized blog, Poetry for Children. Janet Wong is the author of more than thirty books for children and teens on a wide variety of subjects, including identity (A Suitcase of Seaweed & MORE). Together, Vardell and Wong are the forces behind the Poetry Friday books published by Pomelo Books.

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.

2021 Post #15 -- Moving Advice

by Ken Bui

Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” is an uplifting poem centered around a mother imparting wisdom and advice to her son. It’s about adversity. It’s about grit. It’s about courage. When I share this short poem with students, I always admire how much conversation can stem from its mere 20 lines.

Fittingly – seeing as the poem features the image of a staircase – invite students to think about all the ways the speaker “moves” and “shifts” through the advice to her son. To do so, consider the following questions or quick activities to frame the conversation your students could have:

• What is the mother’s advice to her son?
• What imagery or figurative language drives that message?
• Alternatively, can students complete a quick doodle of any of the images that catch their attention?
• How do verbs capture not only the mother’s movement, but the movement of the poem’s lines?
• How do punctuation and line breaks contribute to the pace of the mother’s story/advice?
• Or alternatively, where does the poem pause? Slow down? Quicken or build?
• Consider if and where the speaker shifts the language. If you had to break up the poem into three parts or stanzas, where would you do so and why?
• Have students draw lines to divide up the poem!

While students appreciate and discover how the speaker “moves” through the poem, they may also be “moved” by its tender yet frank sentiment on perseverance. 

Further Reading:

Ken Bui is an English teacher at Central Bucks High School South in Warrington, Pennsylvania. He enjoys teaching a variety of courses such as English 11, AP English Language & Composition, Creative Writing, and Debate. He is also a contributing writer for Moving Writers. You can find him on Twitter @kenbuiCBSD.

2021 Post #14 -- Memories of Home

by Suzanne Dailey

Stories are hidden in the nooks and crannies of our home. Oftentimes, these stories happen when we are doing ordinary things.

I remember my family room growing up. Brown carpet with designs pressed into the surface, covering an original wood floor from the 1800s and dark paneling from the 1970s. And the little space near the downstairs closet that was the p-e-r-f-e-c-t hiding spot for jumping out at someone and scaring my brother – especially when he was carrying something in his hands!

My favorite room was our kitchen tucked in the back of the house. Yellow linoleum floor, cream colored stove, and cabinets that never fully shut, especially in the winter. Yellow linoleum floor, cream colored stove, and cabinets that never fully shut, especially in winter. It’s where I smelled apple pie in autumn, assembled gingerbread houses in winter, dyed Easter eggs in spring, and snuck popsicles in summer.

We spend a lot of time at home making memories that stay in our hearts forever. Some fill our hearts, and some break them.

What are the emotions or memories that live in your home? Maybe it’s a moment of love or a rainy day or the sound of music or a time you heard lifechanging news. Some of these emotions or memories may come to you easily, while some of you may need help accessing the stories in your minds and hearts.

As a class, read the poem "Daily" by Naomi Shihab Nye.

After sharing the poem, I might say to students, "Try drawing your house and jot down some of the memories you’ve created in the space you call home. Then find a story that’s hidden in the nooks and crannies of your home. Some memories may be seemingly insignificant at first glance, like my memory of sneaking popsicles in the kitchen each summer. But if you get still and really think about it, there are stories there."

I remember enjoying that popsicle sitting under our “snowball tree” dressed in terrycloth shorts, grass-stained bare feet, and a blue t-shirt from my Grandpa that said, I’m a Georgia Peach! Some of my favorite memories from home are in my backyard as a young kid. It’s why I find so much peace in nature as an adult.

Draw your home, get still, and find the stories hidden in the nooks and crannies. Your heart will thank you.

Using a document camera/blank document, model drawing a part of your home, and as you draw, naturally tell a summarized story that “lives” in those areas.

Set a timer for about 5-7 minutes, so students can draw their home. As they are drawing, create a quick write for one of the stories you shared earlier using the format of "Daily": 

These meals we eat
gathered around the garage sale refinished table

These games we play and play until there’s a winner
Tattered boxes with missing pieces in the living room


After students have drawn their home, share your quick write and invite them to do a 3-4 minute quick write as well. As they are writing, choose another story from your home and do an additional quick write.

Invite students to share their quick write, asking classmates share a question or compliment. Invite students to do an additional quick write for another space at their home (inside or outside!) to see if there is a possible story hidden in their home.

Further Reading: 

Suzanne Dailey is a staff developer in the Central Bucks School District.  You can learn more about her work at www.suzannedailey.com and check out her Teach Happier podcast.  

2021 Post #13 -- Diving Into Gratitude

 by Rebekah O'Dell

During "Pandemic School" -- a term my colleague coined to encapsulate the general chaos and turmoil we are all experiencing this school year -- I have been trying to model specific, concrete gratitude for my students.

“I’m so thankful I get to see your entire faces today,” I said in our first class meeting during a sudden virtual pivot.

“I’m so glad we’re all back together again, even if it’s behind plexiglass and masks,” I said our first day back at school.

“I’m excited we get to figure out together how to make our language field guides digital this year!” I feigned.

I do this because I need it. Because, this year, gratitude is not always my first language. Because I want it to become a language students start to practice when they need help, too.

Gratitude is a fake-it-’til-you-make it sport. We become more grateful and experience the myriad mental and physical health benefits that gratitude affords not because we are always feeling it but because it’s a discipline.

And, like any discipline, we sometimes do it through gritted teeth.

One particularly bleak winter morning, I came across the poem “Winter Thanks” by Marcus Jackson.

What struck me was the specificity. Unlike some other gratitude poems, this poem isn’t sweeping in its scope. Instead, it gets highly specific about one thing the poet is grateful for in the winter: heat. Jackson drills down, stretching and pulling his thankfulness apart to examine what it’s made of.

This poem provides a great lesson on zooming in and getting specific.

Here’s how I used it with my students:

First, we read the poem, and I asked students the question I always ask students about everything we read: What do you notice?

Students immediately noticed that all of the items discussed in the poem have to do with heat, which is something you would naturally be thankful for in winter. They smartly said it’s like Jackson “zooms in” on all the things that make heat, that give him heat in the cold winter months, and he describes each one very specifically.

They noticed the formal tone that “sounds like church” and the repetition of the word “praise”.

Then, I asked students to try their own, using these instructions:

• Think of something you’re thankful for right now.
• Now, zoom in. Break that down into 8-10 smaller aspects or elements.
• Describe each of those elements in a phrase that: describes its appearance, describes its function, describes its behavior, describes its feeling, describes its sound
• Now, string them together -- adding line breaks + repeating “praise” at the beginning of each new element you describe.

Jackson’s easily-recognizable frame provides a template into which students can fit their own thinking and quickly end up with a successful poem of their own in about 10-15 minutes.

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.

2021 Post #12 -- Instagram Poems of Empowerment

by Allison Marchetti

In the age of social media, most of us have been the recipient of an unkind message or comment. Deleting or ignoring these messages can help take away the sting, but oftentimes the hurt from words lingers. In her incredible new book of poems, What Kind of Woman, Kate Baer takes the raw material of Instagram haters and transforms their disparaging words into new poems that empower, embolden, and better serve the recipient than the original message.

Baer’s Instagram rewrites look a lot like the newspaper blackout poems popularized by Austin Kleon (Steal Like an Artist), but instead of using newspaper and magazine articles, she uses the direct messages she receives. For example, in the poem “I hope this finds you,” Baer transforms a message in which a follower encourages her to take a detox cleanse to shed her extra weight. Using the same words in the same order, plus the power of erasure, she dissolves the original message into just 12 words that speak the power of learning to love the bodies we live in. Another poem, “It is unbearable” turns a message that criticizes Baer’s work into a feminist overture.

How might these poems of transformation help our students who are barraged by digital messages that might not be serving them? Here’s how a study of Baer’s work might go:

Pull up Baer’s instagram feed and share some examples of her Instagram blackout poems. You can tell you’re looking at a blackout poem because the post will contain two slides: the first slide is the new poem, the second slide is the original message.

Invite students to discuss her work: what makes these poetic responses so powerful? How do you think Baer goes about choosing which words to keep and retract?

Invite students to pull up or remember a hateful message they or a friend has received. Alternatively, allow them to scroll the profiles of Instagram influencers in search of hateful comments -- sadly, there is no shortage of them.

Give students time to talk in groups about the original message and how they might go about transforming these messages of hate into poems of empowerment. Give students time to write, share, and write some more.

The next day, students can share the original message alongside the new poem in a gallery style walk (either virtual or in person).

Further Reading:

  

Allison Marchetti (@allisonmarchett) is co-author with Rebekah O’Dell of WRITING WITH MENTORS, BEYOND LITERARY ANALYSIS and A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO MENTOR TEXTS (March 2021). She is the co-founder of Moving Writers, a blog for secondary writing teachers. She lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia.

2021 Post #11 -- Discovering Juxtaposition

by John Waite

The poem “The Laughing Heart” by Charles Bukowski features simple language but enough linguistic flourishes and ambiguities to put it in the sweet spot for high school students. His theme or message is stated immediately, so students should not have difficulty locating that.

In teaching poetry, my goal is to give students strategies that they can use as they approach any poem. Here are some of the strategies they would use as they worked with the poem.

Have students look for juxtaposition. For instance, the use of “dank” and “darkness” juxtaposed with the instances of “light” in the poem. Another instance would be the idea that you “can’t beat death but / you can beat death in life.” How does juxtaposition help Bukowski create meaning?

Have students debate which word in the poem is the “most important” to the poem’s meaning. They could choose their own word to argue, or you could give them options like “sometimes,” “delight,” and “life.”

Have students look for repetition (of ideas, words, images, forms, etc.) What in the poem repeats? What is the effect of that repetition?

Before giving the poem to students, the teacher replaces some of the important words in the poem with blank spaces (a strategy related to what is called “cloze reading”). Have students predict what words go in the blanks. Then have students compare and contrast their choices with the actual words, considering why the poet made the choices they made.

If you don’t want to do cloze reading as detailed above, have students try to replace words in the poem after they have read it. Why do different words not have the same effect as the ones the author chose?

Have the students mark the poem for lines or images that seem positive, negative, ambiguous, or neutral. What trends do they see? What do these trends tell them about how the poem works?

Possible discussion/investigatory questions specific to this poem include:

1. What does the word “dank” mean? Why did he choose that specific word? Over, say, “Dark.”
2. What do you think the author means by “light” in line 5? What different types of light could there be?
3. What do you think the author means in line 13? Why do you think he includes the word “sometimes”?
4. How do you relate the tone of the title with the rest of the poem? Why does he not repeat the word “laughing” elsewhere in the poem?

Further Reading:

John Waite is a teacher at Downers Grove North High School in Downers Grove, Il. He is a licensed Reading Specialist and National Board Certified Teacher. Reach John at jwaite@csd99.org.

2021 Post #10 -- A Miniature Autobiography

by Don Kemball

"Autobiography in Five Short Chapters" by Portia Nelson is one of my favourite poems for discussing the topic of hope.  

What captures me most is that it begins in despair -- but an ignorant sort. A place where you do not realize you are the problem. It builds slowly, finding the solution through struggle. Yet the poem ends with this incredibly powerful message -- that you can take any problem in your life and turn it on its end. You CAN find a way through and be successful.

Once my class has read the poem and broken it down using the SWIFT technique, I give them a short period to jot down a problem they are having -- one they truly feel is insurmountable. Then they look at it through the lens of the poem and look for a solution they haven’t thought of before. Do they keep walking down that same street? Can they find another?

Some years we extend the activity by sitting in a circle and sharing our problems in a general nature. We listen and reflect. Sometimes we give advice. But usually we just sit silently and appreciate each other and the courage it takes to share. Needless to say, this is not a September activity. I usually save this for the darkest part of the year when many people feel the lack of sunlight.

Further Reading: 

Don Kemball works as a teacher for the York Region District School Board just North of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has been using a poem-a-day strategy for almost 10 years with his class and is not sure how he could live without it. Find him on Twitter @dkemball

2021 Post #9 -- What We Leave Behind

 by Rama Janamanchi

In my classroom, we watch Chimamanda Adiche’s The Danger of a Single Story early in the year. I use it as a touchstone throughout the year to remind students to look beyond the obvious and the stereotypical in all the literature we read.

Ross Gay’s poem, A Small Needful Fact, is central to understanding how we all have stories that reveal another dimension of ourselves. When I first taught this poem, Eric Garner’s name was still familiar for most of my students. Last year, I had students ask who Eric Garner was. So the lesson below was born inspired by a Folger workshop at NCTE last year led by the inimitable Missy Springsteen-Haupt.

We begin by reading the poem chorally. Then I call on 2 volunteers to read part of this article as if they were newscasters. They are asked to take turns reading the first 4 paragraphs in the article. Then the class reads the poem again silently. Then the 2 students stand and read the paragraphs aloud again. This time, as the article is being read, the rest of the class reads aloud “A Small Needful Fact” until the newscasters are done reading the 5 paragraphs.

As voices of the ‘newscasters’ are slowly drowned by the poem, we return to discuss the impact of having both narratives run concurrently. This is especially true when the poem’s ending lines up with the fourth paragraph recounting Garner’s final words.

Further Reading: 

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

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 #7 -- A Contrafactual Hypothesis

 by Carol Jago

Contrafactual hypotheses have always fascinated me. In this poem Eve Ewing imagines that Emmett Till wasn’t murdered in Mississippi but lived, breathed, and shopped on the southside of Chicago. I love the details she depicts: Till’s porkpie hat, Roosevelt Road, and of course the candy bar. Among other things, the poem is an invitation to learn more about Till’s death and funeral, a landmark in the history of civil rights.

Eve Ewing’s 1919 is both a poetry collection and a history lesson. Drawing from events in the “Red Summer” when racial tensions erupted into violence across the nation she presents poems, photographs, and primary documents in conversation that invite the reader to reflect upon current events.

You can provide a print copy of "I Saw Emmett Till This Week At the Grocery Store" and then listen as a class to Jonny Sun read the poem for the Poetry Foundation’s Ours Poetica project.

Invite students to:

1. Read the poem identifying compelling details (“whistling softly,” “his hat, one of those fine porkpie numbers,” “Roosevelt Road,” “candy bar in hand”).
2. Brainstorm people from history or from the news (a celebrity, a sports figure, a politician, etc.)
3. Choose one of these people to learn more about.
4. Do a quick online search for information about the individual, looking for compelling details.
5. Write a poem modeled after Eve Ewing’s in which the individual is suddenly observed in a familiar contemporary place (at a bus stop, in the woods, on a Zoom call, walking down the street).

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).

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 #4 -- I Don't Like Poetry

 by Matthew Johnson

This morning I was reading introductory letters from my new group of students, and I was struck by how several students, as they always do, went out of their way to tell me the same four words that I’ve heard from scores of students over the course of my career: I don’t like poetry.

In my early years I struggled with how to respond to the inevitable and often vocal poetry critics that come into my classes each year, but a few years ago, I recalled a lesson from my youth that has since helped me to proactively win over a surprising number of these skeptics and detractors.

What I do now is that I, before we dive into our first poems of the year, lean forward and in hushed tones that denote a secret, I tell them my—to borrow a concept from comics—my origin story with poetry. I start by letting them know the truth, which was that when I sat in their position, I was anti-poetry myself. To me, poetry was something akin to a doily. It was nice enough for people who were into that kind of thing, but to me, it seemed frilly, fussy, and essentially useless.

I then jump to my junior year of college, when my professor, likely anticipating some resistant poets in the audience, dropped the Billy Collins’ poem "Introduction to Poetry" on our desks and asked for our thoughts on it. As I say this, I also drop this poem onto their desks and tell them that for some reason this poem grabbed me in that moment like none before. The language was so distinctly not fussy, the images felt crisp and clear, and the subversive tone very much appealed to the 20 year old me.

Lastly, I tell them that in that moment I understood both that I could like poetry and why I’d always disliked it before. Poetry is human existence condensed into, as Langston Hughes calls them, “atomic words.” Like any condensed flavor, if one dislikes the original flavor, the condensed version will be even less appealing, but when one comes across the condensed flavor of something one already loves, the taste can be like Nirvana.

To conclude the lesson, I tell students to go and find that flavor that works for them. Their Nirvana. It can be a slam poet, a pop song, another Billy Collins poem, or even Shel Silverstein. And the result, beyond students bringing a lot of great poems the next class, is that while plenty of beginning of the year letters mention not liking poetry, the ones at the end of the year never do!

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.

2021 Post #3 -- Small Kindnesses

by Elizabeth Jones

One thing I love about teaching middle and high school is the unique ability to watch my students forming their own world views, as they encounter the good, the bad, and the ugly of everyday life. These past few years, we’ve seen too little of the good: families pulled apart by political upset, gun violence and hate crimes on the rise, and the entire world devastated by an enemy virus. Now, more than ever, I worry about the world view our children are forming and what role we play in that.

Our weekly gratitude practice is an attempt to help students see the good in their lives. We watch short videos or read poetry that carries a positive message. Danusha Lameris's poem, "Small Kindnesses" is a perfect example. In the poem, Lameris speaks of the everyday nice things people do, usually without thinking - saying “bless you” and “thank you,’’ holding a door, or smiling at someone – good things.

Some lines are particularly effective in moving students to think. Lameris writes: Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. “Is this true?” I ask.

Much more thought provoking, are the lines:

We have so little of each other now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

"Tribe and fire" . . . These words conjure images of ancient people gathering for safety, warmth, and fellowship. The discussion that follows involves how we connect to others, how we still long for that sense of fellowship. Students then have three options for writing topics:

• small kindnesses they’ve experienced that week - perhaps unnoticed,
• connections in their own ‘tribes’ that provide safety and/or fellowship, or
• goodness/kindness that exists in humans (mostly).

“Small Kindnesses” is a poem of encouragement that shines a light on human kindness.


Further Reading:




Elizabeth Jones is an English teacher in the Central Bucks School District in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

2021 Post #2 -- Poetic Definitions

 by Brett Vogelsinger

Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of the few poets whose work rings in my head every now and then ever since I first encountered his work in college.  Every year in April when the world is flourishing back to life, I hear the words "when weeds in wheels shoot long and lovely and lush" and the sheer abundance of alliteration in his description of spring makes my heart sing a little.  

"Pied Beauty" is another poem that sticks with me years after first reading it.  I remember my professor elaborating on this poem -- a celebration of things that are speckled and spotted, not black-and-white, cut-and-dried -- about how remarkable it is that a Catholic priest wrote this poem, in a time when there was little tolerance of ambiguity.  

Since the poem is in the public domain, I can present it here: 

Glory be to God for dappled things—
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
       With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                     Praise Him.

The Hopkins Poetry website attaches the images of a speckled trout and a brindled cow to the poem, helping students to observe the pattern of each of the things Hopkins praises. 

In truth, the word "pied" always threw me off a bit in this poem. I figured it must be related to the word "piety," given the references to God in the poem, but in reality, it simply means this: "having two or more different colors; synonyms: variegated, multicolored, tabby."  

So after sharing the dictionary definition of this term with my students, I might say, "wouldn't it be fun to create our own, poetic definition of a word in addition to the dictionary definition?  We can take the real definition and make it sound more like a poem.  Or even imagine a different shade of meaning.  For instance, I might take this definition of "pied" and write something like this . . ."

pied (adj) -- defying a simple category or binary, complicated and beautiful and stronger because of its ambiguity

Have students select another word from this poem -- adazzle or fickle or fallow -- perhaps words they do not know too well.  Google search a dictionary definition to copy into their writer's notebooks, but then create a poetic definition for the word too, a variation, a speckled kind of denotation based on their understanding of the poem.  How is it different, maybe even better than the first?  

If you really feel like going deep: What would Gerard Manley Hopkins think of us expanding the definition of a word, and how can you tell this from the poem? 

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.

25 Vintage Posts To Stir Your Imagination

by Brett Vogelsinger

It is hard to believe we are already on the fifth year of Go Poems, and we are only a few days away from the debut of thirty new posts. For now, there are 120 posts to explore, and while rabbit holes can be fun now and then, a catalogue of organized links can provide a helpful map to begin your exploration. 

So here are twenty-five vintage posts, sorted by theme, that will help your students find joy in poetry during April 2021. 

Photo by Habib Dadkhah on Unsplash

Posts Featuring Nature or Science

1. Star Dust by Rama Janamanchi, 2020

2. Scientific Facts and Philosophical Ponderings by Cayne Letizia, 2020

3. Rituals in Difficult Times by Allison Marchetti, 2020

4. Toi Derricotte's "Cherry Blossoms" by Brett Vogelsinger, 2020

5. Reading and Writing Outdoors by Sarah Gross, 2019

Posts About Identity

1. You Say, I Say by Chris Kehan, 2020

2. Something You Should Know by Rebekah O'Dell, 2020

3. Say My Name by Brett Vogelsinger, 2020

4. Trapped by Nathan Harris, 2020

5.  The Mask by Trevor Aleo, 2019

Posts About Language

1. Beautiful Words and A Call to Write by Molly Rickert, 2020

2. The Poetry of Prose by Travis Crowder, 2019

3. A New Lens for the Sonnet by Carol Jago, 2019

4. Save Favorite Words by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, 2018

5. Flash Images: Creating Movement Without Verbs by Jeff Anderson, 2017

Posts Featuring Video of Poets

1. Words of Comfort by Brett Vogelsinger, 2020

2. A Harlem Renaissance Classic by Donte Demonbruen, 2020

3. In This Together by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, 2020

4. Paraphrasing an Argument and Paraphrasing a Rebuttal by Brett Vogelsinger, 2017

5.  A Poem in Two Languages by Brett Vogelsinger, 2017 (featuring my all-time favorite poem!)

Posts Featuring Art, Drawing, and Music

1. Engaging With Ekphrastic Poetry Andy Shoenborn, 2020

2. Poem or Song? by Jason Hepler, 2019

3. The Power of Poetry by Travis Crowder, 2018

4.  Taking Poetry to the Court by Tracy Enos, 2017

5. Song Lyrics Mash-Up by Penny Kittle, 2017