Georgia Heard is another of my favorite writers who specializes in encouraging others to write. She has a range of books for teachers and for writers that you may have already discovered. Check out her website at http://georgiaheard.com . Many of her books focus on the teaching of poetry. Perhaps my favorite, however, is Writing Toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way (Heinemann), a thin, inspirational volume that encourage us to write from close observation and past personal experiences. She challenges us to see the ordinary in an extraordinary way. On her website she writes: “Whether you are a student, teacher or a poet I believe our challenge is to find the poetry all around us every day. Children are often the best teachers of this. That's one of my goals when I teach poetry is to help every student find the poetry inside.” Perhaps we can try to find what is inside us or buried in our ordinary lives for our ramblings this week. Your goal is two posts.
Another outstanding Heard publication we may look at later is The Revision Toolbox which gives all teachers tools for approaching revision with students.
36 comments:
Here is a post from Debbie on poetry you might like to check out.
She wrote"Here is a great poetry site that I was trying to post but it didn't go through as a a link, maybe you'll have better luck. It sounds as though some of the folks in class are starting poetry units and this is one we have had fun with this year."
Debbie
You will have to copy and paste into our browser.
http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm
Thanks! I'll look at it after school today. JJ
What a great site. I went to the library with my ninth graders yesterday. Boy, did we have fun. I decided to make it a week long assignment with us returning to the library again on Thursday with everything due the end of the day Friday. I gave them their assignment and set them lose with their text and two websites. Guess what websites? Yes, thanks to two of you ladies I give them the pretty elementary but fun site: www.gigglepoetry.com and this great sight of Debbie's: http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm. Hey, by the way, don't just put in giggle.com. You'll be embarrassed. Believe you me!!! Anyway, I asked them to make their own poetry collections consisting of ten or more original poems. I asked them to model two long poems from the text, find others they'd like to try from both of the two sites and go for it. They really got into it. It was neat to see them helping each other find "stuff" on the computers and editing their attempts at composing their own ditties. I'm truly looking forward to Thursday. Thanks for the sites and the suggestions. JJ
Sondra, I'm thinking maybe I need to email you and ask how to get my virtual tour #1 and #2 on this page?!?! They are on my blog and I thought I had put them on this page but... I'll look for them again but I'm concerned I not doing something right again. JJ
I have used the web site writingfix.com and tried this activity out with my fourth graders and it really had even the most reluctant of my writers joining in on the fun. I used the book Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street (a picture book) and instead of following the lesson that's posted on the website I did this. I would read the first few pages so they see that the next page is an effect of what happened on the previous page. They would write the next page on their own in their writing journals before I read the next page. They had a blast. Three of them have decided that they will use these pieces to create their weekly writing piece to turn in. Even if you don't use this idea the writingfix website is well worth the visit.
Ok, this is why I teach!! I have a student who came to me in the fall broken and in a shell. He had witnessed something happen to a loved one that we would never wish on anyone. He was also very angry and withdrawn. I've encouraged him to write how he feels down to get it out and shared with him that I did that years ago when our son died. He's a kiddo that is at least three years behind in his reading and writing and I never know if I'm making a difference. But today the prompt was to write about someone who made a difference in their lives, and he poured out his little heart into the loved one that took their life. I've never seen him write like this and when he was done he came to me and said, "your right, writing made a difference." I'm still drying my eyes.
That's why we do what we do.
Hello - Poetry ideas abound this week, just when we need it most in this crazy spring weather. another poetry resource i use for all grade-levels is GETTING THE KNACK, 20 Poetry Writing Exercises, by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford, an NCTE publication. my favorite 'easy' lessons are their FOUND and HEADLINE poems. these involve lots of searching through print media, cutting out and moving words around to revise and finally gluing. with these poems everyone has an experience with poetic language in a fun way. the product is quick and can be wonderfully idiosyncratic, a very liberating feeling for many of us.
many of the other lessons are complex, but worth the effort. as a wanna-be poet i LOVE following their quirky and exacting directions. i've used this book since my first job in Unalaska in 1993 and i use it often.
This journal entry I wrote in class today isn't a poem, but is the stuff of my daily life, over and over again..
The problem is, I’ve never really recovered from the birth of our youngest daughter mentally, or shall I say, intellectually. It’s been twenty months and I still have the memory of a goldfish. I’ve been told that with a few extra nights of uninterrupted eight hour snoozing I should be my crisp old self; that simply hasn’t happened. The sad thing is, I only have a dim amorphous sense, not really a memory or even an chalk outline of a memory, of having a sense of humor, of possessing the ability to read a paragraph only one time for comprehension, or remembering why I walked to the copy machine. I remember (or at least I think I do) hearing that a pregnant woman’s brain actually loses something like six percent of its mass due to its nine month progesterone flush. Six percent doesn’t seem like much, but if you’re already addled by sleep deprivation like I was from our first daughter, Alexi, then 11/2, you’re the mental equivalent of a gum boot, sticking to other people for direction, movement, and intellectual sustenance because your just not able to formulate your own…something or other. The good news is we’re supposed to get our brains back six months after birth, and I, 22 months later, who can only dimly recognize how hard my Sudoku puzzles have gotten, have figured out that the math just doesn’t add up. Shouldn’t I be getting some kind of mental dividend? Some cash back reward with compounded interest for lugging a baby bathtub inside me for nine months? Another example of my crystalline stupidity is my sudden inability to finish a sentence verbally. My tongue gets all twisted as my mouth tries to iron out the scrambled directions I’m attempting to give my students. The other day I was trying to say, “First group up [to the front of the room]!”, but I somehow just combined it all together and yelled, in my most articulate teacher voice, “Fu--uck!”. Who does this and keeps the class on task for the next twenty minutes? Not someone who can’t remember to bring her seventeen-year-old dog, the one whose lungs are the consistency of a paper bag, inside after an ash cloud advisory (you know, the same abrasive material that they’ve been warning can wreak havoc on the respiration of the young and the old). I don’t know the best cure. Thankfully, the memory of my sharper, wittier self is passively slipping into non-thought, where my best poems, perfect job interview answers, and brilliant Dead Poet Society-esque witticisms lurk. To be not remembered is to be not missed.
Molly, I LOVE that book but it's gotten lost in the move. Thanks for bringing it up; I'm about to enter that crazy national poetry month mixed with memory and desire and need some good reminders.
As I crawled out of bed reluctantly this morning- nose running, coughing, head aching—I wondered at the wisdom of posting an assignment about viewing the ordinary as extraordinary or finding poetry in my everyday life while I was feeling life was pretty much sh--. I shuffled out of the bedroom when this poem found me. I wrote quickly in about ten minutes before the cure wore off.
Oh, how it hurts
Head, chest, throat
Dry, raspy cough
Begs for warm relief
And there it is
Steaming green tea
In my stoneware mug
Awaiting my first sip
Back in the kitchen
He is pouring
His thick black coffee
Having brewed my tea
Broad back to me
He neatly wipes
Counters with care
Tending the daily tasks
He turns smiling
Takes coffee in hand
And comes to join me
With a quick cheek peck
I feels the healing balm spread
Loved and protected
By my mate of nearly 40 years
The best of medicine:
A cure for the common cold
Debbie, thanks for sharing that site. It looks like fun. Even the most reluctant writers should be able to find something there to enjoy.
Shelly, thanks for sharing the journal entry with your post-postpartum experience. Your humor makes your writing fun to read. I have never had children, but I still relate to some of the tongue-twisted-ness, although admittedly I've never busted out with something quite like that. You make me laugh!
oh, and wow! Sondra, I hope your husband appreciates poetry, because that's a great one. Spur of the moment, you say? Beautiful.
Sondra, sweet sweet moments those simple rituals of care can be. You've captured it perfectly.
This is not poetry, either, but it amused me. Debbie, I agree with your "this is why I teach" story because helping students process their emotional lives is a big part of our jobs whether it's acknowledged or not. But watching them make simple discoveries about the world through observation, that's another good reason to teach!
The ashfall from Redoubt hit our little town this afternoon while school was still in session, and some of the K-4 kids were looking out the window, trying to see the ash. It was snowing pretty heavily, so they were not convinced that anything besides snow was falling. Their teacher pointed out the window to a white car in the parking lot. Drops of water etched grimy lines in the dark powder that covered the car. She gently asked them, "Is that the way that car usually looks?" And the dawn of realization came over their faces. Kids are sweet.
And this is a ramble, right? So I'm allowed to go back and forth between topics, right? Debbie's poignant story reminded me of a similar one I had early in the year. My 7-8 class has several orphans in it, and one kid wrote a disarmingly honest account of when his foster mom told him that his real mother was killed. The class, normally exuberant and silly and energetic, was respectfully sober as he read the story out loud to them with a choked voice. And afterwards, a few of the others shared stories of loss. I went home that night and wept a few tears myself, thinking, what a privilege to get to share in the lives of young people. How trusting they are to me, a virtual stranger at that point. This is the best job I've ever had.
I love logging on here to see what people have written. You guys never fail me, I always giggle at someones post. You guys are funny!
I have read a ton of poems to my kids, but I have yet to have my kids write poems. We were talking about poetry at lunch one day and a teacher passed on the book Kids' Poems - Teaching Kindergartners to Love Writing Poetry by Regie Routman. I love this book! It has great ideas on how to teach poetry as well as some great kid written poems to share as examples. There are also other books in the series for 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th grades. The rambling topic reminded me that I had this book tucked away in a cabinet for later. I totally had a brain fart and forgot I had the book! I am really excited to start poetry after spring break. Thanks!
Sondra, Your poem reminds me that writing is a healing tool. You felt better in two ways today, the poem shared and the hubby hugged.
I feel better, too, having read your poem and being reminded to write when I am in need of healing.
En Joy, Sandy
I also have enjoyed everyone's original writings and appreciate the great resources. I would like to offer a source that has been around a while, but one that I have used over and over to teach poetry. The book is titled, Rose, Where Did You Get That Red by Koch.
And now some rambling:
Fear of rejection is a huge issue with some of my students, taking the risk of being real and having someone invalidate that. So, often some of my students create a persona that they think others will like, but is clearly not authentic and fails anyway. I try to remind them of what was most helpful to me and that is that we write best about what we know best, which is ourselves and our experiences, which is what Geogia Heard is encouraging. I'm anxious to read her books.
Ch 2 in the text represented much of my own experiences. As someone stated before, it is reassuring to find that you are on the right track on some things. Knowing that we have a reading, speaking and writing vocabulary and that writing is our smallest it makes sense that the connections between them can improve writing. When I was encouraged to use scaffolding with teaching poetry I made a great discovery.I originally thought it might limit creativity to include too much. However, over and over again I see that it builds confidence and understanding and actually increases students creativity and risk taking when they are ready.
I agree with Graves that there is no one way to teach writing just as there is no one way to teach reading. You need a large collection of strategies. However, my students seem to need an organizational frame that that they can hang on to.
Even after teaching for awhile I'm not certain where I stand on "the basics." I often have heard that mechanics is best taught in short sessions and separate from the actual writing process. I've also heard that we should never present incorrect writing, yet DOL has been used for years. I guess I do a bit of everything just in case and to make sure it's covered. I believe kids will eventually develop the process that works for them if they have enough to choose from.
Ch 3
This reading supported my experience that students struggle with organization and that planning and knowing how to plan is helpful. As I said earlier, portfolios have been my preferred approach to teaching writing. One skill that we practice is "purging" every month or two. Sorting through work in a portfolio and keeping what is important or valuable is a difficult skill for some to learn. I liked the comment about process-oriented instruction and problem solving. I'm very focused on problem solving in all of my classes and while I never thought about that before it makes a lot of sense to me.
Regarding writing across the curriculum: The school I'm currently in has the most communication among middle school teachers that I have ever seen. There are so many opportunities to incorporate writing that is supported in all content classes. There is much effort to coordinate and share curriculum. However, writing is separated out and taught in a separate class through essays that are disconnected from Science or History, which are areas of interest for many students. I can only imagine what could be accomplished if writing became the focus.
Marlie, your comment makes me wish I had more time with my students. Some I only see briefly throughout the day. It reminds me that I should do more reading to them. I like the Yamaha method of teaching music.My kids used it. It is natural and makes sense. We hear music, we play what we hear and then we learn to read and break reading down to writing music. Kids need to hear a lot of poetry and stories and good writing first before we can expect them to be able to write them.
Jeanie, Thanks for that simple, strong reminder about, well, really what modeling can do to inspire and create a safety net. Sometimes I lose sight of how many chances to see, hear, transcribe and experiment with language we need to be surrounded by in our busy, rushing lives. I remember a creative writing teacher from years ago who said 'Words are so common, not like clay which changes form, from mud to a vase. People use words all the time. It is our job to show how conscious care can make words become shelters and masterpieces.' It loses something in the translation of my faulty memory, but your comparison to the Yamaha method reminded me of her comment.
and Marlie, the Regie Routman kinder book is great! It opened a new world for me when I began to use it. For the kids it was so intuitive once they saw the works of others.
reading everyone's post makes me want to be a general ed teacher in something higher than preschool. Don't get me wrong I have a blast with the little tykes. They are so accepting and almost daily demonstrate growth in one area or another. But, I sometimes long for more. I miss my years as a middle school teacher (that was sped also). The only time I have been a general ed teacher was during my student teaching (2nd grade). I remember teaching the students about acrostic poems. I demonstrated using my first name and then my middle name (a mini lesson). Then I turned them loose to write one that described them using thier first name. I was pleasantly surprised to see a student with autusim whip through his first name in a very short time. In fact he allowed me to read his aloud to the class, as most were still trying to figure out what to do. I still remember it to this day.
M any friends
A lways happy
T akes out the trash
T ries hard
H elps mom around the house
E njoys ice cream
W ants to go to Disney World
Jeanne – Your comment regarding Graves and how there is no one way to teach reading and writing, really hits home for me right now. We are in the midst of some restructuring for next year and I feel like there are some things that can be added or changed to do better for kids. It seems that change can be very difficult though. Isn't there room to try new or different ideas? Shake up the way things are done? I guess we shall see over the next couple of months.
Sondra,
I can relate to your poem, in fact a good portion of our village can. And just as most of us are starting to feel better and enjoy the warm sun, not as much as were would like to as we were making up one of our snow days by having school on a Saturday, the wind picked up and once again we are immersed in the swirling winds of a blizzard.
Here I sit late at night
with snow blowing out of sight
to venture out at this time of night
would get the sojourner a fright.
Now I sit behind my computer screen
think of something to write while turning green.
Is it a cold, or perhaps on of the flus?
Oh no, I developed a case of writer's blues.
It is late and I can't think,
so I'll call it a night and have a drink.
Nothing with alcohol in it will do,
I'm allergic and that's true,
so I'll have nothing of that ilk,
just give me a glass of good old fashioned milk.
One of my students wrote a poem about her best friend. It ended out looking more like a descriptive essay than a poem. I sat down with her and demonstrated how she could take each of the items she described in her essay and put it into poem form.
Maggie
Best friends
Since we were kids
Born on the day of love
February 14th
Always laughing always fun
Making jokes
Great sense of humor
Beloved by everyone
Traveling around the delta
Different villages she loves to visit
She loves the outdoors
Hunting with her friends and family
Smart in school
Good grades
Passing most of her classes
She is so cool
Best friends
Always
And forever
So, after all that one on one instruction and discussion??? She's decided to write the poem about something different.
It is interesting to get the comments to post. You have to put these word verification letters in the little box before you click on the orange bar labeled "Publish your comment". Now this will bring up another word verification if you compose your comment on line and it takes you more time than the posting devil allows.
What strikes me as funny is the letter combinations that come up. The letters chosen remind me of the invented spellings of many of my emergent writing students. I had one tonight that was spelled "mutch" and another spelled "togatels" These could be words in of themselves if used in the right context.
Take mutch for example. It would be pronounced the same as "much" but if you were creating a word to describe something peculiar to dogs or mutts, you might invent the word "mutch". It could mean becoming mutt like in nature.
Another writer of science fiction may create a race of space aliens called Togatels. This alien race could exist on the planet Togatel and be located somewhere on the other side of the galaxy.
Who knows, some decades from now a very clever writer may invent a slew of new words with invented spellings and have them appear in the Oxford English Dictionary as legitimate words. As if we don't have enough words to worry about.
This week was a crazy one for me. I had parent conferences after school until 7:30 everyday EXCEPT Thursday because that day I had the flu. There is something really demoralizing about having the flu when you are an adult. My husband is gone right now so of course the first thing I do when I finally raise my head from the toilet and wipe the secondary oozing from my nose is...wait for it...call my parents. Yep. It doesn't matter that I have lived all over the country and not with my folks for 9 years, the first thing I do when I have a scrape in life is run my parents for a bandaid. Losing an unexpected day of school really set my whole week off kilter. Friday I made up conferences which meant I was at school until after 8. Saturday was interesting though. A collegue and I are involved in this grant trying to address the specific life and academic needs of Native boys K-3. As part of the grant the two of us met with 8 boys individually yesterday and created these awesome goal setting PATH's. The whole thing is a big mess to explain but suffice to say, it went super well. One of the boys was really angry to be doing something with teachers on a Saturday and at the end, he mentioned that he had had fun. Yea!
April is officially Poetry Month! Eek! I am writing lesson plans as soon as I finish this so it is wonderful to have some resources to help guide me. I went to gigglepoetry as JJ suggested and loved the fact that there were reader's theater poems listed as well. I will for sure being doing that. I also really want to take the time to incorporate some Earth day activities in this month so if any of you have any good ideas I am all ears. Sondra, I loved your poem. It made me really go "ahhh". I need to dig around and find some of my poems that I have loved. I haven't had the itch to write one in awhile, probably as I have taken on too many things right now and don't have the luxury of creative thought time.
I like the site that Debbie sent along as well...fill in the blank poetry is about where I am at right now! :)
Here is a rambling I wrote for my in-laws who are in Seattle this evening, again:
On our way home but the mountain blew up
[Day 1]
Mt. Redoubt erupted
on board-flight cancelled
just plane stuck
[Day 2]
Mt. Redoubt erupted
cancelled flight
just plane stuck
[Day 3]
Mt, Redoubt erupted
cancelled flight
just plane stuck
[Day 4]
Mt, Redoubt made a mess - will it erupt?
cancelled flight
just plane stuck
[Evening 4]
Mt. Redoubt rests
Will the flight cancel?
just plane stuck?
Marlie,
Each time I think that change is going to be tough, I realize that everything is changing: the tide, the weather, and the kids.
If all this is changing, it makes it easier for me to accept change and even take part. -since not changing seems like a lot more work (lazy grin)
I took a look at the "http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm" and find it to be a wealth of information that I plan to share! Poems without some form of example are very difficult for me to teach
Shelly, I laughed and shrunk at your entry. I laughed because it was just plain funny, and I shrunk because I see myself in your shoes. Isn’t the brain a funny organ? We don’t think about it much until things start going haywire.
As a youngster there was an old man in town whom my sisters and I used to privately make fun of because he talked so slowly that people always finished his sentences. He also had problems with remembering people’s names, people who he knew for years. It was always an inside joke between sisters to be called “Ted” for a language gaff.
Now that I’m getting up in years, I don’t find the humor in being called Ted anymore. People who don’t know me well have wondered if Ted really is my name. It is frustrating to mix up words in a sentence or not be able to come up with a name when introducing old friends to someone I work with. “Just give me a moment. I’ll come up with it,” is starting to feel more annoying than funny. And people who finish my sentences are just plain rude.
Friends will be polite and say things like, “Your disk is full,” or “You have so many things going on. It’s a wonder you can remember anything at all.” However, I did have one administrator give me some valuable advice when I forgot an important bit of information. He said, “Just get in the habit of writing things down.” I took his advice, and I write everything down. I have thousands of pieces of post-its around my desk at school and all over my house. Now the problem is finding the right post-it at the right time.
Karma.
Jerrilyn
Creative, talkative, organized, achiever
Sibling of Steven and Michelle
Lover of horses and flowers
Fears not achieving
Needs projects, goals, activities, and people
Would like to see peaceful productive families
Resident of Fairbanks
Thanks for sharing this great website Debbie. I used All About Me poetry in grade school counseling during our All About Me units but had filed the lesson plan away.
All about Me poems are a great way for high school students to express themselves in Hutchison’s Advisory Groups. These poems are instant and give advisors a snapshot of students. Students like a format to help them with writer’s block and the fear of not producing great poetry.
These instant poems are great on the site http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm.
Jerrilyn
Born in Idaho Falls
Child of Lloyd and Betty Campbell
Lived in Idaho
Studied in Hawaii, Utah, Idaho, Alaska
Overcame Shyness
Worked as a school counselor
Challenged by ADHD
Personal traits Caring, Compassionate, Creative
Always Family Oriented
Never pessimistic
Best known for my creativity and organizing projects
The Instant Biography and Bio Poem are great tools for our Advisory Groups which are held two times per month for thirty minutes.
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