Teaching at the end of the year...

It can be a real challenge to complete a poetry residency at the end of the year. I had the privilege of teaching two more third grade classes at Stevenson Elementary School in Mountain View this spring. (Here's my post about the first class I taught last fall.)

Ms. Jolie and Ms. Luper worked hard to get all the classes scheduled in between testing, field trips, class photos, more field trips and more testing. One of the biggest challenges is getting the kids to focus, when they are understandably itchy to be out of the classroom. One way we figured out to deal with that was to let the kids out onto the field to investigate a big eucalyptus tree. In one class we brought bits of the tree back with us and wrote poems; in the other class the teacher passed out little notebooks she had, and the kids collected words while out in the field. Both techniques worked: the kids had tactile sense imagery literally at their fingertips. This photo is the group poem we wrote in Ms. Luper's class before I set them loose on their own work. I particularly love "little chewy plus nuts" -- an apt description of those little seed pods that fall from this particular variety of eucalyptus. One student came up with the phrase, and we both wrote it down in our notebooks.

This is the slightly more composed arrangement in my notebook. (Only Blogger knows why the photo won't rotate.)

On the day of the last lesson, the day before their last day of school, we had planned a lesson in personification. So, to kick of the lesson, I brought out a photo of my cat, Freya, taken by stellar photographer and friend Hannah Jenny. I asked the kids what feelings the cat was feeling. They came up with quite a list, and we talked about how you could tell if someone was tired, hungry, just waking up, just going to sleep, scared, lazy, or angry -- just by looking at their bodies, faces, hands, movements.

Then we listed all the feelings that the students were feeling about the end of school. Excitement was a big feeling, but they were honest that they also felt sad, confused, anxious, and happy, in some cases at the same time! The instructions for the lesson are to choose a feeling, and imagine that feeling as a person (or animal). Personify the feeling.

These are the personification poems we wrote about two of those feelings.

List of feelings about the end of school on the left; prompts on the right. 

Fear, described as a cat

Tiredness, described as a person, a boy and a girl

Personification is a fun lesson. Sometimes students needs a helping hand, so we ask them to think about what they like, what makes them afraid, happy, sad, excited. One boy in this class wrote (approximately):

Excitement feels like going to Florida for the summer.

Excitement is your heart beating hard, running, dunking a basket. 

Excitement wears a blue and gold t-shirt!

That last line imagines the feeling "excitement" as a Golden State Warriors fan. This young poet was so happy that he'd done something that surprised him. 

Go Warriors!! And thanks for the fun, Stevenson Elementary! 

20 Reading Poetry Strategies from The Atlantic

Worth reading. My favorite is #7.

A poem cannot be paraphrased. In fact, a poem’s greatest potential lies in the opposite of paraphrase: ambiguity. Ambiguity is at the center of what is it to be a human being. We really have no idea what’s going to happen from moment to moment, but we have to act as if we do.

You could develop a lesson around this article, if you were clever. Or, just pass out the article and let students discuss.

Charles Baudelaire by Gustave Courbet (Wikimedia Commons)

Teaching Halloween Poems

The Poetry Foundation has some great lesson ideas for teaching Halloween poems.

The Academy of American Poets has a huge assortment of Halloween poems, some old, some new, some quite startling. The also have lesson plans, with Common Core Standards highlighted.

My favorite Halloween poem is Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti, which you can read in all its glory here.

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy..."

Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19257#sthash.nvoXrylO.dpuf"

Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy; - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19257#sthash.nvoXrylO.dpuf

Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy; - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19257#sthash.nvoXrylO.dpuf

Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy; - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19257#sthash.nvoXrylO.dpuf

Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy; - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19257#sthash.nvoXrylO.dpuf

Poetry Crossing

A wonderful lady, fellow-CPitS poet/teacher, and awesome Emily Dickinson impersonator, Phyllis Meshulam, has a fun fun fun and colorful blog called "Poetry Crossing: Thoughts on poetry lesson plan book for K-12." Check it out for wonderful ideas about poetry teaching. 

Phyllis, a poet from Sonoma County, has contributed multiple lesson plans to CPitS anthologies over the years. This poem of hers, published in the 2002 CPitS Statewide Anthology, attempts to put in writing the movements of a poet performing in American Sign Language. Poetry is not all on the page or in the ear, it can also be performed by the body without sound. 

The Angel of Muscular Wings

Impressions of an American Sign Language Poem by John Roades

The poet is a skyscraper of a man,
          but flexible,
portraying the New York skyline,
          one humming tower at a time.

His hands take flight like airplanes
          with their fragile cargo;
his body, receiving the blow,
          explodes, and reconfigures

as the Angel of Muscular Wings
          that catches the couples jumping,
          the incinerating ants.
But, in reality, he is just human

sprouting feathers before our eyes
crocheting keratin
into fire-retardant sings
so as to represent those

who know to run
toward disaster:
          earthbound gestures
          eternally generous. 

Phyllis H. Meshulam 

There are lovely videos of deaf poets on YouTube. For example, here's "The United States of Poetry" by Peter Cook. This video includes a spoken rendition of the poem. There are also videos of poetry signed but not spoken. Your students might find the experience of seeing a poem in ASL quite astounding, if they've never known a deaf person or seen ASL performed. 

Enjoy!