Wisdom Teeth

I absolutely loath
the nauseating, drowsy,
out-of-my-head, "what
did you say?"
side-effects of
Medicine, almost
more than the
cringing, wincing,
deep breath-taking,
"don't kiss me",
after effect pain
of wisdom teeth
extraction.

Almost.

However, once the
excruciating, smile-
preventing, quagmire-
look-alike, tear-
streaming pain
ensues,
I succumb to the
pain, and
choke down
the horse of a
light-headed, catch
me if I faint,
"where is the toilet?"
"No, the bed,"
queasy, "I'd
rather the pain"
vicodin pill

only to repeat
this cruel schedule
when I awake.

Class Notes

Ranting to write poetry

Why in the world would you expect someone to learn English just because they had to come to America? Not everyone comes to America for a jolly-good ole time. Some come here as refugees. To escape injustice. Some come as adults. Leave their homes and families behind. Hoping to create a new home. Many immigrants don't come here with much in their pocket. Some come hoping for more for their kids. Working two jobs. Doing what others won't. And they are supposed to have time to attend a class to learn English, because it inconveniences YOU? Why don't you try to go learn a new language? You go uproot yourself and build a new life in a country who doesn't speak your language and treats you differently. I'm not saying that it is unnecessary to learn the language of a country you move to, but to be appalled and upset that someone has not learned English, shows no consideration of their lives.

America.
The land of dreams,
Equality and
Freedom
of
Speech.

American Pride
of
The BIG
Melting Pot
Where everyone
Does NOT
Speak
English.


"Can-you-say-English?"
And
Silence.
Appalled, I just
Stare.
And in this silence
my silent mind
Rages, no longer silent.
Lazy, Inconsiderate and selfish
Accusations and assumptions
Begin.
Accusations of a person
And their past.
Their life.
All before they
Approach the window.
Assumptions
of capability
Between jobs and kids


Story Corps through NPR

"For Eli"

It is not fair to prepare our children for utopia, unprepared for the hardship in the world. Students need to learn of these depressing topics that they do and will have control over, if even within their own community alone.

fair, present, yes, important regardless of age, wait til older, society issues, effect them later, family deals with, comforting people to talk to, not just them or family, forming opinions, know their morals, right and wrong,

exposed to the horror of world at all, no, more unfair to not be given chance to respond, chance to talk, relate, form opinion, to understand, desensitized youth,

not fair to leave the unprepared for the world. give them the idea of a utopia. you leave the school and enter the world. outside the four walls. that's a lot to take in if you weren't taught to repsond. discuss. talk. your family isn't the only family to go through those issues. even certain families feel they should not talk about certain things at school.

there will be a time when something taboo will come up and that's life. students need to be able to cope.

class notes

Learning About Butterflies : Children drawings from the Holocaust

Jotting notes about pictures.

First picture:
farm, family, home, grandparents, flying, somber cat, drinking, night, sick, medicine, town, colors, culture, small town, hard work, key?, sickly, help, angry man to the side, angel, spiritual, helping those in need, witches, owls, roosters, leading, a spiritual being?, leader, christianity, crosses

Perle Hessing: Paintings of her life. began painting later in life with cataracts and arthritis

"The Hungry Ones"

make three lists of painting: List of objects, actions, and events

objects
clock
dog
candles
pillars
table
linens
window
clock
cat
bird in cage
little chair
large curtain
chandelier
pulle dup hair
people outside the window

Actions
waiting
serving
sitting
laying
watching
burning
ticking
sound/music playing
smelling
breathing

Events
Dinner time
Special guest
Uninvited guest
During the holocaust?

Emotions
secretive
anxious
hungry
bored
nervous
content
relaxed
longing
amused

Possible titles for painting
The Wait
Group Discussion

The Awaited Guest

Possible Poem

A cloak of disguise
hiding the
hard
stained
scratched
oak that lies beneath,
tough and strained
as their life,
underneath
this flowered
distracting
cover.

Class Notes: 8

Centers!

Action words

Pick a poem and an action word. Action!

Magnet words

Using the magnets, create haikus, alliterations, noun poems... etc.

Reading center with drawing utensils

Current events center

fold paper, write words that stand out on one side, create poem on other.

Nature center

Touch and feel and write.

Listening Center

Art center

Create a collage from magazines and write a poem about the collage.

________________

Chapter 8 from A Note discussion

Learn about language and learn to use terms as writers and not being told to have to use them in a particular way.

Next week: Photography and poetry. Bring an evocative photograph with strong emotions or mystery.

April 5th: Art and poetry. Article by Grant. Full day immersion of one piece of art and what you can do with that. Great Exhibit at the art museum. Possibly going there instead.

April 19th: Poetry Slam. Reading poetry about social issues and performing them.

Class Notes: 7

Who was the woman who wore the hat?

by Nancy Patz

Pretend You're a Cat

Who was the woman to wear this diamond first?

Who bought it?

Why was it bought?

Was it worn on her ring finger?

Was it worn everyday or just for special occasions?

Why is it still in the family?

Why did I get it?

Who cut it?

Did she love it?

What did it mean to her?

Did she plan to pass it down to her daughter?

Was it in her will?

Why was it hidden in a compartment in a desk?

Why was it hiding?

Was it to prevent greed?

Was it to forget a past?

Was it admired?

Was it forgotten?

How many fingers has it been on?

How many times has it been worn?

How many reasons has it been worn?

Light shining through,

clear and vacant.

A glassy diamond

Poetry centers:

Using Practical Poetry and Awakening the Heart

Performance Center

Partner with a friend.

Choose a poem from the paper bag.

Choose a method from the second paper bag.

~Sing, rap, dance, quietly, loudly, read with an accent/ different voice, snap your fingers or clap your hands to the rhythm of the poem, Turn it into a play,

I'm Not Afraid of the Dark

Oh, I'm not afraid of the darkness. I don't mind an absence of light. I can't say I'm scared of the sunset or things that go "bump" in the night. I've never been frightened of monsters or tentacles under my bed. Not skeletons, witches or goblins or creatures come back from the dead. I'm not at all worried of werewolves, or even a vampire's bite. I'm simply not scared of the darkness, except when you turn off the light. --Kenn Nesbitt Polar Bowling It used to be that polar bears went bowling, just for grins, with snowballs for their bowling balls and penguins as the pins. The bears would have a blast with all the snowballs that they threw. The penguins weren't as happy; that's the only time they flew. So penguins all moved south and now they're at the other pole. Well, wouldn't you move far away if bears used you to bowl? --Kenn Nesbitt I Went to the Doctor I went to the doctor all covered in bumps. He said "you've got chicken pox, measles and mumps." He said "you've got whooping cough, tetanus, rubella, digestive dysfunction from green salmonella. "You've got halitosis and elephantitis. You've also got athletes foot and laryngitis. "You're covered with head lice, mosquitoes and fleas. You've even got pink-eye and mad cow disease. "What's more you've got cooties, a cold and the flu, but don't be upset; I know just what to do." He told me "I promise this won't hurt a bit," then grabbed a syringe like a barbeque spit. He made me bend over the seat of my chair then plunged that big needle in my you-know-where. So now I'm all cured of my cooties and fleas, my whooping cough, measles and mad cow disease. He cured me of every last sniffle and bump, and now I'm all better except for my rump. --Kenn Nesbitt

A Note Slipped Under the Door: Ch. 6

Ch. 6

A Note Slipped Under the Door: Ch. 3

This is the roses.

"I dropped out of school. I didn't drop out of life."

"We hope that by telling stories off an overhead line, students will begin to feel more comfortable with generating thoughts, thereby making some interesting connections to their lives."

Instead of saying eavesdropping, call it absorbing the world or soaking up the world, just in case older kids begin to expose others. What if you ask the kids to eavesdrop on their teachers?

Introducing poetry with the kids own words during for example, snack time.

Making a soundtrack with song titles using eavesdropping.

Class Notes: #6

Begin reading our favorite poem.

Marginalia by Billy Collins "Sailing alone around the room"

The Important Book - book of informational and list poems

by margaret wisebrown who also wrote goodnight moon

Telling about our eavesdropping

two girls discussing

serious boyfriend

sees boyfriend girlfriend

spending time

not dating

just talking

cant connect

In the teller line
Older gentleman and his little boy
The teller offers the boy a lollipop
“I’m 10. I don’t want a lollipop. I want that car.”

“You seem lot more interested in cars than your dad.”
“He’s 54. I’m 10.”

Laughter

**************************************

The Swing

Swing under the oak

feet scraping the gravel

and the worn, green lumpy carpet

shaded, swinging.

The sun behind us.

learning, repeating

"Little Boy Blue"

safe, happy,

and wondering

How can I climb the oak?

Final draft.

Swinging under the oak

with my feet scraping the gravel

covered with the worn, green, lumpy carpet.

The swing, pushed with her feet,

in the shade under the oak,

swinging with the sun behind us.

*****************************************

Feedback:

Bless: praise

Express: making a connection

Address: the writer is in control and you ask your readers to address something specific in your poem.

Press: Give control to the reader. What do you like, not like, would change?

*****************************************

Metalanguage: what metalanguage did you use when reading the poem?

• syllables
• rhyme
• rhythm
• inferring
• parts of speech
• verb tense and verb form

Class 4: Missed

Day #4 Hearing the Poetry Kids Hear: Music and Poetry

Poetry books related to music

Flash drive – poetry/music book – God Bless the Child, Hush Little Baby, Beebop

5:00-6:00 Jan Miller Burkins, guest poet: Writing the blues

Blues music, Yesterday I had the Blues

Reading & writing the blues - write, confer, share

6:00-6:15 Explore LiteracyHead

6:15-7:00 Poetry Workshop 2: Musical/Poetic Response to Literature

· Play the song you brought as people read the lyrics; tell why the song is meaningful to you

· What is the pattern in each song? Which song might be easiest to use in writing your own? Or what melody do you all know well enough to sing?

· As you listen to me read (Black History theme, e.g., biography, jot down strong words, phrases, possible themes

· In groups (or individually, in pairs), decide what song or pattern to use as a melody or rhythm (it helps to start with common melody; use the internet)

· Construct verses that tell the story, a chorus that emphasizes the theme

· Perform if you will! – show text on document camera

7:00 Pedagogy Groups

· Discuss chapters 1 and 2 in A Note Slipped Under the Door & Linda Christensen’s “Celebrating the Student Voice”

· A Note…good model for lesson planning, connected lessons rather than just an array of ideas

· whole group discussion – re: Guidelines for Teaching Poetry

· how can we as teachers learn more about youth culture, why it is important, and how to connect through music/poetry

· what do kids in your community listen to? How can you find out?

· Hip Hop Educator Marcel Mincey, Black history rap, grammar, presidents http://www.myspace.com/rapthenation

· Past classes: Tiffany – uses Elvis lyrics (4^th), Sabreen - blues

· How can you incorporate these ideas in your teaching?

God Bless the Child – Billie Holiday, Jerry Pinkney

– Pinkney did extensive research – photographic records, interviews with people who had migrated, museums

– depicts great migration of African Americans from the deep south to cities in the north, around 1900-1950 – “the largest peacetime movement of people in the united states”

– they moved for jobs and schools, but often found segregated schools and housing, unions that excluded them

– brought spirituals, mingled with urban jazz, great blues singers like Billie Holiday

– Pinkney ends the book in a classroom – education seen as the great promise of equality, how the child would “have his/her own”

– Jean Bap•tiste Pointe du Sable (zhän ba-tēst' pwant dOO sä'blu) pictured on blackboard – Haitian, “father of Chicago”

Students studying events, periods in history

– study the music or poetry of the time

– select song or poem, illustrate with photographs or art

– write a song or poem about a specific event and do the same

Hush Little Baby – Brian Pinkney (son of Jerry Pinkney)

- interpretation of a nursery rhyme, Appalachian lullaby

- set in a 1900 African American family – Mama goes to work, Papa “is left to care for the young ‘uns”

- drew on his own experience as the father of two young children

Talk about, illustrate, rewrite popular rhymes

Beebop Express

- read aloud, choral reading, study the rhythm, write another verse/stanza

7:30 Next week: how can we help kids revise?

Start Locomotion! (has anyone read it?)

A Note Slipped Under the Door: Teaching from Poems We Love

Nick Flynn and Shirley McPhillips (both involved with Teachers College Reading and Writing Project with Lucy Calkins, Nick as Poet in Residence)

Chapter 1 A Compass Through These Waters

Mentor Poem: Shawndell’s Williams’ (3^rd grade) poem Kingdoms with Love

• concept of “mentor poems” – we’ll talk about all semester
• – “ a poem that we love, that moves us in some way, intellectually, emotionally, or spirituality”
• – and ones that we can learn from and emulate in terms of style, language, emotion, etc.

Use of the book:

• each chapter has several mini-lessons that can be adapted for your class
• focus on series of lessons
• 4 headings: Getting Started, Keeping it Going, Extending our Thinking, and Mini-Inquiry

Terms

• writers notebook, entries from daily writing, seedlings (could be folder, etc.) see appendix C
• mini-lesson
• inquiry
• sketching (drawing after hearing, reading)
• writing long

Chapter 2 Watermelons in My Grandmother’s Car: The Image

Mentor Poem: In Passing by Alberto Blanco

• how can we hold people and events in our memories without images, like the car so dirty a watermelon literally grew?
• “Images hold the meaning of our lives”
• KEY: “I think about the image first and the rhyme [or structure] only incidentally” – start with image, not form!

Mini-lessons, 2-3 weeks on Imagery

• getting started:
• 3^rd, pictures in your mind, students then find poems with strong images
• choosing a mentor poem: In Passing (student found), read, discuss, mark images
• sketch – “directed looking” at specifics of image – “students mark places in their notebooks where they have written so that it gives us an image. They are then to choose one and sketch it”
• discussing sketches, next day, may not have the concept yet, find examples that do, partner discussions
• rewrite poem WITHOUT images (see how different), then re-examine their own entries
• writing long
• conferring on imagery (keep notes – good ideas for next day mini-lessons on what kids need), lots of questions, “close your eyes and picture her, now tell me what you see…” conference examples, Appendix B
• keeping it going
• further discussion, examples of images
• modeling in our notebooks (teachers own writing) of sketching, narration of sketch>>>plans for poem
• using literature – looking for images in other reading
• extending our thinking
• use of place in mentor poem – talk with partner about the setting of your image (from notebook), report some in whole group, read entries, etc.
• read What you Know First [use more urban examples, Street Music, Carolina Shout, etc.]
• use of action in mentor poem – look at verbs, then at your own
• other ways writers create images: action, setting, dialogue, metaphor/simile, objects, comparisons
• mini inquiry
• sometimes whole class, sometimes a small group
• 2-5 days
• writing long: work backwards from mentor poem to “long” version poet might have written (do together as class)
• modeling students writing long
• read what student wrote
• sketch what you “saw” when I read
• modeling our own writing long, think aloud about your choices, show your drafting from the sketch, plans; then ask students to return to their writing
• conferences to refine: e.g., two columns for ordinary and interesting words – help students select, ask why
• turning the entries into poems…wow!

Favorite part – K poem, Shawanna

I had a seashell.

My baby brother broke it.

The song came out.

The song wont’ come back.

Linda Christensen, Celebrating the Student Voice

• read Rayford’s song
• strategies for teaching with Rayford’s song (or any poem or song with powerful lyrics)
• share poem with students, do text rendering (underline words, phrases, that strike them) then create oral group poem reading these
• reflect in free-write, personal response [or take a line for a walk] – read
• read “His Story” (similar to Mincey’s My People…)

Class Notes: #5

Revision: Word Splash

______________________________________________________

Poetry Revisions Strategies

(advice from Donald Graves and Georgia Heard)

Meaning

· Highlight the one line that says most what you want the poem to be about

· add/delete/ revise lines in support of the “main line”

Word Choice

· underline verbs – are there ones you could substitute that are more active and precise?

· search for more exact words, especially names and other specific nouns rather than general ones (Wheaties versus cereal)

Design and Layout

· examine ends of lines - use strong nouns and verbs there (not prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives or adverbs) usually – there are always exceptions, but do it for effect

· read the poem aloud several times; rearrange line and stanza breaks based on rhythm and emphasis

Final Draft Refinements

• ask someone to read it to you – listen to how they are reading/interpreting it; as you listen and confer, ask yourself
• Are there awkward words or phrases or clichés? How can I make them strong, poetic, memorable words or phrases?
• What feeling does the reader get? Does the poem have “emotional truth”? Do I need different words or images to move the reader?
• Are parts confusing? How can I clarify? Are ambiguous or abstract places a strength or weakness?
• Do I have clear, powerful, vivid images? Where do I need stronger images?
• Did I show rather than explain?
• Does the poem lose energy? What can I delete or revise?
• What surprises – ahhhhhh!

_________________________________________________________________________

Revising your work in front of the kids is a great idea to show the students how to revise, what to look for. Even encourage the students to revise with you.

~Interstate 95 North: Example of the writer revising his own work in writing.

♪ ♫ Song performances for desegregation. ♪♫

Six Image Poem practice

Ten Mini-Lessons: Theme - Observation and Wonder Door (Two Paper Doors to help differentiate)

1. Take students on a field trip to sensory room. Allow for them to explore and see what they can find using their five senses. Once the trip is over, create a list of observations based on what they saw, touched, heard, and smelled.

2. Wonder Door: Ask the students what they wondered about?

3. Ask the kids what are the best two or three words that best describe the room. Ordinary to Poetic words: Ask the students to elaborate on the words they chose. How is it smelly?

4. Turn the poetic words into a rough draft poem. Organize the words/ideas together based on senses. Then making the line breaks.

5. Revise! 1st draft.

6. Practice reading out loud and see if we need anymore line breaks.

7. Finish observation poems and continue to wonder poems.

Charrette Protocol - 10 minutes each

• Present the work in progress
• ask for the kind of help you want - "address xyz"
• appoint a moderator/facilitator to help guide the discussion summarize key points
• listen only as others discuss the word regarding the aspects authoring team has asked you to address

Suggestions:

1. possibly keep the wonder door until after observation poem

2. paralleling it with why? While writing about observations ask why?

3. Go in the observation door and come out the wonder door.

Next week for class 6: eavesdropping and lists - do these actions during the week.

Awakening the Heart: Ch. 2: Poems keep singing to you all your life

"One of the reasons to invite poetry into our lives nad into the lives of our students is to meet our invisible guests - grief, joy, anger, doubt, and confusion." pg. 19

The three layers of reading poetry

1. choose poems to read that are immediately accessible, nonthreatening and relevant to students

2. Help students connect personally to a poem by guiding them toward finding themselves and their lives inside a poem

3. Guide students toward analyzing the craft of a poem, figuring out how a poem is built, interpreting what apoem means, or unlocking the puzzle of a difficult poem.

Living Anthology Project - pg. 23

I love this idea!!!

Awakening the Heart: Ch. 1: A place where your life really matters

"A classroom environment can send out messages: that all of our students' lives matter; that every voice is worth listening; and that students can take risks in writing poems about whatever their hearts urge them to write." pg. 3

"We need to help our students find their images and voices - their 'poetry homes'"

"Listen for words that feel true, expressions that surprise or describe something in a new or beautiful way."

Introduce students to poets who are still alive, their thoughts on writing, their process and the life of a poet. Make it real. It's not just shakespeare.

Truly believe that every one of your students has the potential to be a poet - especially the struggling ones. ~pg. 4

Cracking open words:

Taking over-used words and finding the image inside it.

It was a nice day. = "It was exciting and the snow was beautiful."

Directions: None of the sentences below give us a picture in our minds using words. Next to each sentence describe and write what you see in your own mind.

I love the idea of encouraging the students to keep things at their desks that inspire them to write. When I think of a poets desk, I imagine it has random things on it. A perfect idea to incorporate in the classroom.

Awakening the Heart: Ch. 3: Where does poetry hide?

Inside this pencil

crouch words that have never been written

never been spoken

never been thought

they're hiding

they're awake in there

dark in the dark

hearing us...

~W.S. Merwin

I want to inspire my students to write rather than give them a formula for writing. I'm used to giving writing prompts and "letting" the students run with it, but in reality, this is far from inspiring. Students do hide in unlikely places. It may not be hiding in the brook by the enchanting forest, but rather in the old sweaty sock at the bottom of the hamper because of the triathlon from the previous weekend.

Where poems come from

1. Absorb. Be like a sponge. Notice everything.

2. Make things look different. Look at things differently.

3. Use 4D. When writing, leave the three dimensions and go to the fourth.

The Wonder Door

A Note Slipped Under the Door: Ch. 2

"I think about the image first and the rhyme only incidentally." ~Barbara Esbensen

A way so readers can see what is the writer sees

~ Using all of your senses, sketching, and observations

I really love how using one mentor poem is encouraged throughout the unit. This is a great way for students to gain a deep understanding of the poem of choice and even allow for greater growth in their writing.

I love the concept of writing long, trying to push through and write about a given topic with as many descriptors as you can. It's a great mental exercise.

A Note Slipped Under the Door: Ch. 1

Chapter 1:

Kingdoms With Love

Some kingdoms can be buildings.

Small kingdoms are doghouses.

And really really small ones,

cat beds, these can be

cat kingdoms.

But I am just getting

to the beginning. Famous

people have really big kingdoms.

They have electricity

and lights.

People on the street have kingdoms

as dumpsters and they

have to eat out of them. But when

the garbage truck comes

their kingdoms are gone.

~Shawndell Williams, grade 3

I've read this poem several times over, not to understand it necessarily, but because of how inciteful this third grader is despite how many may view an 8 year old writer. Kingdom. A single word with many interpretations and Shawndell portrayed these in such a simple and relatable way.

I love the quote, "Rest and be kind, you don't have to prove anything, " by Jack Kerouac. This is a great thing to write by as a writer and teacher. As a teacher, this is a good motto to teach by in order to facilitate a welcoming environment for writing in the classroom. I assume that the best way to manage this is to encourage all writing in the classroom and to not judge or criticize the students writing.

For the longest time, reading poetry was about analyzing the rhythm and rhyme of poems rather than reading for the deeper meaning of the poem. I came to this realization when I read that we "may become a lily or pebble again... for just a minute" when reading a poem.

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day. This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life -

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

~William Stafford

I tried to remember details from this past week and realized I couldn't do it. I can only remember what I did and what my thoughts were. When I was younger, I remember just sitting in the yard, not caring what others would think and playing with blades of grass. I remember laying and watching the sun light break through the canopy and watching the trees sway. I remember how it calmed me and how I felt lighter. It's really inspired me to stop and "smell the roses" or just stop.

"Mentors, in the end, can help us identify who we are and what we are, and through poetry we learn that our voices can be larger than we are."

Class Notes

Read out-loud: Honey, I love by Eloise Greenfield

To Her Doubts

By Edmund Spenser

The doubt whicch ye misdeem, fair love, is vain,

That fondly fear to lose your liberty;

When losing one, two liberties;

When losing one, two liberties ye gain,

And make him bond that bondage erst did fly.

Sweet be the bands, the which true love doth tie,

Without constraint or dread of any ill:

The gentle bird feels no captivity

Within her cage, but sings and feeds her fill.

There pride dare not approach, nor discord spill

The league twixt them that loyal love hath bound:

But simple truth, and mutual good will,

Seeks with sweet peace to salve each other's wound.

There faith doth fearless dwell in brazen tower,

And spotless pleasure builds her sacred bower.

Ralph Fletcher: books about teaching writing and children's books

(Justin and Frank: About homosexuality)

Mother Love by Nicci Grimes

Familiarity Breeds Content

Universal Design for Instruction (vs. individual accommodations)

• All centers are accessible to all children/students of all levels.
• Keep all students in mind when planning centers
• What benefits struggling readers can benefit ELLs and fluency for strong readers.

Poetry vandalism activism

"Parsley" by Rita Dove

• Sometimes it's hard to read a poem at first, but gets interesting the more we understand about the poems.

February 1, 2011: Class Notes

Two Voice Poems

"The Worker and The Queen" :

• Two perspectives of two lives in the bee.
• Scientific details.
• Political.
• Rhyming served the content of the poem.

"I Heard It On The Bus One Day" : Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.

Having children compare their lives in a two voice poem.

Farmer's Dog, Going To The Forest: Animal two voice poems

Birds on a Wire: The writers took turns writing couplets creating this two voice poems.

Standard Suggestions:

1st grade: Producers and consumers

4th grade: Explorer and explored

5th grade: sharecropper vs. landowner, Jim Crow vs. white southerner

Practice Poem: Jim Crow vs. White Southerner

Points of an agreement:

• Live in the same town
• Walk the same streets
• Ride the same bus
• Same God
• Taste of a handchurned ice cream

Different Perspectives

• Different Fountains
• Ride in the back/front of bus
• Go to different shops
• Worship in different churches
• Different schools
• Different pools
• Voting

Poem:

I live in Georgia. I live in Georgia.

I applied to UGA. I applied to UGA.

I was welcome.

I was not.

Brown vs. Board of Education was enforced.

We were saying. I heard them say.

"2,4,6,8

we don't want to integrate"

I was qualified. I was qualified.

And invited to a sorority.

I was spit on.

I went to rush.

I was escorted home.

Francis Wallis taught me English. Francis Wallis taught me English.

The black girl is in my class.

Stop looking at me.

She's a really good student.

She's so quiet. I don't want to talk.

Scientific observations

Sweet potato:

• shaped like a phone
• rough to the touch
• rust color
• curved
• divets
• mini wrinkles
• root
• dirty
• mild sweet scent
• lost his tail
• firm
• springy
• stringy, growing hairs
• orange inside

Rust-colored root

Curved like a phone

Wrinkled with hairs

Stains hands with dirt

Rough and firm to the touch

punctured divets cover the body

tail removed

autumn orange inside

mild sweet scent

Tastes best as

fries

baked

casserole

Lesson Planning

Choose a topic I hope/plan to be teaching. Go through notes of Holbrook's suggestions and find what would work best with the group I want to teach.

Kindergarten Math lesson plan:

Objective: identify and describe the 3-D shapes.

Concrete Poems:

Activities:

• Make sure that if you are making real life comparisons, the comparisons are reasonable for each child. Not all children have cube televisions.
• Cube: Students think of six descriptors of a cube and write it on each side of a flattened cube.
• sugar blocks
• dice
• present boxes
• unifix cubes
• rubic's cube
• blocks
• Sphere: Studentswill be given sticky labels and a ball. They will think of descriptors of their spheres and write them on sticky labels. They can then stick them onto their ball.

Limericks:

Activity:

• The teacher will read the entire group a limerick describing one learned shape at a time. After each or one limerick, the students will guess what shape is being described.

Assessment:

• identify cubes in real life
• recall the vocabulary, ex. A sugar "block" is a cube.

Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes by Judith Tannenbaum

• Recommended to primary teachers on how to teach poetry

Other ideas:

• Make a 100% poem about a historical figure.
• Culture pie: have the students describe their history through a culture pie, then through the year, have the students do the same for historical figures.
• Making the shape of a simple machine using the descriptive words

Love That Dog ^_^