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

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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!

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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 ^_^

Practical Poetry: Ch. 5: Social Studies and Poetry

"Controversy sells." ~Sara Holbrook

Telling students neat fact after neat fact gets boring and you lose the interest of those who just want to know what is going to be on the test. However, if you relate it back to home, a local controversy, students are more likely to pay real attention and retain the information they are learning.

"In poetry, we think small." ~Sara Holbrook

Rather than asking the children to write a poem about an entire event, encourage the students to focus on one aspect of it. This makes complete sense. How can you write one poem about a large event such as the Civil War or the Holocaust? Not only is it overwhelming to attempt to summarize an entire complicated event into prose, but, I feel, the poet becomes detached from the event. In order to describe something so complicated, one must discard all the descriptors. Instead, ask the students to write about a certain aspect that really affected them. Something that had an impact. Write a poem about a picture of a fallen soldier, the pile of shoes from the Holocaust, or the caves used as shelter during WWII.

From Personal Historical Narrative to Poem

This is such a great idea! Using the Fortunately/Unfortunately method of writing, students write about an event. This morning/Last summer/At the park/etc...

Here is my Fortunately/Unfortunately narrative.

Kenny and I went to look for suits.

Fortunately, we found the Menswearhouse by his place.

Unfortunately, we didn't find the suit we wanted.

And so we ended up back at square one.

Using the underlined words, my poem is now:

Look for suits

Found

Didn't find

Back at square one

The Thing Is

I love this idea! It helps facilitate the students' creativeness while using a concrete object. Holbrook used a brush and wrote a poem called The Solitary Brush. She mentioned taking the children to a consignment shop or used store and have them pick out one object they like. Using that object, the students are to create a poem telling a fictional story of that object. Because taking students to a store is out of the question for most schools, the teacher can either bring in random items for the students to choose from, or the students can bring items from home. I know that writing was always difficult for myself. I hadn't learned how to be creative in my writing, I was only told to do so. Therefore, much of my writing reflected that of what the teacher had read to us as an example. This activity really helps encourage the creativity of the children and helps show them how.

It's Not Fair!

What a great way to introduce the concept of looking at things with a different perspective, persuasive writing, and interest in writing! Beginning the lesson, hand out index cards with a the words "It's not fair that..." and have the students complete the sentence. Take up the cards and post them around the room. She then had the students, in pairs, pick out a card/topic of choice and each take a stance, whether they agree or not. For instance, for "It's not fair that I have to ride the bus." Have each student take a stance for and against riding the bus. They each then write a poem about their stance.

Another reason why I love this activity, is that you can delve deeper into the topics by having the students better research their topics, write persuasive essays/poems, and possibly have mock debates for or against their topics. This is a great way to facilitate healthy discussions and introducing the concept of perspectives.

Practical Poetry: Ch. 3: Math and Poetry

When she first started comparing math to poetry, I was intrigued as to how she would accomplish such a thing. As she said, they seem like polar opposites, however, I love how she made the connections and incorporated poetry in with math!

Concrete Poems:

It makes complete sense to use concrete poems in geometry. Not only do the students learn of the different shapes and angles, but they also are focusing on fitting the "describing words" into these shapes or angles! Having a concrete image and truly having to think about how to make the words fit into the shape they are describing accordingly will help reinforce their understanding and memory of the vocabulary. Such a simple and great idea to incorporate into a classroom!

Limericks

If you had the students write limericks about math, then this is great for assessing their understanding of patterns and the material. I imagine instead of the having the students rewrite or memorize definitions of the vocabulary, having the students really have to think about how to describe the content using their own words, they would create create a deeper understanding.

There once was a ruler named straightedge

who always had a smooth ledge

he tried to bend

but in the end

He snapped right out of the wedge.

A Slightly Abridged Sestina

I was so confused as I tried to make sense of the directions. As suggested in the book, I agree that the students should be exposed to a mentor poem first, then analyze the offbeat pattern, and then, IN PAIRS, write one themselves. This form takes understanding the math vocabulary to the next level. The students use these words in context while they write a story in this format. I do feel that this is a lesson best done with older students.

Poems about Family

Using mathematical terms to describe a family seems complicated, but it can be done. Again, this is great for comprehension of the mathematical terms. I find this to be creative and students tend to enjoy writing about themselves and what they know. Have the students pick out a couple math words: triangle, multiply, divide, square, add, angle... etc.

And you could get something like this.

Wierd Math or How 2 + 2 -1 = 6

Two parents + two kids

Equals family of four.

It's square, but it's stable

Till one parent splits and

Diagonally-walks out the door.

When parents triangulate,

Kids can't stop the dissection,

Instead they are pulled

By opposing points

In two different directions.

~ Sara Holbrook

For younger children, I imagine you could simplify this to "Mommy plus Daddy plus Me equal three people." The children could draw a picture of their family and then write a sentence describing how many people are in their family using their math words.

Greater than Less than

This is a wonderful to teach children about greater than and less than! I don't feel I really need to say more than, "I am > a pencil, but <>

100% Poetry

Absolutely adorable idea! And like I said earlier, students tend to like writing about themselves, so this is great! Have students describe things or themselves, using percentages. So if I were to write about myself, I might write:

20% smiles

15% thoughts

10% worry

10% laughs

10% school

10% family

5% hair

5% clothes

5% crafts

4% organized

4% healthy

2% cake

100% me

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"Mathematics is a verb, not just a noun," ~ Sherman K. Stein

I love this quote! Math is one of few subjects where you cannot skip around in the text. If you do not understand chapter 3, then you likely won't understand chapter 4. You must be sure that your students truly comprehend the content being taught or they will just be lost and you will be left "catching up" most of the students to the content.

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