As I introduced last week, I got to co-teach poetry to a class of 2nd graders with one of my peers. Our goal was to get students interested and engaged with writing poetry. We didn’t focus on any specific type, but taught them tools and strategies they could apply to any poem they wanted to write. We focused on things like repetition, imagery, and onomatopoeia that they can use in any type of writing. I was really proud of the work the students created and I think they are tiny poets just waiting to share their art with the world!
Below are some images we took throughout our week with the students. From mentor writing, to students’ independent writing, to our activity where students got to guess what their peers were writing about. These students created some beautiful work!
This past week I have been so fortunate to have been able to teach poetry in a 2nd grade classroom. 2nd grade is my dream grade to teach and this week reminded me why. The students were so great. They were engaged and interested and creative and just made my job easy. I was also very fortunate to be able to co-plan and co-teach this poetry unit with my friend and grad school peer, Anne Catherine Rossi. You can find her blog here: https://rossiacblog.wordpress.com
Our overall goal was to get students interested in reading and writing poetry. Since we only had 5 days, we had to be picky about what to spend time on but we knew we wanted to start fostering an interest in poetry for these students that would expand beyond our time with them. More specifically, we decided to focus on 4 writing tools/strategies that these students would be able to continue to apply to poetry writing. These included repetition, imagery, onomatopoeia, and 4-rooms.
Below you will find the reflection I wrote after Day One with these students teaching poetry: Today was so much fun. I did not know what to expect going into today because I didn’t know how the students would respond to poetry. But I was blown away by how eager and attentive they were. They didn’t have a lot to say when we started with our “What do we know about poetry?” activity.
Once we started to read actual poems they were so engaged and we’re really trying to analyze the poems when we asked what they noticed. Of course their answers were about vague topics like content and length of the poems but I expected that from the first day. They loved that we had poems from other second graders and getting to see the drafts and the published versions in Kids Poems. Our shared writing went really well. We read A Baseball together and you could feel the energy in the room was full of excitement. We discussed the concept of repetition, which was a new word to most of the students.
They had so many ideas as we brainstormed what to write our poems about. I think because of all the poems we had read their minds really opened to the possibilities as some shouted “anything!” When we agreed on the topic of a pencil, I asked for verbs related to pencils. I went around the room and asked each student to give me an action word for a pencil and that’s how we created our shared poem. (The picture we got of it isn’t great.)
We then gave them the freedom to finish it however they wanted. When they were done they got to write their own poem about whatever object they wanted. Some students immediately had an idea and some took some additional scaffolding to choose an object. Most students got the idea of using the model. One student just wrote a rhyming poem about her dog so we discussed watching her work throughout the week in case we needed to challenge her to get away from rhyming.
I was surprised by how much sharing was happening. They were very talkative during their independent writing but they were still getting their poems written. We did ask for a few moments of silent working and that seemed to help for the few that were stuck. The best part of the day was when we asked students to share and about half the class raised their hands, eager to share their work. That was a learning moment for me because I think back to our class and how reluctant people could be to share. I think that fear comes with age and these students don’t have it yet. I think this lesson was really successful and I could sense the students were excited for us to come back. I included some additional poems below.
I love the creative line breaks from this student!“Siri it” cracked me up!
The poem I am going to share with y’all is my Six Room Poem (Heard, 1999). My inspiration for this poem was my recent trip to Colorado, the involved hours of driving through the Rocky Mountains because we were detoured by a blizzard. We got sidetracked onto some tiny, snow-covered mountain roads but it was the most beautiful drive I have ever been on, so I felt like it deserved a poem. I started by creating my Six Rooms.
From these six room, I created my first draft. Since that draft is covered in revisions, I decided to type it out as I originally wrote it.
White all around covering the red rock that goes up and out for hundreds thousands of miles.
The sun so bright against the white untouched along the creek except the small prints of visitors.
Our tires crunch through the white white white I’ve never seen this much snow.
I had this draft in class when we did the revision centers. I went to this poem when I got to the center that asked me to read my poem to my partner and then listen to my partner read my poem. It was then that I began making notes of revisions that we both thought would make the poem stronger.
Note: The bottom is all one stanza, like the first two, but I ran out of room.
The first note my partner gave me was to not mention that I am talking about snow at the end, but to give more details through out the poem so the reader knows without me telling them. She also mentioned that she didn’t picture mountains when I talked about the red rock, so she thought I could add more detail and elaborate to really create the image I want in the readers mind.
The other notes you see are my own. After hearing it read aloud, I felt like some of the language could be tweaked to enhance the imagery. I struggled with what word I wanted to represent the small animal prints I saw along the creek beds. I felt like treating thousands like more of a question with the parenthesis and question mark represented my wonder. Blinding, instead of so bright, was more effective in getting my point across. I broke stanza two into two sentences but then decided to undo that as “the white” in the middle connects the two thoughts into one.
I left the poem like this for a few days and then came back to it last class when we were asked to create a digital poem. I decided to try out Adobe Spark. I knew I wanted to use this poem because of the images I have from this trip. I knew that by pairing the words and images together, it would strengthen the meaning of the poem.
All of the images included are my own that I took during the drive through the mountains. They are the images I was thinking of as I created this poem. When I got to the end of the poem, I decided to change the last word from snow to white. I think this was because of the visual support the poem now had. I could avoid the word snow, while knowing the audience will still know what the poem is describing.
I do think this poem still have some room for improvement and I am excited to see where it goes before I publish it in my anthology. What strategies would you suggest I try? Where are areas you think I could improve? Please let me know your thoughts!
I want to share some things about a fellow blogger that has inspired me in my own writing. The blogger is Cassie Hoge and she is also currently earning her Master’s at Appalachian State University. Her Master’s will be in Reading Education and her undergrad was Special Ed. This is one of the reasons I am so inspired by her writing. We are both educators but our perspectives are different because of our different degrees. We have so much we can learn from each other!
Cassie’s first post Becoming a Writer gave me insight into her as a writer and a teacher of writing. It was clear that although Cassie hasn’t had the best relationship with writing as a student, she is willing to push herself out of her comfort zone for her students. I found this inspiring because teachers are never fully comfortable with everything they will need to teach but we should always push through for our students!
In that first post, which was written in January, Cassie talks about how self conscious she is to share her writing. But in her post from last week, she shared FOUR poems that she had written! She even said, “Once I allowed myself to have an open mind and be inspired by other poets, I really had fun with it!” This is a great example of growth as a writer and I think something she could share with her students that are initially scared to write. I think we should share our own journey of learning with our students to get them more comfortable, and I am grateful for Cassie for inspiring me to do that!
While reading Love that Dog by Sharon Creech last week, I really related to Jack and his reluctance to “use too many of” someone else’s words (2001, p. 49). When it comes to academic writing, I have been scared into giving people credit for any little thing I may have borrowed from them. The fear of being kicked out of school because I plagiarized is lingering with every paper I write because we are told from a young age not to do it. So when it comes to more artistic forms of expression – where is the line between stealing and “being inspired by?”
I love the way that Jack’s teacher taught him a way to still give credit where it is due. He used a poem as a scaffold to write his own, and then put “Inspired by” under his name. He didn’t just copy the work, he used it to inspire his own creation. During class last week, we did the same with The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. We used the language, structure, line breaks, etc. to inspire our own poems. It was inspiring to go around the room and hear all the different ways we used the scaffold to create our own poetry. They all could have “inspired by William Carlos Williams” under them but they were still each our own work. Below is The Red Wheelbarrow and the three I wrote inspired by it, all different but you can see the similarities.
The Green BirdhouseUninterrupted Netflix TimeUnpredictable Boone Weather
As you can see from my first attempt at using the scaffold, I kept very inline with the original poem. I wrote about an object and its relationship to animals. In the second, I got a bit more abstract and moved to writing about something that is special to me but kept the same structure of the original poem. In the final poem, I wrote about weather and alluded to how it impacts my life because of my dogs. Each is different but they keep the same structure because they are all inspired by William Carlos Williams.
To me, the difference between imitation and copying is your intention. Are you looking at the choices the original poet made and using those to inspire your own work? Or are you just looking at the words and using them as your own? I think all poets use inspiration and imitation. My favorite poet, Tyler Knott Gregson, writes a haiku every day. He doesn’t pretend like he invented the haiku, he just uses the structure as inspiration to write a short, meaningful poem every day.
I think this will be an important distinction to make with my students. I don’t want them to end up like Jack; scared to share their work because they think it is copying. I want them to understand imitating your favorite poems and poets is just a way to find inspiration for your own work. Just as when our peers share ideas from their writing notebooks and we find inspiration for our own stories. Just like we use writing strategies from our favorite books and authors to write narratives. Imitation is a way to help us move towards creating our own work without wasting time reinventing the wheel(barrow).
References Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. New York: HarperCollins Children’s.
I have given poetry as a gift a few times in my life. Last year for Valentine’s Day, I wrote my fiancé a poem with white crayon on white paper and then painted a watercolor sunset over it (the paint doesn’t go where the wax from the crayon is). I think it is the most creative I have ever gotten with a gift and I’m quite proud of it. (He has it framed in his office.) This was the first thing I thought of when I read about poetry as a gift in Awakening the Heart (1999, p. 34).
When I decided I wanted to give poetry as a gift this week, I had a few people in mind. I have been very stressed out lately between work, 52 days until graduation, and 59 days until my wedding. Oh, and it’s job search time. I have been lucky during this very stressful time in my life to have a group of people that are supporting me through it. My mom, my boss, my best friend, and of course, my fiancé . I knew I wanted to give one of them a poem to express my gratitude for their love and support.
I decided on my fiancé. After a 15 hour travel day yesterday, and then having to wake up, go to work, go to class, go grocery shopping after being away, come home, do laundry, do homework, cook dinner, walk dogs… I was dreading my Monday. Within all the chaos, my fiancé managed to send me uplifting messages throughout the day, clean the house, go grocery shopping, deal with the dogs, and is cooking me dinner. So, I was was sitting here doing homework, I googled “poems to say thank you.” After searching for a bit I ended up on poetryfoundation.org, where they had a collection of poems that say thank you (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/101631/poems-that-say-thank-you). As I read through them, I stopped at one towards the bottom, For Allen Ginsberg by Dorothea Grossman.
I immediately felt like this poem summed up how I was feeling. To me, it seemed like the poet was thanking someone for reminding them of the good things in life. They were taking something negative and creating a positive perspective of it. This is something my fiancé does for me daily. So, I took out my notebook, wrote it down, and gave it to him. I did explain the context of this blog post but he still seemed very grateful for it. He explained to me that he thought it meant “the things of yesterday create the paths for tomorrow.” This makes sense as we are in the process of laying down the ground work to begin our marriage. I explained my perspective of how I feel like it represents how he always shows me the positives in life. I loved that we both got something a little different from it but still saw the positive message.
This is an activity I would love to do with students. First and foremost, it is a great way to get them to read a variety of poetry as they search for the one they want to share. It can get them to see how poetry is applicable in their real life and help them to share thoughts and feelings with others in their life. It also could show them that people perceive poetry in different ways. Just like with my experience, we both interpreted it in a slightly different way and discussed our interpretations with each other. I think there are a few times during the year I could ask students to do this, especially around holidays like Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. I also love the idea of giving my students poetry that makes me think of them. I think it is a simple but significant way to show them you care about them and show them how you value poetry. I would like to start this during the school year but definitely have a poem for each student as a end of year gift when they leave my classroom. Showing students that words with meaning can be just as good, and sometimes better than, a purchased gift will get them more invested in reading and writing poetry. Maybe they find one that says what they want and maybe they don’t so they write one themselves. I think it could start a lifelong habit in them of recognizing the value of words.
I have loved poetry for as long as I can remember, I find it beautiful and thought provoking . I have always admired the way that poets can use words in such a unique way that can interpreted by readers to mean whatever they need it to mean. I can find poetry to fit any mood and help explain my feelings in ways I can’t.
My most common way of finding and reading poetry these days is through Instagram. This is where I found my favorite poet, Tyler Knott Gregson. I have followed him since 2012, own his books, and I read his poetry every day. Every day he post a haiku and a typewriter poem. I have also seen him experiment with found poetry. He writes and types on any paper he can find about love and heartbreak and nature and current social issues. I don’t know if I would share his work with students as it can sometimes be inappropriate for young children, but he is a source of inspiration as I begin to think of myself as a poetry teacher. Below are some of my favorite poems by him.
Below is my absolute favorite poem of all time. I love it because I know it can be interpreted in so many different ways. I read it and think of my partner. A child could read it and think of a parent, grandparent, etc. Someone else could read it and think of a friend or a sibling or even God. This is a poem I find myself thinking of when I am stressed out, which between grad school, working, and wedding planning, I find myself stressed out quite a bit. It’s a reminder for me to take time at the end of the day to relax and appreciate the all the love I have in my life.
On the other end of the spectrum is writing poetry. I love poetry and wish I could write beautiful poems that people connect to but I just never felt like I could. I always feel like someone else has said it better. I don’t remember much about writing poetry in school. I feel like it was mostly poems like acrostics and haikus (poems with structure). Maybe this is why at this point in my life I struggle to write with the freedom my favorite poets have. Reflecting back, I think this is something I would want to avoid in my future classroom. Of course, I think students should write structured poems but I also think they should be taught about the freedom there is in poetry.
I did teach a mini-unit on poetry during student teaching. I taught in a 3rd grade classroom and because of a rotation schedule, I taught the unit 5 times (once to each 3rd grade class). The students created their own electronic poetry journals on Google Slides. The title slide had their name and then each additional slide was its own poem. The students loved it. They created an acrostic, a haiku, a diamond poem, and a Dada. They were given freedom over their topics, after modeling and guidance, and then they were allowed to decorate their slides with fonts, background, and images. If I had had more time, I would have liked to have gone into more abstract forms of poetry to allow the students to be more creative.
I am excited to learn more about poetry in class so I can learn more about how to tweak that unit to be most beneficial to my students. I want them to have the same love of poetry that I do, so I want to learn how to foster that in my students. I think a lot of students, especially males, may find poetry lame or ‘girly’ but I want to challenge this thinking in my students. I think reading and writing poetry can be something that all students enjoy so I hope to learn some strategies to get them there!
Below you can find a unit I created with some colleagues on how we would introduce writer’s notebooks in a fifth grade classroom! It includes a rationale for using writer’s notebooks that is supported by provided references. The unit includes 2 lessons finding personal topics, 2 lessons for focusing in on topics and creating drafts, and 2 lessons for revising drafts! This is a great resource for teachers that are wanting to use writer’s notebooks in their classroom but need some inspiration before starting!
The narrative piece I have decided to publish is one that I have applied quite a few strategies to in order to make it as strong as possible. I showcased the beginning of this narrative in my second blog post, where I shared my Neighborhood Map and a flash draft of an idea from that map.
I then tried to focus in on the story by trying to add detail with dialogue. Below is the new beginning of the story but with dialogue added.
I liked what I got from this strategy but it wasn’t until I stumbled upon the strategy of Revising the Beginning that I found my true inspiration. This strategy was introduced in Mentor Texts (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, 123-125) and then assigned for us to do. I used both mentor texts we have used in class to create new beginnings to my story. I modeled how those authors had begun their stories.
This beginning is loosely modeled after Happy Like Soccer by Maribeth Boelts because it broadens the story and allows it be told over a larger time frame. It also introduces my mother, a protective figure, like the aunt in Happy Like Soccer.
This beginning ended up being my favorite. It is modeled after Shortcut by Donald Crews. It throws you right into the action and sets up a very narrow story that focuses in on a specific moment in time. I felt inspired after writing this beginning so I knew this was the path for me with this story. I feel like it is still my own because I have a lot more text than Crews uses but I really liked the idea of just focusing in on the big event.
I think this is a strategy I could easily use with students. We will have read so many mentor texts to teach strategies to find ideas and narrow in on topics. This books will be available for them to model beginnings after. Since they will already be familiar with the books they can just apply multiple beginnings to one topic until they find one they love. I want them to really focus on how to hook their readers with the most engaging beginning possible.
Looking back through the process of writing this narrative, I can see so much growth in myself as a writer. This is a process I have never done before but will be expecting my students to do. That’s bonkers! I am so grateful now for this course because it has really opened my eyes to what we can and should expect from our students as writers. But, we can’t expect these things if we don’t do them ourselves. I am becoming a stronger writer and I know that will only make me a stronger writing teacher. I read like a writer and I write like a reader. I now truly believe that those two things are inseparable.
UPDATE: Here is my final revised narrative that I shared with my classmates!
Soar/Sore
As I stood at the top of the hill looking down, I felt a mixture of excitement and nerves.
Everyone else had had so much fun going down.
“I would, too!” I thought as I kneeled down and plopped my sled on top of the snow. I carefully positioned myself above the sled, making sure not to knock it down the hill before I was ready. I steadied myself on top of it. Belly down, feet behind me.
I took a big, deep, frigid breathe. I could smell the fresh snow and feel the cold air in my nose.
“Just push,” I told myself, “you’ll be fine.”
I could hear the mumbles of the other kids around me, growing impatient as they wanted their second or third turn.
“Just push,” I told myself, “you’ll be fine.”
I mean, I was sure it would be fun.
I was sure it seemed scarier than it really was.
I was sure – I would be fine.
I took another deep breathe, letting my lungs fill with ice.
PUSH!
All of a sudden I was flying down the hill. It had to be record speed! I had to be the fastest in the whole neighborhood!
I was very quickly approaching the ramp, built by my brother. It had started as a bump in the snow but after ordering the neighborhood kids to bring him piles of snow he had constructed what now looked like a mountain in front of me.
Oh, no.
I’m going too fast.
I need to slow down.
How do I slow down?
What do I do?
The ramp is too big!
I dug my boots into the snow to try to slow the momentum of my sled, but it was too late.
My sled hit the ramp, slid along the freshly compacted snow, and shot up into the air, with my body gripped to it tight. Tighter than the hug my mom had given me as I ran out the door this morning with her yelling “Be safe!” behind me.
I was flying! soaring! gliding! through the air.
As my sled headed towards the ground I could feel the joy spreading through my body. I had conquered my fear and it was so worth it!
I hit the ground with a thud and that’s when I heard the scream.
It took me a moment before realizing the scream had come from my own mouth.
Then, I felt the pain spreading throughout my leg as I looked down and saw the top of a rock peeking through the snow. My knee had made direct contact with it upon my landing.
I don’t remember much after that because of the pain but I know I was quickly surrounded by my siblings and other neighborhood kids. They managed to get me onto a sled and pulled me up the hill and down the street to my house.
My mom quickly got me out of all my snow gear and that’s when we saw the blood. Of course, my mom stayed calm as she got my knee cleaned up. I, however, was crying. Sure that my leg had to be broken. My mom convinced me to wait a few hours to see how it felt.
By nighttime, I had come to the realization that it was in fact not broken but still badly bruised and sore.
The cut from the rock left a scar I still have to this day. But, I don’t look at it as a reminder of the time I cut my knee open on a rock. I see it as a reminder of the time I conquered my fear. I had sled down the biggest hill in the neighborhood. I had soared off the ramp and flew through the air! Plus, all the other kids had agreed – I definitely was the fastest in the whole neighborhood.
References Dorfman, L. R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K – 6 (2nd ed.). Portland, Maine: Stenhouse. Crews, D. (1992). Shortcut. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books. Boelts, M. (2012). Happy like soccer. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
This week I am sharing a Your Turn Lesson that I have modified from Mentor Texts (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, p. 108-110). This lesson is designed to help students learn a strategy for focusing in on the most important details when drafting a narrative. Once they have their stories ideas, students often struggle with what to do next. This lesson will hopefully help them take an idea and break it down until they find the best parts!
Hook: Read Happy Like Soccer by Maribeth Boelts. Discuss with students the words and phrases the author uses to move us through time to get to the important parts of the story. The story begins on a Saturday. We don’t know everything that happens that Saturday, just the important parts about her game. Discuss how we ‘ride along’ to her game with her without her describing everything she sees. The author progresses the story by using phrases like “After the game,” “Then on Friday,” and “That night.”
Purpose:Today, we are going to talk about how to focus on the important parts of a story and how to connect them in our writing. We don’t want to add too much detail to our stories as it can be distracting.
Brainstorm: Create a list of transition words as a class (then, next, first, etc.). Have students work in small groups to look through other books to find other examples of transitional words and phrases. Come back together as a group and discuss what they found (in the morning, later on, at home, it is a long time until, a few days after, etc.).
Model: Brainstorm topics with students and then chose one to focus on. Create a timeline of bullet points for the days you are focusing on. For this part, include as many bullets as possible even if they are not vital to the main story.
This example came from my own writer’s notebook:
Woke up at Gram and Papa’s house
Ate Tony’s Donuts
Got ready to go to the beach
Packed up the van with beach chairs and towels
Drove from Portland to Higgins Beach
Stopped at corner store to get Italian sandwiches
Forgot to get Diet Pepsi for Serena
Parked at Joe’s house
Walked down to the beach
Found a spot to set up
Walked to the shipwreck with Dominic
Walked back and saw headless seal on the beach
Ran back to tell the others
Saw a bulldozer driving down the beach
Watched it go to where the seal body was and picked it up
Watched it drive back the way it came to take it to a trash can
Ate our Italian sandwiches
Decided to go cool down in the water
Dominic kept trying to convince me to go in further
He realized I had never jumped waves before and convinced me to try
We were jumping and having fun
We kept going in further so the waves were hitting further up my body
I tried to jump a big one but got taken out
Dominic pulled me up and I was coughing up water
I realized the wave had knocked off my brand new sunglasses
We looked around in the water but never found them
After you tell the story aloud and record bullets, as your students what the important parts were. Hopefully, they will realize not all the points are necessary and will suggest a part to focus on. Have them identify the part they want you to write a narrative about:
Found a spot to set up our chairs
Walked to the shipwreck with Dominic
Walked back and saw headless seal on the beach
Ran back to tell the others
Saw a bulldozer driving down the beach
Watched it go to where the seal body was and picked it up
Watched it drive back the way it came to take it to a trash can
Ate our Italian sandwiches
Decided to go cool down in the water
Dominic kept trying to convince me to go in further
He realized I had never jumped waves before and convinced me to try
We were jumping and having fun
We kept going in further so the waves were hitting further up my body
I tried to jump a big one but got taken out
Dominic pulled me up and I was coughing up water
I realized the wave had knocked off my brand new sunglasses
We looked around in the water but never found them
Discuss that the details at the beginning are not important to the story of me being knocked over by a wave and losing my sunglasses. Begin to retell the story and try to add in transitional words that we had discussed as a class.
Shared/Guided Writing: The modeling process of this lesson is more shared and interactive than most. If students feel ready, they can begin a timeline independently. If they would like more practice, you could do the process over again using a topic or event from a student. The class can help them take out details that are not important and help them chose transition words to progress the story. Once all students have worked down to a specific timeline they should still have a partner look over it to give feedback on where they could take out or add more details.
Independent Writing: Students will now use their timeline to draft their story. They are expected to use transitional words and phrases in their writing.
Reflection: How did you decide which part of your story to focus on? Where did you use transition words? How did these help you? Did you find this easy or difficult?
References Dorfman, L. R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K – 6 (2nd ed.). Portland, Maine: Stenhouse. Boelts, M. (2012). Happy like soccer. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
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