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will serve as a teaching resource during the poetry coaching.
TIBBETTS POETRY LITERARY COACH REFLECTIONS
Spoken Word artists helped kick off our Poetry project collaboration with a Poetry Slam for 4th period 7th graders and 8th graders at on 9 February 2009.
When asked by a student, "where do we start" Francis Lee quickly replied, "start with us. We create an easy access point and you can go from there." Aaron, Joseph and Lee performed original poetry and read poetry touching our emotions on various levels with introspective, humorous and high and low impact stories.
Their stories came from their experiences about their identity, culture, families, living, liking and loving.
"Write from your heart and tell a story, your story" Lee explained simply. What is important in the telling "is being who you are and expressing what is happening in your life, "Lee continued. Also Lee, Aaron and Joseph walked us through a poetry slam identifying roles of judges, scorekeepers, timekeepers, poets, host, volunteer poet and audience members. They also encouraged the option of reading a poem that speaks to you or performing one of your own during a poetry slam.
The process is simple:
Find poems; read poems; practice reading poems; practice reading in small groups, then inlarger groups.
Then begin to write your own words down in finding your own voice. Revise and practice; revise and practice; revise and practice.
You write what you need to write.
Three minutes is the limit of any poem during a poetry slam. Slam refers to the competition.
Respect is given for poet at the mike.
23 Feb. UNM literary coaches will begin working with Tibbetts Middle schoolers first by sharing I AM poems and then sharing favorite song lyrics as a way of introduction.
Our UNM coaches teamed up with Tibbetts students in 7th and 8th grade today. Making connections with students through sharing song lyrcis and their I AM Poems started with Lee, Aaron and Joseph jump-started the process of relationship building. I have left their approach into their poetry exploration very open to see what they will do with it. I noticed, however, no one had anything displayed on their webpages. I will share a strategy I read about in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy titled: by Linda Young (September 2007, 51(1), pp. 50-55).
Using poetry circles, similar to tnegaing literature circles, Young has provided a collective strategy to explore poetic language and ideas for coaching our middler school students. We will play with it and break in poetry circles on March 2!
2 March UNM poetry coaches met for the second time with their Tibbetts counterparts. Tibbetts students recieved journals to record their poetry. Coaches in Ms. Hanon and Ms. Finch's classrooms are introducting students to metaphoe and simile literary elements. Our goal is to eventually conduct session where students share their poetry and what they are thinking about their writing which would lead the way toward writing workshops.
I introduced to poetry circles today (Young, 2007) as a strategy to engage students in working together in sharing their thoughts with each other and in creating thir own poetry.
Young, L. ( September 2007). Portals into poetry: Using generative writing groups to facilitate student engagement with word art. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(1), pp. 50-55.
POETRY CIRCLES
According to Young (2007, pp. 52-53) students gather in groups of four with specific roles for each member as described below:
IMAGE WEAVER:
This person provides at least two concrete images for the poem or topic.
LANGAUAGE KEEPER:
This person supplies five unusual, intriguing words. The group must then incorporate these words into the poem.
METAPHOR GENERATOR:
This person supplies at least two fresh metaphors or similes for the poem.
MUSIC MAKER:
This person is responsible for creating a sense of music in the poem. Use of rhyme, assonance, alliteration, consonance are ways to provide word melody. This person should try to take the language keeper's five words and generate five words that sound musical alongside them.
(Ex. Eclectic, electric)
March 9 UNM poetry coaches presented their poetry circles with their Tibbetts students today. I am impressed with the rapport UNM students have with their Tibbetts students. I embedded myself in Kelly Hanon's 7th grade classroom today by commandeering the poetry circle introduction. I was aware that I was a stranger in a strange classroom land and that UNM coaches had developed a mutual relationship with their students. In spite of this unfamiliarity with the students, I strongly felt that the UNM coaches neededto model the poetry circle roles. They needed to trust themselves and the process and take the leads from their students INSTEAD of telling them how poetry circles were supposed to be done. So I intercepted the UNM coaches direction, and redirected them to model for the the students the process.
I realize I put them in a vulnerable position and underminded their planning. This was a teachable moment. It was important for them to experience this vulnerability for it would only strenthen them the next time they could purposefully put themselves in such an exposed place. My rationale is that we ask students to do this all the time - to be vulnerable in their learning - and if we are not capable of experiencing this ourselves, we have no right nor credibility to ask of our students to do something we don not feel comfortable doing. So in this way, our students see us learning, thinking, improvising right before them and enjoying ourselves, hopefully.
We asked students to give us a topic. BANANAS was chosen.
Some UNM coaches did not feel confident writing on the board, nor comfortable spelling words they were writing on the board.
I could feel and see their vulnerability as it played out before the students. Each UNM coach had a role of either: Dream Weaver, Image Maker; Metaphor Generator and Music Maker. We shared our creative responses and then we all, inviting students to participate also, we created our own poems based on the generated images, words about topic.
My poem
Chiquita Banana
A diva of peeling crescent moons, reeling succulent octopi tendrels.
In youth, yummy, slender, stegasaurus, slinky, slender, silky.
As fruit in old age mushy, mysterious meshy, rippling black slippery heels, reeking into soiled moo laka moo.
Chiquita Banana buried beneath molten ash, eyeing mr. potato head.
March 16
Hopefully coaches will continue exploring with poetry circle exercises #2, 3 & 4 (article by Linda Young) as a strategy to engage poetry writing and thinking. In Leah Finch's class today we made altered books. I picked up some extra hard back books from the thrift store in preparation and some rubber cement. I like the stictching pages together technique.
Here are some links about this art form below:
The best part of working on our altered books was spending time talking with A., J., K., A. and A.. We stiched, glued, twisted, cut, tapering our colorful art into speech formed by hand and heart. What is left is crafting the finished poetic works for sharing.
MARCH 30
Tina and I will team teach with our group.
I. We will share poems from our journals at each session
2. Poetry Circles- Writing about a family relationship
Image Weaver, Language Keeper, Metaphor Generator, Music Maker (see above)
3. Explore Poetic Forms:
Catalogue Verse
Verse comprised of lists of everyday objects, names, or events, united by a common theme.
-
by Walt Whitman
-
by William Stafford
Haiku
: 14 line poems with rhyming scheme- abcabc, ababab ababcc. Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnets are usually written with a long line of five beats (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM). They break down into one eight-line stanza, that tells an experience or expresses a thought or feeling, and a six-line stanza, that contrasts with, resolves, or comments on the first part.
More about from poets.org.
Limericks
There once was a man from Peru
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in a fright in the middle of the night
And found it was perfectly true.
There once was a young girll named Nelly
Who had a nylon belly.
The skin was so thin you could see right in.
It was full of custard and jelly.
Nonsense Verse: Couplets, Tercets & Quatrains
Narratives & Ballads: traditional or folk literature, such as John Henry
- by Edward Lear
- by Lewis Carroll
- &
SOUND POETRY
by Natalie & Michael Basinsky
4.
- Examples of
5. Optional: Read poems from Blended Zines
Reflection: Our webpage links were blocked so we had more down time which converted into boring time. Tina came to the rescue with her blackberry phone and the students could at least listen to the sound poem, Heebie Jeebies, above. Tina will bring her own laptop next week. We still are building community and establishing a trusting relationship for our group. How to encourage them to own their own words in using them as a medium of expresion remains our foremost goal. April 16 we will conduct individual conferences.
Shelly talked about concrete poetry by Sharon Creech, a collection of poems.
APRIL 6: Poetry Session
Warm-up Game: Consonance, Alliteration, Assonance, Alliteration, Simile, Metaphor
Self-group reflection
Share poems from journals
Continue Poetry Circle, role sharing and writing of individual poems
Introduce Forms of Poetry: Concrete Poetry & Limericks
Individual Conferences for April 13.
April 13:
Poetry Share from journals
Continue Poetry Circle, role sharing and writing of individual poems
Conduct Individual Conferences
We are creating a learning community.
April 20:
Picture Poetry Relay
Share relationship poems and Concrete poems
Individual Conferences
Remind about: BLENDED submissions and attending Teen's Zone on April 25
April 27: Last day at Tibbetts as poetry coaches
Thank yous, culminations and wrap up.
Tibbetts Poetry Night on May 14 at 6pm
of our time together on ning.