My Reflection #NationalPoetryMonth #PoetryFriday

It is April, and I am joining many others in celebrating National Poetry Month. This month many people turn to their gardens and landscapes and play in the dirt. I'd rather do a little playing with words. This month I will be creating found poems by taking words, phrases, and lines from other texts and rearranging them into a "literary collage" with a whole new meaning.

Welcome to Poetry Friday. Christie has the round-up and the lines for the Progressive Poem.

Check out all the poetry goodness on her blog Wandering and Wondering.

Today I share a special poem. Back in mid-March when we first learned that we would be teaching remotely, I created a Padlet for students to publish poems. Very few students have participated, but some have been brave and have shared their words.

Today I share two of Elliot's poems. In this first poem, she wrote the words and found the picture of the mirror. I created the digital image with the poem. I like the playfulness of seeing our reflections in the mirror, almost peek-a-boo-ish.

Elli also wrote one about cats. In this poem I like how she used the repetition of I and how the poem is told from the cat's perspective. It also has a nonconformist, e.e. cummings style to it with her use of the uncapitalized I. 

Cats

i lick
i cuddle
i purr
i nuzzle
i run
i leap
i sleep

~Elliot, 2020

I am sure that Elli would graciously love to have some feedback on her two poems if you would be so willing to drop her a line or two in the comments. I know her teacher would appreciate it too!

Check out Christie's line she chose from Ruth, and her lines she leaves for Amy. 

1.   Donna Smith at Mainely Write

2.   Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3.   Jone MacCulloch at deowriter
4.   Liz Steinglass
5.   Buffy Silverman
6.   Kay McGriff at A Journey Through the Pages
7.   Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8.   Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9.   Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10. Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11. Janet Fagel hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12. Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13. Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14. Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
15. Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16. Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17. Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18. Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19. Tabitha at Opposite of Indifference
20. Rose Capelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21. Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22. Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23. Ruth at There is no such thing at a God-forsaken town
24. Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25. Amy at The Poem Farm
26. Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work that Matters
27. Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28.
29. Fran at lit bits and pieces
20. Michelle Kogan

Tell Me about Green #SOL20

Today I share the words from one of my students, Jillian, who wrote to a writing spark today. 

Breathe in the hope they bring and let them be enough for today.

Green makes me think of the outdoors. It makes me think of climbing to the top of the tallest tree in the woods and looking down at all of God's beautiful creations. Green also makes me imagine myself frolicking in a pile of leaves, hair down and glistening in the wind. The color green makes me happy.

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

And of Course, She Did #SOL20

We have been on spring break this week, so this whole eLearning has not been a focus for me...yet. However, I did put out a post on our Team Facebook Page with a Padlet for kids to share writing. 

An email arrived in my inbox Friday night from a student asking what I wanted her to write about in this space. I told her it was a free write, and she could write about anything she wanted.

I knew Kyndall several years before she became my student. She went to a summer camp for high ability students and was in several of my creative writing sessions. Kyndall loves to write poetry and often asks if she can write when we have a few extra minutes during class. We emailed back and forth for a while, and I got tickled when she asked if she could write more than one on the Padlet. 

And of course, she did!

I shared a poem that I had written about middle school love notes with nothing but questions. I suggested that she might try this craft move too. 

And of course, she did!

I went back to copy her poem so that I could share it with you here today and to see if she had written any others.

And of course, she did!

Here are two that I have chosen to share with you today.

Thoughts

I have a story 
and it has many pages 
I flip the page of my story 
my curiosity awakens 
I look at the page
and my eyes open
wondering
thinking 
I think more and more
until my story opens 
and until my imagination has blown
Creating a wonderful world 
with its powerful words 
on this page I can see
it can give me a place to go 
when I have no where 
I feel opened 
I feel happy 
I feel like the world has melted away 
and it gives me a space to grow and to play
where I can let my imagination 
soar 
And fly away

Sometimes

sometimes you look everywhere 
sometimes you can't quite find yourself 
sometimes you look inside and out
to gather yourself
and sometimes 
when you gather yourself 
you find yourself

Many of the poems Kyndall wrote deal with middle school problems - feeling alone and finding themselves. Looking forward, I know as a teacher I need to find more ways for students to express themselves through poetry. I am honored that Kyndall has let me share her writing on my blog and blessed to have read it.

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

Right #SOL19

I am participating in the Two Writing Teachers Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge.  

Do you ever wonder if the way you hear something read aloud is the same way in which the writer intended for it to be heard?

Today after our quick write time, I had a few students who wanted their writing shared, but they did not want to read it themselves. I always offer to read their beautiful words, but I often wonder if I read them the way the "right" way.

As I read one student's words, I could tell he was watching me intently. After class, he told me that hearing me read his words created a different feeling than what he imagined as he wrote them. He said I emphasized different words, and he liked it better that way.

Another student read her own work aloud. As I was listening, I pictured this written in verse.  I asked her about it, and she said, no, it was just a paragraph. Her writing had a cadence to it that begged to written in verse. I encouraged her to revise it, and afterwards, she was beaming. She knew this piece had a much deeper meaning and a different mood after it was written in verse.  Today, I share Alice's quick write on the random word, "right."  Again, this is writing produced in six minutes with only the revision of the line breaks.

Leaving
The right thing to do, right?
Turning
Which way?
Left or right?
Right, the right way to go
Water
Shimmering in the light
What is the right thing to do?
Sink or swim?
Leap or fall?
Leaving, was it the right thing to do?
I turn back, looking toward home
I was wrong.

Remember the Flowers #SOL19

I am participating in the Two Writing Teachers Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge.  

Yesterday I spent  most of the day grading argumentative essays. As I was reading one student's paper, the tears came.

Earlier in the year I wrote this blog post on our Teach Write Chat Blog.

Back in 1978, I was an eighth grader, and the movie, Ice Castles was released.  I had this thing for Robby Benson (we share the same birthday!) so this quickly became one of my favorite movies. 

It is a story about a figure skater who becomes blind, and with the help of the character played by Benson, finds a way to skate again.  He prepares her for a big competition, but no one knows she is blind. (Suspend reality here!)  She skates a flawless routine to the theme song of the movie, "Through the Eyes of Love."

The audience gives her a standing ovation and begins to throw flowers out onto the ice.  She takes her  final lap, not knowing that the flowers are in her way.  She stumbles and falls, revealing her secret to everyone there.  Robby goes out onto the ice to help her and says, "We forgot about the flowers."

On the second day of school, I planned a "write-around" activity where I gave a starter sentence and students had to add on to the story.  Then we moved to another student's writing and added to that story. We moved four times to four different stories.  I thought this would be a great way to get kids up and moving while writing fun, silly stories.

Only I had one student who refused to participate.  I tried to coax him to write by telling him how much fun this activity could be. 

Still nothing. 

I came back to him and told him he only needed to write one sentence, just one sentence. 

Still nothing. 

So I let him be.  I later found out that he struggles with writing.  I was creating a space where he could stumble and fall, revealing his secret to everyone there, simply because I "forgot about the flowers."

The essay I read yesterday began with asking me to imagine a room filled with smoke, which led into his argument that kids should not smoke cigarettes. He told me that smoking leads to lung and heart disease, cancer, and even strokes. He gave me a statistic about how many people die from smoking and another one about deaths caused by second-hand smoke. He told me cigarettes have nicotine, and it's additive. He told me it was against the law to sell cigarettes to kids under the age of 18.  Then, he told me he had friends who smoke, and he was worried about them. He concluded with asking me to imagine a world no longer filled with smoke.

All this.

From a student who, at the beginning of the year, would not even write a single sentence.

Yes, there were tears, and if I could have, I would have thrown flowers.

Two kinds of people in the world

In my first year of teaching, a colleague and now my principal, once gave me some words of wisdom. He said,"Leigh Anne, there are two kinds of people in the world:  those who get it, and those who don't."

Now I know that is a very fixed mindset and a simplistic view of the world. But many times after something happens at school that leaves us scratching our heads and wondering what in the world just happen, I will utter the words, "Two kinds of people in the world."

Some days, it is the only thing that gets us through.

Last week, a student came up and asked me if I wanted to read her story she was writing.  It was a mystery, and she was already on chapter three.  In one scene, her main character was dared to eat a worm for a dollar. Both of these boys were a little mischievous, and her character development was amazing for a 6th grader.

After the boy ate the worm, this line from that scene left me laughing out loud.

"Well, I guess there are two kinds of people in the world, those who eat worms for a dollar and those who are picky eaters."

Yep, two kinds of people in the world.

Celebrating Student Writing

Each week Ruth Ayres extends an invitation to share the celebrations from our week.  Why don't you join the celebration?

Today I combine Poetry Friday with my Celebration post.  Join this week's round-up with Kathryn Apel.

As I was giving a test on Friday at school, a former student came to my room and asked me if I would read something she had written and tell her what I thought.  The assignment was to write from the voice of an inanimate object.  Kaitlyn's writing left me speechless.

A colleague describes Kaitlyn as an "old soul" and this description could not be more perfect.  The words which come from her pen are full of imagery.  Her vocabulary is beyond that of a 7th grader, and her sentence structure is something which cannot be taught.

I told her I thought she could work this into a stunning poem, adding line breaks to deepen the meaning and make the lyrical imagery stand out.  But when I shared it with Margaret Simon, she said it could be left as a prose poem.

So, today I share and celebrate her work with you.

I am paper. I am frail and faint, sitting in a stack of thousands just like myself, collecting more and more dust by the second. My skin crawls against the soft wind of her door opening, and then closing. Her humming echos throughout the bedroom. I can hear her tossing the brown rucksack down. I now know, it’s time to write. She gently scoops me up in her hands, taking me away from the others. But I know, I will see them again. I wish I could reach out a hand as soft as hers, but I cannot. For I am not real. She’s begun her writing now. Although I cannot see the words her pencil writes on my skin, I feel her story coming to life. I can feel every squiggle, line, and eraser mark she makes as she trails down my vibrant blue veins. When the pencil drops from her delicate hands, sadness washes over me like rain on a sunny day. But of course, she’s still smiling. She’ll never truly feel this pain that runs through my blue lines. As she steps up from her chair, I feel different. Shreds of my flaky paper skin begin dancing around the room. I see her eyes shining bright from the slight distance. And then time stops. She hesitantly brushes a hands across my cheek. I feel her arms wrap around me in a hug. Impossible, I think to myself. But I look down. I am human. My shreds of paper skin have become real. I have arms and legs and a torso, too. I am human, like her. But something is wrong. My flaky paper skin is falling apart now. I am becoming nothing more than paper again. She grasps my forearms, as I do the same to her. I am fading fast, too fast. But then I realize, I am paper. I am the body of a book. And with that book, a spine. We are all held together by nothing more than words. Her beautiful words. I feel her grip tightening as I take my paper form once more. But before I am completely lost, I tell her this, “I love you, but you’re real.”

And this is how your story becomes real. But is it really a story if the words don’t dance across the pages? Is it really a story if you aren’t a part of the same world?  And is it really a story if a piece of you isn’t left between the spine?

~ Kaitlyn

I plan to show her your comments about her writing, so thank you for reading today.  

Here is a quote in her writer's notebook. I don't think this is something she has to worry about because I am quite confident she was born to write.

Students as Writing Decision Makers

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to celebrate.

I stated on a previous post how I am a "BBC" workshop teacher, meaning I have never been officially trained.  I have trained myself through blogs, books, and conferences.  So when I experience success, it is a celebration.

Before Thanksgiving we finished up a unit on historical fiction, and I taught this unit almost entirely through workshop.  I taught mini-lessons, students wrote and we conferred together both face-to-face and through comments on Google docs.

My students grew as writers during these three weeks because they were set free from prompt writing and writing rules.  They learned writers make decisions, not the rules.

I have included some my students' writing that demonstrate what was taught in the lessons, but also demonstrates their new found freedom as writers.


"At this point I was on the couch hugging one of the pillows like a ribbon holding tightly to its box."


"My heart shattered into a million pieces, my soul ripped in half."


"My mother has bright blue eyes that twinkle like the nighttime stars.  But then I noticed that there was a single tear coming from one of those eyes; it ran down her face until it met the floor."


Later that night as I was still picking weeds from the garden, I watched the bright sun fall in the sky like a pad of butter melting on a warm stack of pancakes.


When I walk into the back room, I see a couch. A long couch with three cushions and two small pillow at each end. It is covered in soft red velvet. The legs are wooden with swirls at the end and little carvings all down the side. Then to my surprise Franklin sits on the couch and motions me to come sit down. I sit down on the couch and I feel the couch cushions squish over the side of my legs.

Ellis and I raced up the screeching stairs. It wasn't until we heard mothers faint screams at the end of the stairway, we broke into a sprint. If we'd known that would be the last time we heard her, we would’ve ran back.

We made it to the edge of the fire escape. I grabbed Ellis´ hand, and we chased down the fire escape. We´d met the old, icy alleyway, not turning back. As we ran, Ellis tripped over a slim, snowy brick, crashing on the hard iced rock. I dragged her behind a bushel of tall weeds. A man in a jet black soldier uniform heard her wails of pain. He switched his head toward us, my heart fell from my chest. There was a vibrant red patch wrapped around one black sleeve. It was marked with black symbol, a Swastika. I pulled Ellis by the arm, forcing her to move. But she wouldn’t budge. She was as still as a statue. Her snow coat was drenched in the beautiful white frosting. As the Nazi grew nearer, Ellis’ eyes broke tearful. She was mortified. I hadn’t heard the dreaded sorrows, until Ellis looked straight ahead. Bloodshed. Bodies covered the snowy streets, there were few unrecognizable, but we knew one. We loved one.

Thank you for taking the time to read my students' writing.

A Surprising Intention

Digilit Sunday

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to write with the idea of "intent."  
I am not a regular writer with Digital Learning Sunday, because most times I feel I have very little to offer.  I use technology in my classroom, but I am what I would call "a work in progress."  Saturday while I was grading some student writing,  I had an online conversation with Julieanne Harmatz, and I knew I wanted to write about it.

Let me back up to Thursday night.  During the Good to Great chat {#g2great}, I tweeted if anyone had created a bookmark for lifting a line to write about reading. Lifting a line is not something we have done very much, and I just wasn't getting the reflection I wanted.  Julieanne, along with Fran McVeigh, asked me some good thinking questions which I referred back to as I was grading.

This year I have dabbled with Google Classroom with the intent of creating a more digital literacy environment.  We also use Google Docs within our distrct as a collaboration tools among teachers.

As I was grading one particular student's writing, I realized I could share it with Julieanne and get her feedback on it.  We were able to comment back and forth as if we were sitting together at a table at school sharing student work.  She pointed out a certain line my student wrote and suggested that he expand on his thoughts.  We were collaborating...from two separate parts of the country.

My intent for using Google docs was with my students, but it became a wonderful surprise for me Saturday afternoon as I used it to broaden my own digital literacy environment.  

Below is the student reflection from the book, Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper.  Feel free to join in on the collaboration and feedback.

“I can’t do anything right.  I don’t want to be all that, I just want to be like everyone else”

Page 242

Melody Brooks is an eleven year old girl that is confined to a wheelchair.  She can’t walk, talk, or even feed herself.  Everyone thinks that Melody is either stupid, or in their own words, a mental retard.  She made a friend at school, she even has enemies (like most girls her age).  She has always been looked down on by the public eye, but her parents, her own personal aide at school, Catherine,  and Mrs. V won't let her give up.  One day the 5th and 6th grade were having tryouts for a quiz team. Even Mr. Dimmings didn’t believe in her.  But when she got a perfect score on the tryout, everyone seemed to praise her.  And when the public was only focused on her, she felt all alone.  The team even forgot about her on the flight to the championship, and didn’t do anything about it. I can connect to this because I’ve had days when I feel like I can't do anything right.  I’ve been called “special”  and not in the good way.  I’m not the smartest or most popular kid, but I just want to be like everyone else.  As Melody said “I can’t do anything right.  I don’t want to be all that, I just want to be like everyone else”.

*The line in bold is the line Julieanne commented on.