Walking UCSD’s campus is always interesting. Unexpected art pops up in surprising places. Today it was bright orange umbrellas. This is a place where our average rainfall comes in just under 10 inches annually. Some years it’s less. Occasionally we get a bit more–those are the “super bloom” years. At my last meeting today we had an invitation to write Haiku…with an emphasis on a single breath. I’m not sure I achieved the single breath, but I did write something resembling a Haiku–about umbrellas!
On my neighborhood walk after school today I came across a message that made me pause. I took out my phone for a photograph. And it’s still on my mind.
First of all, this was not there yesterday. I walked this same path yesterday, could I have missed it? (I walk this same path frequently and have never come across it before!) I love that it is written neatly–maybe in a paint pen? REBELLION is in all caps and triple underlined. The yellow is perfect, bright enough but not obnoxious. Near the community mailboxes, but not too close.
What does it mean for kindness to be an act of rebellion? I’m struck by the contrast with the way our current government acts. The contrast between kindness and war, kindness and threats, kindness and taking children from their families, kindness and lying. I’d love to believe that kindness could cure so many of our societal ills. At least, it might be a starting point. My colleague reminded me today (before I saw this message on the sidewalk) that she tells her kindergarten students, “Be kind or be quiet.” It is kind to stand up for what is right. It’s not kind to call names and diminish your classmates. (There is a bigger message there when it comes to grown ups.)
So, what about a poem for today? Verselove invited a haiku (17 syllables) about taxes. I think instead I will try my 17 syllables about a kindness rebellion.
I love to visit bookstores, so earlier this week while I was on Oahu I came across da Shop, a wonderful eclectic bookstore with so many fun books to browse (and buy). I was on the verge of buying this interesting picture book about the Japanese poet Basho called, A Pond, A Poet, and Three Pestsby Caroline Adderson. It’s a cute story imagining what Basho was experiencing when he created his famous Haiku:
Old pond–
Frog jumps in
Splash!
Or some version of that. There are many different translations. Today’s poetry prompt at Verselove suggests creating an un-found poem or an Antonymic (one using antonyms) version. While I’m not so sure I actually followed the directions, I did have fun playing around with my own Haiku-ish poem inspired by Basho’s The Old Pond.
For today’s poetry inspiration in our first grade classroom, I pulled out Georgia Heard and Rebecca Kai Dotlich’s Welcome to the Wonder House and we read a poem or two from each “room.” Students loved the rooms–and were already thinking about rooms that weren’t represented in the book. And then we all wrote. They were to choose a “room” that they felt connected to (I did say yes to those who wanted to combine rooms) and then pick the kind of poem they wanted to write. I noticed students writing short poems (we’ve written Hay(na)ku, Haiku, and 16 word poems in the last week or so), question poems, and poems of their own design. I had a student telling me she decided not to use any capital letters of punctuation like William Carlos Williams did in The Red Wheelbarrow. I can feel all the ways that poetry has seeped into their bones and their souls this year. It was a hectic day today with too many things pulling my at my attention, so I only really got a glimpse at what got written–we’ll get back to these pieces on Monday.
I decided to try a poem from the room of ordinary things–and wrote about dandelions. I guess it could also be located in the room of nature or maybe even the room of gardens. But I like that dandelions are everywhere–even where they are not wanted! I wrote several different kinds of poems, but decided on the Haiku to share today.
Where I’m from poems are tried and true in the writing project circles where I spend my time. So when Stacey at Verselove shared Where I’m From, Again as today’s post, it felt familiar.
I decided to try a very short form today…a Haiku. Can I express some aspect of where I am from in just 17 syllables? Here goes…
Some days less is more–and this is one of those days for me. #Verselove suggested a where I’m from poem, but at the end of a long day, a where I’m from Haiku is where I found myself. (Inspired by the black sage in full bloom on campus right now)
I’ve been inspired by Grant Snider’s comics for a while now and was super excited when I learned about his book Poetry Comics published at the end of March. (I wrote a mini review here). I knew I would be doing something inspired by his poetry comics with my first grade students this month. When I saw he had done a Haiku comic style, I knew this would be a perfect format for my students.
We’ve written Haiku this year–well, mostly 3-line poems without much attention to the syllable count. So when we took a look at Grant’s Haikomic this morning, students immediately understood (and recognized the metaphorical thinking in his last line).
I’ve learned when teaching first graders that sometimes a novel paper use can propel young writers forward, somehow tricking that treacherous writer’s block into disappearing. So instead of writing in their notebooks or on lined paper, I handed each student a 3″ square post-it note to draft their Haiku. It didn’t take long for students to have their Haiku ready to be transformed by the comic making process.
I distributed the comic paper–in this case, a page with three horizontal rectangular panels. Students wrote one line of their Haiku in each panel and added their comic drawing with colored pencil. As a final last step, they traced over the writing with a Sharpie marker.
Here are a few examples:
V can never help writing about violets!
M is obsessed with basketball!
In her piece, “I” decided to add speech bubbles.
And O celebrated flowers and springtime
While I wrote my Haiku about egrets with my students and drew along with them, later this afternoon with a group of Writing Project colleagues we crafted our Haikomics using photos instead of drawing (mostly due to severe time constraints). I then used Canva to write my Haiku directly onto my photo.
Maybe you’ll want to try your hand at a Haikomic too. I’d love to see what you come up with!
Thinking Through My Lens 