Some days writing feels hard. Even when there is an interesting prompt, there are days when the words seem to be hiding. This has been one of those days for me.
With Angie’s invitation at #verselove, I used Clint Smith’s poem, No More Elegies Today to frame my poem, to get me started. Maybe this is one of those pieces I will return to on another day and find my way to another place with it.
Today I will Write a Poem
Today I will write a poem about writing
It will not dwell in the challenges of deciding on a topic
or the many chores that suddenly need my attention (instead of writing)
It will not illuminate the scribbled out words
or the dead end paths started but not followed
Instead
It will be a poem about how writing can be
the rainbow that colored my way to work this morning
reframing a Monday with scarlets, tangerines, indigos, and violets
It will use words as shovels and hoes
digging up the rich loam of meaning
sowing the possibility of a seed taking root
It will take me out of my writing funk long enough
Last week we returned to school after our two-week winter break. The first graders in my class were eager to talk, telling each other about all the things that had happened while they were apart. Knowing that students would be chatty, I planned lessons that would allow interaction and conversation on our first day back in class.
I’d been thinking about having students craft a collaborative poem for a while now. We’ve been studying poems and writing some of our own all school year, but still, it seemed that the time was ripe for something more. I began our lesson with Kwame Alexander’s delightful picture book, How to Write a Poem, illustrated brilliantly by Melissa Sweet. We read and noticed first, with students intrigued by the use of collage, the lyrical language, and colorful images. Before I began reading, I had asked my students what they knew about metaphorical thinking. What? That was their response. So after reading and talking about the book, we went back through the book so I could point out examples of metaphor…and just about then, my principal walked in. She comes in from time to time, pulls up a chair and sits and listens. She doesn’t interact and her poker face is nearly unreadable. I just went on with the lesson, feeling students pulled in as we talked about words falling from the sky like rain. We imagined ourselves outside, heads tipped, tongues out, ready to catch those words. As we became the metaphors we were studying, we talked about how metaphor lets us use ideas from our imaginations to make our writing become more clear…and more fun! When my principal left, I still had my students full attention as they grappled with this abstract idea of metaphorical thinking.
Now, we needed to try it on for ourselves. I decided on having students create a collaborative poem by having each student contribute one line to a “winter is…” poem. So I asked them, how might you use metaphorical thinking to describe what winter is? The first responses had them leaning back on what they already knew. Winter is cold, winter is when trees lose their leaves. In some ways, this was the perfect next step. We talked about how those are facts about winter…now we needed to think about how to make comparisons that were surprising. When one of my students got to snow was white cotton candy, I knew we were heading in the right direction! I had them try a few “winter is…” lines, and just when they were running out of steam, I pulled out the colorful sticky note sentence strips for each student to write their favorite “winter is…” line on. I could feel the motivation lift and even my most reluctant student eagerly chose a color and started writing his line (although there were none written in the notebook at this point). Once they had written, they stuck their post it on the white board.
I wasn’t quite sure where we were at this point. I let the post its sit over night and pulled them off the next morning with the intention of typing up their lines to form a poem. As I typed I divided the ideas into 3-line stanzas, that seemed to help give the poem shape. I was pleasantly surprised when the ideas seemed to come together into a poem that I felt we could all appreciate.
Winter Is…
Winter is white puffy cotton candy
A time for snowflakes that look like crystals
When snow foxes dig holes to keep their cubs warm
Winter is a cold hug in your heart
The wind at the beach
Time for hot chocolate
Winter is snowflakes blowing
Clouds melting
A freezing tree giving words to my pencil to write down
Winter is a snowflake full of thoughts
A snowflake falling down as fast a rocket
Pine trees covered with snow
Winter is a cold place to relax and slide your pencil to write down your mind
Snow soft and crunchy like people walking on the snow
Full of puffy snow like white cotton candy
Winter is a frozen lake waiting for spring
Holidays in your mind
A snow of thoughts flying through the air
Winter is a chilly place where it snows
Winter is so fun because you can play
Winter is a time for joy!
By Room 3 First Graders
1-8-24
I can see where students were inspired by their classmates and where some students are still not quite there when it comes to moving away from facts as they craft a line about winter, but I am pleased with this as a starting point. And even better, my principal saw me eating lunch on Wednesday and commented on the book and lesson–in a very positive way. She loved that I was introducing metaphorical thinking to first graders.
But honestly, the real payoff started to emerge in small moments as the week went on. My students started to point out metaphorical thinking throughout the school day, and in their own speech. On Tuesday, we returned to the book, Kiyoshi’s Walk by Mark Karlins as we embarked on writing 3-line poems about the cardinals we had created in the style of Charley Harper the day before.
As I read the Haiku in Kiyoshi’s Walk, they pointed out the metaphors…a pile of oranges described as a “hill of orange suns.” Again, not every student is yet ready to employ metaphor effectively…yet, but the seeds are planted. So we wrote 3-line poems on Tuesday (I try not to have these poems be about syllable counts–trying instead to focus on ideas and word choice) and then on Wednesday, I asked students to go back to their poems and improve them by changing a word or two or adding another detail (revision!). Here’s a student who was clearly influenced by Eto’s poem in Kiyoshi’s Walk.
Cardinals
Champ 1964 St. Louis Wins
Cardinals fly to win
Trophy of suns
By J
When J read the poem to me, he pointed out that since trophies are golden, they are shiny like golden suns–something he changed from his first draft the day before. And I know, clearly his mind was on the St. Louis Cardinals (a favorite team) rather than on the bird we crafted the day before. But the win is in the poem–three lines, metaphor, revision…and pride in writing! I’ll take it! Another student wrote this to describe his cardinal.
The Red Cardinal
The red poinsettia feathers
keep me warm
and they fill the forest with love
By F
And there were also more subtle attempts like this.
Flying in the Wind
I see that cardinal
flying in the tree
just like the wind
By O
What I see is students experimenting, playing with ideas, playing with words…and growing as writers and poets (as well as readers and thinkers). I love that something as deceptively simple as reading How to Write a Poem resulted in our writing community learning together, composing together, and risking trying on some new techniques together. I am reminded once again of the power of poetry…so yes, I will continue to say, “More poetry please.”
I can be a bit serious. Okay, maybe a lot serious. And sometimes that means that the classroom can seem like all work and no play…and we all know that first graders (and maybe all students) both want and NEED some play to help learning move along.
For some reason, my school decided that again this year our winter holidays (two weeks of no school) would bump right up against Christmas. I’ll be loving the holiday when January gets here, but to be honest, it’s brutal right now. Instead of children who are focused on learning to read and write (and all our other subjects of study), they have visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads! (Or maybe that is just the candy cane overload coursing through their bodies!)
I made a deal with myself as I planned lessons for this week–leave spaces for play, expect silliness and louder than usual volume, smile and laugh more, enjoy the moments.
So…I planned a small writing lesson.
I remembered this wonderful book of poems called The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How To Poems selected by Paul Janeczko and started flipping through. If I had my students write a “how to” something, they would have many choices of topic and could draw on all that they already know. But which poem would work as a useful mentor text to get them started? There are many good choices…but I was looking for something short, a bit whimsical, and an idea that my students might find unexpected. How to Scare Monsters by Rebecca Kai Dotlich was just right! It starts out easy, “Keep a light on, that’s the thing… and turns a bit in the second (of two) stanzas with “Aim for the toe (did you know this?)…
I read it a few times, letting students soak into the language. They noticed the strange notation (parentheses) and were intrigued. We talked about the extra information in there and they definitely picked up on the personal, friendly tone. We brainstormed things we are “experts” at doing, and that list included A LOT of sports! After I wrote a poem in front of them (How to take Photos of Egrets), they opened their notebooks and began their own How To poems.
Students immediately got to their writing (along with plenty of talking) and a number of them included the parentheses in their poems. As they began to finish and read their writing to me, I could feel the smile genuinely creeping onto my face. The poems were fresh and their voices came through loud and clear. Some of the topics were predictable, but some were not…like this one by O:
How to Catch a Rattlesnake
Go to a desert.
Find a hole.
(Maybe it’s a snake hole.)
If it’s a snake hole,
get a good stick.
And do not grab it by the tail,
grab it by the neck.
If you grab it by the tail
they will swing and bite you.
If you grab it by the neck
they will not move
except their tail.
Did you notice the parentheses? I had encouraged students to pick small topics rather than trying to explain a whole game. But, you know, some students want to do what they want to do. But somehow J captured this game in a nutshell. I bet you know what game it is!
How to Play Ball
Get two teams
9 is enough
9 innings
1,2,3 bases and
one home plate in a square.
(One out is three hittable balls
Four balls you can not hit go to 1st base)
A hit
run as fast as you can go
until you are thrown out
or tagged out
You are out.
Three outs is an inning
touch home plate to get a point.
who has the most points wins
if you are tied
overtime.
And who doesn’t love a how to poem about riding a bike? It’s obviously a childhood classic! Here is O’s rendition. (This is a different O–I have many in this year’s class!)
How to Ride a Bike
This is how we ride a bike
without training wheels.
First put your helmet on
and then get on your bike.
And try not to look down
look straight ahead and pedal
and make sure nothing is in front of you.
And that is how you ride a bike
without training wheels.
And a short but sweet one by V who did take my advice and decided not to capture all of gymnastics but to instead focus on a single trick.
How to do a Cartwheel
Start in a lunge
Put your hands on the ground
Then when you put your hands on the ground
Kick your legs up
(One foot up first, then the other)
Land with hands by your ears.
These small poems started this week off with a dose of joy. Students enjoyed writing and reading them, I enjoyed hearing them and rereading them. No one whined that they had nothing to write about, no one got teary with frustration (including me), and we all enjoyed writing and sharing and teaching someone else about our individual expertise.
Reminder to myself: be playful, small can be powerful, enjoy the wonders of childhood and read and write more poems!
So…if you need to add a bit of joy to your teaching or writing life, take a look at How to Scare Monsters and write some how to poems!
Gratitude and appreciation are essential elements in raising children to be naturalists and environmental stewards. We take care of what we love. Throughout the school year I have made an effort to integrate environmental literature and learning wherever I could across the curriculum. We participated in #writeout with the National Writing Project in October, doing wonder walks and exploring acorns. We made posters and wrote 6 words for the environment, advocating for the Earth. We learned about Ansel Adams and dandelions and made wishes that we hope will disperse like seeds–resilient and gritty–growing where they land, like dandelions themselves, making the Earth a better place. Last week we read Thank You, Earth by April Pulley Sayre, a beautiful book that combines photographs and descriptive language to express appreciation for all that nature has to offer. This became the inspiration for our own letters of gratitude to the Earth in the form of zines.
We made zines earlier in the school year, so it seems like perfect timing to come back full circle especially since students have made so much progress as writers and readers. To push their composition and zine making skills, this time we created a plan before launching into the zine itself. Students planned their front and back covers and the six interior pages before creating the actual zine. They were encouraged to stretch their ideas, adding detail and description for each page.
What I love the most is that students had so many ideas about what they are grateful for in nature. They love trees and clouds and rainbows. Animals (both cute and feisty according to one student), the ocean, and flowers were prevalent topics. Pollinators and water, and of course, constellations also were featured. In each of their zines, I can see traces of my teaching…about writing and art and the environment. Here’s a student reading her zine.
I am hopeful that these young students will grow up to be advocates for our planet, for healthy environments for everyone, for sustainable practices and clean energy. Finding spaces for students to learn about the challenges we face on our planet, about the importance of conservation, and about ways to stand up and voice both their appreciation and their concerns for the future are important and easily combined with the reading, writing, science, and art that are already the typical parts of school curriculum when you plan carefully.
Students’ notes of gratitude to the Earth will be on display for Open House next week, spreading their appreciation and awe of the natural world to their families and others who peek into our classroom. How might you construct and spread your message of gratitude to the Earth? I am looking forward to hearing your ideas.
Today as I wandered, looking for inspiration for a poem for day 29, I turned to the Moving Writers blog and found this post by Brett Vogelsinger, which led me to the poem I Need to Live Near a Creek that became my mentor text for today. I knew I wanted to write from this photo that I took today on a walk at the beach–the curlew flying out of the frame of my photo as I clicked the shutter.
With Poem in your PocketDay coming up on Thursday, we studied Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s poem by the same name. In her poem, Amy sees a bird out her window and wonders, “if this bird had pockets, if this bird could write, would it scribble poems about nectar? humming?flight?” The poem comes from her book, If This Bird Had Pockets: A Poem in Your Pocket Day Celebration where she includes poems written from a variety of different animals’ point of view. So after reading a couple more poems from this book, of course we had to write our own pocket poems. While I suggested writing about a favorite animal, and after yesterday’s success with 16-word poems I encouraged students to try another short poem…students went in their own directions. And in a short period of time, pocket poems began to emerge from the pencils of the first graders in my class. Here’s a taste:
E who often writes about wolves and dogs, today wrote her pocket poem about friendship
You and Me
we walk to my
home
a tornado of
friendship
just you and
me
we are
together forever
C took me up on the animal invitation
Hedgehog
a spiky prickly ball
of sweetness uncurling
to its burrow
going to its mother
to eat breakfast
And G explored one of our favorite ocean animals
Dolphins are Amazing
dolphins zip to
me
leap up up
up
and back down
again
caring considerate and
loving
My own poem featured a hummingbird
Hummingbird
If this iridescent
jewel
had pockets they’d
hold
whipped-cream air
spun
from wings blindingly
fast
Maybe we’ll tuck these poems in our pockets tomorrow to share with those who cross our paths. How will you celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day?
I love short form poetry, especially when working with young children. Today we read 16 Words: William Carlos Williams and “The Red Wheelbarrow” by Lisa Rogers and learned about a poem made up of a mere 16 words. When my first grade students studied the text of the poem, they immediately noticed that there were four stanzas (awareness built of studying a poem each week). They also noticed that each stanza contained four words (how had I missed that detail?). They noticed the lack of capitalization and punctuation (“he broke the rules!”), something we have noticed with other poets and other poems.
Of course, we had to try our own 16-word poetry. And in a mere five minutes, students expressed their ideas following Williams’ text as their mentor. Here’s a few examples from 6 and 7 year old poets:
Horses
outside the stable
inside
a field of grass
waits in the sun
for horses to run
by A
A Bee Poem
buzzing in the
breeze
is a little
bee
sipping nectar from
flowers
to make yummy
honey
by G
Feelings
white blue and
red
sad and mad
happy
calm purple and
green
pink exciting brown
down
by C
And one by a student who is my unexpected poet–if I say the word poem, his entire body lights up…and he can’t wait to hear the poems and write his own!
The Yellow Bee
i sing with trees
i flew with clouds
i feel the breeze
i saw the earth
by R
And mine, composed while writing with my class, inspired by looking out the window of my classroom.
First graders are naturally filled with wonder. It doesn’t take much to get them to look closely, to pay attention to details that many others miss.
Our school has the most amazing librarian. Last week I asked her about a book–a book I know I own, but cannot find in my classroom. And she not only found me a copy of that book, but she also suggested another that was new to me…and just what I needed today when I found it in my mailbox.
#writeout is a collaboration between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service that urges all of us to get outside and find inspiration in whatever nature is around us. We started #writeout yesterday with time in the school garden. Students learned about weeds, donned child-sized gardening gloves, and dug and pulled and delighted in seeing roots break free of the dry soil.
Today we read Wonder Walkers, that book our school librarian left in my mailbox. It was perfect for setting the stage for a wonder walk, time on our school grounds looking for interesting things (think leaves, seed pods, sticks, etc.) from nature that we collected using our collection tool (shout out to Little Pine Learners). Before we headed out we talked about what items we could collect and what we should not (living bugs, picking flowers and plants)–and students were excited to get started.
They looked carefully and their collectors began to fill. Some were exuberant and filled their spaces quickly, crowding dried roots and pine droppings with sticks and crunchy leaves. Others were more selective, leaving more spaces between the items collected. A child with sharp eyes found a dandelion puff that didn’t have to be picked, truly a treasure that her classmates envied!
Before we headed back into the classroom, I gathered students close and encouraged them to hold out the collectors so they could see each other’s collections and also so I could take a few pictures.
Once back in the classroom, students used their iPads to take a photo of their collector for future use. Then we settled to read another book. An old favorite, Weeds Find a Way by Cindy Jenson-Elliott, is a wonderful mentor text for students to use as a structure or frame for their writing. I loved the gasp when students realized that this book was non-fiction, yet so accessible with beautiful illustrations. They also remembered their experience with weeds from yesterday and the conversation with the garden teacher about how weeds are not “bad,” they are just not the plants you want in a particular space.
After comments and observations about the book, we tried on using the Weeds find a way… frame with objects from our collectors. “A red leaf finds a way to swish and swoosh through the air,” was one example that got us started.
We ended the day by starting a Zine to showcase our nature items through writing and drawing. We used a single sheet of copy paper to fold a small booklet (with a single cut and no tape or staples) that will soon become tiny treasures worthy of #writeout. More about that in another post!
Quirky is a word I love, but still, when I saw it as the #verselove prompt by Kim over at Ethical ELA I felt at a loss. What poem will I write that fits this category?
It’s our first day back after Spring Break–and my first April day with my students. We primed ourselves for National Poetry Month before Spring Break at the end of March by writing a collaborative Poetry Is poem. And today, I brought out a favorite Eve Merriam poem, Peeling an Orange to serve as a mentor text for students. (You can see my experimentation on day 1 of National Poetry Month.) We’ve studied a poem each week of the school year, laying down an appreciation for and familiarity with poetry and the interesting language it is known for. And we write poetry regularly–I love short writing forms (for all ages) and the permission to break rules that poetry allows.
I lay out all of this to establish my own quirkiness as a teacher of writing. My expectations for the 6 and 7 year olds in my class are sky high–and when it comes to writing, they seldom let me down. I establish early on my love for egrets–they make a great writing topic that my students come to know and expect. While they didn’t know much about them early in the school year, they are quite familiar with them now.
Finally–get to the point already! When I picked my students up after lunch today they rushed me, so excited they simply couldn’t stay in line. Mrs. Douillard–there was a snowy egret! What?! I was looking around the playground. Really? A snowy egret on the playground? No–it was flying over the playground. I missed it–but they loved it and loved knowing that I would love it. So, inspired by my students and their excitement, my quirky poem is a Haiku capturing this moment.
snowy egret flies
yellow footed pistons tucked tight
playground showoff
@kd0602
And here I circle back to the first grade poets I love and teach and their Peeling an Orange inspired poetry.
B wrote about lizards
Catching a Lizard
skittering like
the second hand
in all different
shapes and sizes
not very easy to see
but they are still very
tiny.
R wrote her own quirky piece
Squirrels
A fuzzy bushy fearless fighter rodent
when he bites you you immediately put your hand on your cut
Imagine my surprise this morning when the post by Ethical ELA was hosted by friend and colleague Emily Yamasaki! I was immediately drawn into both the mentor poem, things I have memorized by Maria Giesbrecht and Emily’s poem, Things I Know. I dove deeply into the cool pool of poems that emerged from Emily’s provocation, reading and feeling, admiring and analyzing as I began to think about my own writing for this second day of National Poetry Month.
Things I Know by Heart
The sleek curve of the egret’s neck
in the tidepool at low tide
The smells of love that fill our home
emanating from the kitchen
The silence of his last breath
matching the empty space in our family
My daily commute, etched in the recesses of my mind,
requiring no conscious thought
My childhood phone number
but not my passwords–they continue to elude me
The sweetness of little boys
now into the second generation
Fear of fire, seared into my memory
brought back by ashes that rain down like snowflakes
Fog’s gray blanket
an indicator that spring has arrived
Each of the traffic spots on the 5 between our house and theirs
no matter how long it takes, every trip is worth it
