Poetry Loves Science: a science poem powerpoint slideshow

The Juicy Words Poem

It's good to just dive right into writing poems from as soon as possible at the start of the unit. But, as with adults, the blank page can seem intimidating. There are lots of great books on teaching how to write poetry. I like Baron Wormser's "Teaching the Art of Poetry: The Moves" co-written with David Cappella. (Full disclosure: Baron was one of the best teachers I've ever had the pleasure to work with. He was a fantastic mentor for me in graduate school. His passion for democratizing while also revering poetry is evident in Teaching the Art of Poetry.)

Another good poetry teaching book is Kenneth Koch's "Wishes, Lies, and Dreams". Kenneth Koch was a poet of the 60s "New York School" (though most poets dislike being labeled as part of one group or another) and wrote for "grown-ups" but was one of the rare poets who created books on or of poetry for both children and adults.

I will also mention Larry Fagin's "The List Poem: a guide to teaching and writing catalog verse" from Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Fagin is another contemporary writer who writes mostly for adults but also has work geared toward children.

As a poet, one of my favorite ways to get inspiration is what I call the "juicy words" exercise. I will read a poem, a news article, a classic novel, a friend's scholarly journal on brain activity in rats (truly!!), listen to color commentary during Sunday football games, pretty much anything -- and write down "juicy" words: words I rarely use, words that have an interesting sound, words that are new to me. After I've made my list, I will write a poem, usually in free verse, about any topic I feel like and my only stipulation is that I try to use as many of the juicy poems from my list as I can.

We do this exercise following our reading of Emily Dickinson's "Blazing in Gold..." There are so many juicy words in this poem: blazing, otter, stooping, bonnet...

As this is the first writing exercise, I don't give more parameters than what's on the instructions. After some class time to create, they share with each other and then they can read aloud to the class if they want. I always do the exercise as well and if they're reluctant to share, I start the ball rolling by sharing my work. I emphasize that this is a draft, it doesn't have to be perfect, and it probably won't be; I emphasize that that is completely acceptable.

This is the hand out I give to the students:

B Draft 2 Juicy Words Exercise by bmadden714

Reading Emily Dickinson's 'Blazing in Gold..."

I read the poem "Blazing in Gold..." by Emily Dickinson as one of our first poems to study. It's full of vivid imagery, juicy words and sounds, and works well for a young audience as the poem itself is a kind of riddle.

First we read the text just as it is:

Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter's Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone 

Then we talk about what we notice. It's kept pretty informal. I suggest they can think about images made in the poem, interesting words, length of lines, length of poem itself, objects mentioned, rhythm, rhyme. It's just a "noticing" exercise at first. We don't worry about "getting it" or not or meaning or anything like that, to start.

Then I show them the illustrated version. (I made an illustration of this poem as part of my critical graduate thesis on close reading a poem.) After that, we get into the "exterior" of the poem (What does it mean?) and also "interior" (use of literary devices like alliteration and personification, rhyme scheme).

(I will have to edit this! Look for an update in the future!)

A Reading 2 Blazing in Gold Illustrated by bmadden714

 

The Commonplace Book - get messy, get creative

To start everything, before we even read a book, we create our commonplace book.

Commonplace books were very popular in the 1800s. People still keep them to this day, though they may not call them as such. The definition of a commonplace book is very broad. Essentially they are scrapbooks/ notebooks filled with items of every kind: quotes, letters, poems, photographs, drawings, excerpts of other books, clippings from newspapers, doodles, drafts, journal entries -- anything to collect pieces of inspiration.

You can see in other entries on this site excerpts from my commonplace books (the drawing of the elephant, the poem/library metaphor). I keep a paper one all the time and I keep one online:

http://bridgetscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/p/whats-commonplace-book.html

The commonplace book is an essential part of the poetry unit to my mind. I want to make sure the students have a place to draw, doodle, take notes, get messy, over write, take risks, let thoughts flow, get inspired and let loose. It's not graded or corrected, it's merely a tool, like a pencil, for their learning as poets.

(It's good to start calling them poets every day during the lessons. When they think of themselves that way, they get more confidence in their abilities. Confidence in one's abilities is so important, though very hard to achieve. But it's good to start them thinking that they can and should take themselves and creating/creativity seriously from a young age.)

Each student got a notebook which they put their name on. They got markers and/or pens and stickers (I picked up a bunch of big sticker packets from the Dollar Tree) and they decorated the cover of their commonplace books. I wrote in my first few pages and showed them some of the possibilities for what theirs can contain.

The most important thing is emphasizing a place to have the freedom to make a mess, explore, and take risks. We don't often have spaces like that in teaching and education, where there are no parameters, no structure, no assessment-oriented criteria. That's exactly why I think most of the students LOVE their commonplace books. They fill at least one and some get up to three by the time the unit's don,e and then keep their own going after that. (Forever? Here's hoping!)

Once you've started to have them keep a commonplace book, you can extend it beyond the poetry lesson. They can work in it during all those "down" times throughout a day, or incorporate it into other units you teach.

Here's some sample pages from my commonplace book. I used mine for creating and organizing ideas for the unit. Of course I had an outline to start and materials from years' past, but each group has different needs or goes in different directions. I use my commonplace book to generate variations to the unit outline.

Emily Dickinson's Garden: The Poetry of Flowers - a Power Point slide show

After reading Michael Bedard's Emily, we then take a virtual field trip to Emily Dickinson's garden.

In 2010 the New York Botanical Garden had an exhibit titled "Emily Dickinson's Garden: The Poetry of Flowers". Using artifacts from Emily's life, the NYBG recreated her garden in their Haupt Conservatory. I was fortunate enough to visit on the last day of the exhibit and my poet friend and I took lots of pictures, which I then compiled into a slide show with commentary for the students.

The students view the slide show with their commonplace books out and crayons, pencils and markers. They can take notes, draw what they see or not include anything form the slideshow, but I remind them to have them out in case they get inspired.

Emily by Michael Bedard

To start the poetry and science unit, after we have created our commonplace books, we talked about the poet Emily Dickinson, beginning by reading the children's book "Emily" by Michael Bedard, illustrated by the famous Barbara Cooney.

I stop at certain parts to check for comprehension. This is a fictional story and I want to make sure the students understand that this is realistic fiction, not biography. I also talk a little about Emily Dickinson's biography; that she didn't really like to leave the house, that she didn't publish her poems while she was alive, that she loved to garden, and, especially, that she has since become one of America's most famous poets of all time because her work was so different from what everyone else wrote at the time. I weave these pieces of information into natural pauses while reading the story aloud to the class.

I also brought in a collection of Emily Dickinson books for them to look through, including any small selected works (some of them are very pretty books), the collected works, letters, collections geared toward children--whatever I had in my personal library and whatever the school and local library might have as well.

This book is a good one to start the poetry and science unit because it introduces an important poet to children, in illustrations that many are familiar with style-wise thanks to Barbara Cooney. And it fits perfectly with the concept of poetry influenced by science because it emphasizes how Emily Dickinson's horticultural expertise inspired her writing.

The parts of a poem

Ther are lots of components that make a poem a poem. Here is one way of thinking about the parts of a poem:

The Interior of a Poem - what comes from the writer of the poem

Texture - the materials of a poem
Structure - the organization of the materials; the architecture
Form - the final arrangement; the complete execution

Texture (Structure + Form) = Interior of a poem

The exterior of a poem - what comes from the poem being read

Substance - what the poem is
Function - how a poem works as art
Spirit - why the poem exists

Substance + Function + Spirit = Exterior of a poem

And throughout the whole poem, both the exterior and the interior is...

Energy - the most difficult thing to examine in a poem, but the thing that makes it successful; voice, distinction, authenticity, confidence, surprise.

Energy is often the thing that gets lost when we only look at one part or another and do not keep in mind the whole.