One of my resolutions is to try something new in my classroom this semester. So I’ve been tapping the pencil on my skull trying to figure out what that means. A small knot is beginning to form, but I have come up with something for introducing poetry. For some reason I cannot fathom, saying ‘poetry’ to high school student always elicits groans. Really? Don’t they realize what a joy it is to write poetry? Soon enough, they will.
On the board for silent writing, it says, “Write down as many categories as you can think of that describe your winter break. Then pick one and write about it.” I borrowed a piece of graph paper from one of the math teachers and copied it. Once we’ve shared our categories and the one we wrote more about, we’ll craft a poem on the graph paper, using the categories as the labels for the y axis with whatever they decide equates to ‘just okay’ on the zero and then building positive categories up to the ‘whoo-doggie’ and negatives down to the ‘total bummer.’
Once they’ve done that, they’ll add the words to describe the events running up and down along the x axis from the beginning of break to the end. Once we get past the ‘I don’t get its,’ I think the results will be some sweet action!