Our poetry project began this year by purchasing a copy of the anthology Seeing the Blue Between by Paul B. Janeczko for all of our 7th grade language arts students. Every week we've been focusing on a specific poet/writer's advice and selected poem. Our students have been soaking in poems everyday. Last week we were honored to host visiting poet, author, performer, and educator Sara Holbrook!
Sara worked with 7th graders on Tuesday crafting poems using extended metaphor, personification, and similes. She guided them through the art of performance poetry and prepared them for performing their poetry for family night. It was refreshing to see Sara not only share her poems, but also help students craft their own. She worked alongside them and helped them understand the "why" of poetry. We also selected 10 students to eat lunch with Sara. The students were hesistant to talk at first, but it didn't take them long to warm up and chat away! Our art teacher spent time over the past couple of weeks helping our students make paper and use it to make covers of handcrafted books. Students used these books to create collections of poems they've written all year. We were able to disply these at the family night event. We loved watching students share these special collections with their family and friends.
Wednesday morning, Sara presented vocabulary instruction to middle school teachers using her newest book High Definition. The rest of the day, she worked with 6th & 8th graders in their content area. Sixth graders used their upcoming social studies vocabulary words to write and present poems to reinforce learning in an authentic, meaningful way. Eighth graders wrote poems in their science class and presented them in class.
"words don't just lay down on the paper and behave themselves"
"the more you write, the more ideas will come up off the page""hear what others write... build a community of writers"
"as the boss of your own poem you get to decide how it is said"
"poetry gets us thinking about bigger ideas"
"ideas bubble up off the page as your pen flies across it"
Sara backed up everything we teach our students about writing everyday. It was a joy & honor to have her in our school for two days.
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