Sadly, my time at George Washington has come to an end. My last visit there was full of beautiful flowers, hugs and a classroom of fifth graders jumping out and shouting surprise!
In the third grade each student read their favorite poem aloud to an attentive, coookie munching classroom. These poems will be included in the EAnthology and there are many, many fine poems from these great, young poets elsewhere on this blog.

To mark our final event for the BIG Read, students in the third grade created a Wall of Words in an ode to the Tor House and Tower built by Robinson Jeffers.
Each student donated a shoe box. They came in all sizes which was great. The shoeboxes were wrapped in brown paper. Students selected a favorite word from one of the poet's poems and wrote in on the box in large letters-oxygen, trees, cliffs, nature, hawk, I, were just a few.
These boxes also received enthusiastic decoration from the students.

Students at George Washington were busy last week!
The third grade class explored the world of what we called picture poems, or poems in which words are used to form a shape or image. Formally, this kind of writing is referred to as Concrete Poetry.
Students made many fun and interesting picture poems, robots and houses were well represented.
Abigail created a star shape on the page made from the word Star repeated over and over. Then she added this explanation in the form of a more traditional poem.

Star
Abigail S.

Another interesting week at George Washington where we continue are exploration of the ideas that inspired the work of poet Robinson Jeffers. In the third grade we thought and talked about the relationship between nature and buildings. We made big lists of words associated with the words Architecture, Nature and Poetry. The blackboard was FULL of words! We looked and thought and talked about intersections between those works. And then, students wrote using the prompt: Nature is a House as their jumping off point. Examples of their work are included here.

Nature is a House
Ana

The fifth grade students were introduced to the poetry of Robinson Jeffers this week. We reviewed two poems by the poet, ‘Carmel Point' and ‘Summer Holiday.' We noted the ugly but descriptive language that Jeffers uses to describe the modern world, the age of iron and granite. We looked at word choice made by the poet through-out the two poems and then we chose from those words to make new poems!
Through a series of steps involving crossing out and collage. These are artistic processes that date back to the work of the Dadaists and have been employed by both writers and artists.

Note: This post will present the third grader's work. A second blog will present the work of the fifth grade students at George Washington.

Like our friends at other schools in the Hands on Stanza‘s program, we too are studying the work of the American poet Robinson Jeffers. Our continued looking at art dovetailed nicely with the poetry of Mr. Jeffers.
Our art museum this week consisted of landscape paintings which we admired for their many beautiful qualities especially, the use of color, shadow and light and the various layers of field and sky.

Our work in the third grade this week began with viewing pictures of objects associated with Native American culture. We looked at beautiful rugs and clothing as well as photographs of people. Then we read some chants created by the Navajo and good noted how saying these chants in different ways made them sound and mean different things.
The third grade students then wrote poetry with repeating lines. Please note how the third grade students using stanzas and line breaks to enhance meaning in their work. It's wonderful!

I Hear Voices
Salvador V.

Students in both classes read a poem called, ‘I Want to Write' by Margaret Walker. The poet says in her poem;

I want to write the songs of my people.
I want to hear them singing melodies in the dark.

The third grade students also continued their exploration of art by viewing self-portraits by the French painter Paul Gaugin and his friend, the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. The third grade students discussed what each man wanted based on their pictures of themselves. And then they wrote about what they, themselves want from life.

I Want To
Salvador V.

We continue our exploration of self-expression in painting this week by viewing a self-portrait of the Dutch painter Rembrandt Van Rijn. We spent a lot of time looking at this beautiful painting and discussed why he chose to portray himself against a dark background. Students agreed that his face showed both strength and sadness.
We read the poem, ‘Who and Where' by Marvin Bell. This poem describes the poet as small and weak compared to others but ends by saying that he is happy to live here along with the rest of us and doesn‘t mind that he‘s not a very important person.

We begin the new year with a fresh outlook and always resolve to tackle things that we find challenging, take on new tasks and do better. With this in mind, students at George Washington who are studying poetry will also be introduced to some classic works of art and architecture.

Our conversations about these paintings will hopefully enrich our writing and make us see things in a new way.

The first week we read three short poems about monkeys. Here is the haiku we read written by the Chinese poet, Basho.

First cold rain-