This week after what seems like a long hiatus, we are finally back in the classroom! While we have not met formally as a class, those students who volunteered to write our script have been working hard at shaping an amazing response to the work of Robinson Jeffers and the original play.
I have met with these students over the past few weeks to discuss themes and ideas important to the writing.
Students have composed a play in five short acts which focuses on an explanation for Medea's actions.

Today we read, "They Loved Paperclips," by Lisa Jarnot. This is a poem that fellow poet Cassie Sparkman used often in her classrooms with success... =)

Today we read, They Loved Paperclips, by Lisa Jarnot. This is a poem that fellow poet Cassie Sparkman used often in her classrooms with success... =)

The student wrote a group poem today! Using personification and elements, lines and ideas from old poems, we personified the city of CHICAGO. I had groups of students personify different parts of the city--the food, the people, the infamous weather. Each student wrote one line and then in groups organized the lines into stanzas, and then into the poem below.

The students performed this poem at the Poetry Festival in April--It was amazing. Hope you'll come next year!

Chicago Poem
Mr. Merrill and Ms. Navrocki's Class:

In "Bird Transfer" by Matthea Harvey, the reader is given several unconventional commands that may evoke a feeling and an image, but might not have a clear meaning at first reading: "Unfasten the crows," "Invent the sun," "Center your swan on the pond." For our foray into surrealism, our 4th-graders to create their own poem blurring the line between what they usually consider "real" and "imagination." Many wrote in the imperative tone (in a poem of commands).

Room 205

The Storm Stuck in Glue!
Emma L.

Today we looked at an excerpt from Joe Brainard's book-length poem "I Remember," and discussed anaphora, or the use of repetition. Students created their own catalogs of memories, and I asked them to focus on a moment or a specific image to help draw the reader in.

Mr. Balcazar, Room 207

I Remember
Marlon D.

I remember when we had to put my
dog to sleep because she had a really
big tumor in her mouth.

Last week at Moos, the third graders and I read the poem Dream Variations, by the venerable Langston Hughes. We talked about Hughe's life, and students reflected on the possible symbolism of day and the night in the poem. We also talked about the clarity and directness of the poem; an expression of desire, an exclamation of joy, a plain description of what he loves to do: "...to whirl and dance till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening beneath a tall tree...". And finally, we looked at the way Hughes brought that joyful spirit into the poem by playing with rhythm and rhyme.

Welcome back!  This week at Alcott, we continued to explore the power of descriptive detail to evoke emotion and relate the mood of a place and time. We read an excerpt of T.S. Elliot's Poem Preludes, which conveys the mood of a dreary neighborhood in the rain at lamp-lighting time. Without ever saying "the neighborhood was sad" or "lonely", Elliot communicates the emotion of the place by sharing a series of images: "...the burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps of withered leaves about your feet...".

Welcome back!  During our most recent poetry class, the students and I read an excerpt from the poem Flare, by the great Mary Oliver. In her poem, Oliver recalls the sights, sounds, smells and general feeling of an empty barn on her grandfather's farm; a place where she liked to be alone. She also placed the memory in the hands of the reader by speaking directly to us as though the memory was ours. I invited the students to write poems that welcome the reader into their own alone place...

     As I look forward to our *last* poetry class at Skinner, I thought I'd write about Revision Day. April 28th was a day of contemplation, expansion and reworking. When poets revise, they look again, think again, and usually end up rewriting! The students were asked to pick one of their least inspired poems from their poetry portfolios, identify the best image in that poem, and to come up with a list of words they associated with that image.