As I've discussed previously, we journal almost every day. Some days, we do the typical one paragraph to a page on a certain subject, but other days, I like to switch up the activities with a more creative journal. In this particular journal, we started class discussing poetry. I asked the students to write two words that come to mind when they hear the word "poetry". We then read through the posted notes of their poetic thoughts. While some students seemed to describe poetry by referencing "deep thoughts" or "figurative language," other students responded with "boring" or "blah". These answers were not surprising from 14 to 15 year-old boys. The following activity is how I tried to make poetry less "boring" and more outside the norm. Rather than force them to write a lot of poetry, which we focus on in the other freshman English class, this activity allows them to be creative without the daunting task of being told to just sit down and manufacture a poem. Some people may have seen pictures of "black-out poetry" or "found poems" on Pinterest or other websites. Basically, a poem can be made by taking an already finished piece of writing, and using the given words to make your own poem from the piece. First, I printed out three screen shots of book pages that I found easily when I googled "book page." One page was from Harry Potter fan fiction entitled Vader vs. Voldemort, one was from a book about WWII, and the last page was from from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. I wanted the students to be able to pick which piece of literature they might enjoy to make their poem from. For my example (pictured on the right in blue), I picked Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. From the page of his book, I found my own poem: "I wish time waited patiently, she was frightened by change." I gave students an ample amount of time to find their poems and decorate their pages. The next day, we all shared our poems. Some turned out silly (especially thanks to a hookah reference during Alice's adventures), while others were much more serious. |
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorSecond-year teacher at an all-boys school. Archives
January 2016
Categories |