Poetry is an experience. That is something I have learned over these last few weeks that has changed how I think and process poetry, whether I am reading or writing it. I can honestly say I was one of those kids who really hated poetry. Reading it was scary because I struggled to comprehend prose, so how was supposed to comprehend something that always had some type of "hidden meaning" (according to my teachers)? And how was I supposed to write poetry for fun if they only time I was ever assigned to write poetry was in eight grade when I was supposed to write my own sonnet, which originated in 13th-century Italy and was comprised of 14 lines in ABAB CDCD EFEF GG structure? The answer is I did not like to read or write poetry for a very long time. However, in the past few weeks I have seen poetry in a new light. Poetry is not just structured lines of texts with hidden meanings, and yes, there is modern poetry! Poetry is way of slowing down and observing life, much like a scientist would, in order to see the unusual among the ordinary. So now I ask the question, how can you not like poetry? Reading PoetryWhen I was a junior in college, I was introduced to The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. The book is a novel written in verse and it tells the story of a typical family overcoming hardships. I had never read a novel written in verse until this point and it began to open my eyes to the possibility that poetry wasn't too bad after all. The next time I saw poetry, I was a first semester graduate student creating a multimodal unit of instruction around another novel written in verse called, Garvey's Choice by Nikki Grimes. This was another heartwarming story about an adolescent boy finding his identity within himself, his family, and school, all while overcoming negative self-image. Those were the only two times I had seen poetry and not been asked to pick it apart or find the structure of the poem, and they eased me quite well into these last few weeks of poetry instruction. Just a few weeks ago, in my last semester of graduate school, I began to read lots and lots of poetry to "marinate" in it and begin to see poetry for what it really is: a beautiful way of looking at life more closely. I had never read so much poetry in such a short amount of time, and I am so thankful for the opportunity I did have to read so much of it at once. It is sad to know that I won't have the opportunity to discuss all the poems I have read with my peers and professors due to the current pandemic; however, I am thankful for this poetry for the sake of my future students. I now know how to invite my students to engage with poetry and see it in a beautiful way. If I could change the way I viewed poetry after 18 years of education, I know I can help my reluctant students do the same. *All the photos on this page belong to me except for the photo of The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (I couldn't find my copy!). Here is the website where I found that photo: https://twitter.com/carriefriday/status/994738024876576769 Writing PoetryWriting poetry is really what I have fallen in love with. It's actually interesting to look at how I have progressed as a poet in the last few weeks because I used to have such a different opinion on writing poetry. The first few poems I wrote stuck very closely to the structure I was given. I did not feel comfortable creating my own free verse poetry, so even if I wrote free verse, I modeled it after other poets' work, and I still do that. I don't think I will ever not do that though. I do really enjoy writing poetry now because it does help me slow down in life and observe what is happening in me and around me, but I think it will always feel safe to use other poetry as a guide and a jumping off point to get me writing. Writing poetry makes you feel connected to what you are writing about in a way I have never experienced before this. I have always seen writing as a task or a way to argue or persuade my reader, but poetry allows me to write about WHATEVER I want just to help others see the world in the same way as me. It make me tingle with excitement as I think about how effective poetry can and will be for my future students to connect with the books they are immersed in. I only wish I had been given more opportunities to write free verse, observational, haiku, concrete, and so much other poetry as a student in school. Conclusions for PoetryI feel much more confident in reading and writing poetry on my own now. I actually enjoy to read poetry now and there are times when I see things as I am walking, or smell things as I am cooking that just make me think of poetry. Poetry has honestly changed me! As a teacher, I do hope I can provide that change to my students. If I were a general education teacher, I would confident in my abilities to teach poetry and progressively engage students with poetry; but as a special educator I worry about when and how poetry will fit into my curriculum. I know that poetry can help children tap into their senses and can provide an alternative form of writing for students, but I wonder if poetry will feel abstract to my students that have been drilled to write certain ways simply because they have IEPs. And I worry poetry will not feel easy if they have to break the rules they have worked so hard to learn for traditional writing forms. However, that is my responsibility as their teacher. I am responsible to teach those students that poetry is not scary! Poetry does not equal rhyming. Poetry does not mean hidden messages. And poetry is so much more than just one unit in the school year. Poetry has to be something that my future students gradually come to see as just another option when they pick up their pencils to write. I do believe I can get there with my students, but I think it will take lots of trial and error to find the best ways to accommodate my students to write poetry and potentially even modify typical poetry lessons to better fit their needs. SourcesAlexander, K. (2014). The crossover. Boston, MA: HMH Books for Young Readers.
Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. Broadway, NY: HarperTrophy. Grimes, N. (2016). Garvey's choice. Honesdale, PA: WordSong. Janeczko, P. B. (2014). Firefly july: A year of very short poems. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. Kaur, R. (2017). The sun and her flowers. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing. Vanderwater, A. L. (2013). Forest has a song. New York, NY: Clarion Books. Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Puffin Books. Worth, V. (1994). All the small poems and fourteen more. New York, NY: Square Fish.
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Through this social distancing, I have created a simple poetry invitation so students can participate in reading and writing poetry! I chose to focus on wonder poems because kids are just such a curious people. The structure of the short lesson is as follows: 1. Book Talk for Forest Has a Song by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater 2. Read aloud of one poem from Forest Has a Song 3. What do YOU notice about the poem Tulips by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater 4. Here's what I noticed about Tulips 5. Watch me write my own wonder poem! 6. Now you write your own wonder poem! 7. If you are willing, publish your poem on this padlet! *I had some trouble verifying my youtube account, so I had to split the videos into two parts. You're Invited : Wonder Poetry Edition (Part 1)You're Invited : Wonder Poetry Edition (Part 2)These last few weeks have been full of uncertainty and anxiety with the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. What better time to learn about and, as Dr. Beth Frye likes to say, "marinate" in some new poetry? Over the last two weeks, I have been marinating in observation poetry and haikus. What I like about both of these types of poems is that they are concrete. You write about what you see. For some observation poetry may seem easier because you have the freedom to write in whatever form you want! The only requirement is to write about what you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, feel, or think. However, the latter of that argument is that without structure, it can be hard to figure out how to structure a poem without any guidance! Haiku's may feel simpler because they have a set structure. Regardless of how you feel, I want to talk about both types of poetry and offer some support for finding structures to poems that do not come with their own structure. Observation PoetryObservation poetry is pretty much exactly what you think of when you hear it's name. Poet's harness the world around them and choose careful words to convey what they may see, hear, smell, touch, taste, feel, or think. By introducing young poets to this type of poetry, we are helping them become fluent observers, just like scientists. As students are learning this type of poetry, it often helps to start with still, small, and ordinary objects so that they can prolong their observations for as long as they need before crafting a poem.One example of an object is a safety pin, like Valerie Worth wrote in her book, All the Small Poems and Fourteen More (1994). As students progress through observation poetry, teachers can encourage more observation poetry through nature walks where we as teachers model how to take notes and sketch the natural world around us. I tried my own hand at observation poetry with a Japanese Maple tree. I started by sketching the tree in front of me and then looking closely at it's leaves so I could give us much detail as possible to my drawing. As I was sketching, I naturally began to notice and question parts of this tree, so you can see I jotted those down around the sketch. Once I had finished my sketch, I found a poem from Valerie Worth (1994) that I thought would act well as a model poem. Her poem, rosebush, inspired me because I loved that way she broke up the stanzas of the poem and ended it with a question. I used that structure to create my own poem: Over long years Its branches will wrap And coil Like the roots underground; Right now Its leaves sway And shine Through this golden hour; But who's to say Which kind of beauty Defines this Japanese Maple? There is one other resource I want to share for those reluctant poets that may be intimidated by poems that lack a specific structure. Sharon Creech wrote Love That Dog (2001) which tells the story of a young boy who is struggling to find his voice as a poet but he turns to the work of Walter Dean Myers to imitate his words and structures. Imitation is a great thing! In fact, in the world of poetry it is so common that poets often will give credit to the poets they have imitated by signing their poems with "Inspired by..." Poetry can be daunting. This book beautifully shows the common process of a growing poet, and I think it is a must have in any classroom library. Photokus & SenryusHaikus are personally one of my favorite types of poetry. They are simple to write, but they ALWAYS seem to turn out beautifully. Haiku is a form of poetry that originated in Japan about 800 years ago with a very specific form: each haiku has three lines that total up to 17 syllables distributed as 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the last line (5-7-5). Haikus focus on nature and seasons typically, whereas senryus follow the same structure but focus on human nature. As educators, haikus and senryus area. great way to give our writers some choice. Some writers may feel very personally connected with nature so a haiku may be perfect for them. However, some of our writers may be more philosophical and have a passion to write human nature, so let them! After diving into observation poetry, your writers should feel prepared to use those skills to find and write poetry in the forms of haikus and senryus. One other great option for writers is to create a photoku. Photokus are haikus or senryus with an attached picture to help the reader visualize the words from the poem. Teachers may lead their students, again, on a wonder-walk to help students find their perfect poem. As they find a moment, object, person, or animal to write about, they may take a picture of their inspiration and attach it to their final poem. I took my own wonder-walk and loved creating my own photoku. With the social distancing laws in place, I walk very often! During those walks I usually see a squirrel sitting and eating on top of this pathway that has been naturally uprooted from the ground. When I was on that wonder-walk, he was not there. I wondered where he was and even felt a little sadness not see him, so I snapped a picture of the spot I always see him and wrote this haiku: Observation poetry and haikus are fantastic ways to help students begin engaging with poetry. Poetry can seem abstract, especially if we as teachers start by teaching rhyming poetry, because the focus of rhyming poetry often becomes finding words that rhyme rather than developing any meaning. Observation poetry and haikus have clear meaning based on concrete evidence, like our senses. I would highly encourage other teachers to consider introducing poetry using these two types of poems. SourcesCreech, S. (2001). Love that dog. Broadway, NY: HarperTrophy.
Worth, V. (1994). All the small poems and fourteen more. New York, NY: Square Fish. There's no denying it: lots of people tend to fear poetry. It seems intimidating; like it has to be perfect and follow all these rules or else it's not "actually poetry" and it's not worthy of that A+ you were hoping for. Unfortunately, I think this is because of how poetry has been introduced and taught in schools across grade levels. For this reason, I want to talk about poetry! I want to express my own feelings on poetry both before and after I read some academic texts and some novels written in verse. Here we go! Pre-Poetry ReflectionAs you may have guessed from my intro to this week's blog post, I have my skepticism about poetry. As a student, the only thing I remember about poetry is a teacher going over the structure of specific poems, like haiku for example, and then asking us to write a poem in that structure. I never learned that poetry didn't have to follow a specific form, nor did I ever read any poetry from this century that I could try and imitate or learn from. For those reasons, as I entered college, I did not feel confident in my abilities to read or write poetry. Now, as a graduate students, I have had a little more exposure to poetry and gained a bit of confidence in reading poetry. Reading poetry doesn't seem foreign to me anymore, it seems a little whimsical and emotional. In grade school, it felt like a trick because I likely would have missed the point. And I guess that's how I know I've read a really good poem: I understand exactly what that poem was trying to get across because I connect with it on a really deep level. Poetry is a bit subjective in that sense. I may find some poetry much better than others because I may emotionally connect with the style or the content of one poet much more than another poet, but that may not be the case for a peer of mine who has had very different experiences than me. As for writing poetry, I don't think I've written poetry since eight grade until this year. As I said before, there was absolutely no room for creativity in the poetry assignments I was given, so I had no concept of how creative and free poetry could be. One of my graduate courses has sprinkled poetry into my life and I have started to realize I write more poetry than I am aware of in my writer's notebook. I like to use patterns in my writing and I think based on those patterns they could be considered poetry. But I guess that's where my skepticism comes from. What is poetry? I honestly do not know what differentiates more abstract writing - like Amy Krouse Rosenthal's book, Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal: Not Exactly a Memoir - from poetry - like Jacqueline Woodson's book, Brown Girl Dreaming. I think if anyone were to explicitly explain to me what defines poetry I would feel much more confident reading and writing poetry. So to go off of those two reflections, I am terrified to teach poetry. How can I teach poetry if I don't know what poetry is besides some artistic way of writing, and some follow specific patterns, but others don't. I know that I don't want to do what my teachers did and only teach poetry that follows structures and ask my students to make a poem about anything, just follow that structure. I know that I also don't want to ask my students to write poetry if they have limited exposure to poetry, especially modern poetry. I want my students to feel comfortable before they begin writing, and I think reading poetry and allowing children opportunities to see that poetry is not alway confined to structure or endless metaphors will help set them up to write poetry. In other words, I don't feel confident in my ability to teach the content of poetry, but I do feel confident in my ability to create a "poetry environment" in my classroom. Readings for this WeekPost-Poetry ReflectionThis week I started out by reading the first three chapters of Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School by Georgia Heard (1999). These first three chapters of this book focus on how to make a poetry environment in your classroom, how to read poetry, and how to foster a love for reading poetry, and how to find poetry in yourself to then write poetry. I was amazed by the introduction of this book because it confirmed most of my fears and anxieties around poetry and it did attribute those to the way poetry was taught to me. After reading this book specifically, I feel much more confident in my abilities to create poetry environments in my classroom and to begin reading and writing poetry myself. I do not think I will feel "ready" or "confident" to teach poetry, however, until I begin to read and write my own poetry. Another thing about this book I really appreciated was the depth Heard went into to describe what poetry is. She never gave an explicit definition for poetry, but she did mention that we use poetry everyday. There is "stuff of poetry" all around us, we just have to seek it out and open one of the five doors she talked about to express what we are experiencing. I also really like that she mentioned poems come from absorbing what we experience, making things look different or looking at things different ways, and using 4D. Everything she wrote about sparked ideas in me to write poetry, so I then read Firefly July by Paul B. Janeczko and part of All the Small Poems and Fourteen More by Valerie Worth. I have sticky notes lining both of these books because the short poems in them reminded me of things I could write about or how I could write about things. All-in-all, I feel much more confident in writing poetry; in fact, I am excited to start writing poetry. I feel more connected to the poems I am reading now that I seems to have a better understanding of what poetry is. I value the importance of a poetry environment, for myself right now, and for my future students. And I think as time goes on I will continue to gain confidence in my knowledge around poetry and my ability to teach it. For now, I am willing to go on a journey as a writer to grow in poetry. Where does poetry hide for you?As I mentioned, I was eager to start writing my own poetry! I started out by imitating Valerie Worth's poem, Sun, from her book All the Small Poems and Fourteen More (1994). It had been snowing all day Friday, but it caught my attention late in the day when the snow was almost over. I just watched it for a few minutes and noticed how quiet it was. I could barely hear any wind, or any traffic, but I knew the snow storm outside was mighty. I chose to imitate Valerie Worth's poetry because she writes so often about nature and I love how she structures her poems so they are like continuous phrases. After I imitated Valerie Worth, I moved onto Jacqueline Woodson's, What I Believe, poem from Brown Girl Dreaming (2014). I liked what this poem stood for, so I tried to think about what beliefs made me who I am. I struggled with this one a bit because I have more privilege than Jacqueline Woodson had, and her poem talked a lot about her beliefs regarding civil rights. I think my poem is a good start, but I don't think it is as coherent or connected as Jacqueline Woodson's. Next I pulled a poem from Paul B. Janeczko's book, Firefly July (2014). The poem was called Uses for Fog. I really liked how simple this poem was and how it was used to define what something was. I thought it would be really easy to pick anything in my life and define it like this poem, and it was relatively easy for me. I chose to write about letters because I had just received a hand-written letter in the mail and I think it can have many different purposes, so that's how I tried to define letters. The last poem I wrote was more abstract than the other poems I wrote. I tried to imitate one key feature of Rupi Kaur's book, The Sun and Her Flowers (2017). For many of the poems in this book, Rupi Kaur would sign an object, feeling, mood, etc. at the bottom of the poem to show the perspective from which her poem was written. Her poetry tends to be very emotional and raw, but I was sick when I wrote this, and I had just put cookies in the oven, so I chose to write a more light-hearted perspective poem. Here are the poems I wrote in the past week next to the models I tried to imitate: SourcesHeard, G. (1999). Awakening the heart: Exploring poetry in elementary and middle school. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Janeczko, P. B. (2014). Firefly july: A year of very short poems. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. Kaur, R. (2017). The sun and her flowers. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing. Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Puffin Books. Worth, V. (1994). All the small poems and fourteen more. New York, NY: Square Fish. More On Personal NarrativesWriting is a process of drafting, revising, more drafting, more revising, and so on until you finally feel whatever you've written is ready to go public. Last week I proposed using narrative writing at the beginning of a school year to ease writers into writing and get to know your students in a meaningful way. I also showed an example of my own personal narrative with thoughts on a future draft. This week I have written that second draft and focused strongly on adding more dialogue to my story, as well as making sure the beginning of my story was tightly tied to the end of my story. To aid me in this endeavor, I read chapter five of Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017). Here's the final result: After I saw the immense change in my own personal narrative just by adding in more dialogue, I then collaborated with a general education teacher and created another "Your Turn" lesson (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017). This lesson was based off of the Your Turn lesson titled Building Content Through Dialogue (p. ). To introduce this idea to students, we decided to use the book, Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña (2015). The dialogue used in this picture book enhanced the story because the dialogue told the reader more about the grandmother. Whenever she spoke, she would word things in very unique ways based on her perspective of the world. Without that dialogue, I would not know that the grandmother was a very kind, positive minded woman. What I like so much about this lesson is it has a strong focus on revising your work so students can see that changes dialogue makes even in small entries. The textbook had suggested that if students were struggling to understand how and why to use dialogue, then the teacher could write two entries: one without dialogue and one with dialogue. The general education teacher and I decided to include both drafts in our model regardless of if students were struggling, because we felt it was important for students to recognize how much dialogue can add to a narrative. Here's our lesson plan: Six-Word MemoirsOne thing about personal narratives that can be hard for students is finding a way to talk about oneself. It is not always easy for someone to tell a story about their self or talk about who they are to other people. One way to encourage students to think about this and get ready to write a personal narrative is with a six-word memoir. James M. Saunders and Emily E. Smith wrote an article in The Reading Teacher journal all about six-word memoirs (2014). Six-word memoirs are a way for students of all ages to think carefully about themselves before writing a short sentence or phrase that captures who they are in only six words. The article mentioned these memoirs were a great way for students to ease into writing personal narratives, along with a great way for students to express themselves visually too. Often times, six word memoirs are superimposed on images to give the words more meaning. When students have the power to choose how words and images connect, it can open so many more opportunities for writing a personal narrative. When I chose to write my own six-word memoir, it took me about 20 minutes. Not to draft anything or edit anything, but to just come up with words that seemed to fit me best. The article also gave instructions on how to implement these memoirs in a classroom. One suggestion the authors made when starting to write these memoirs is to think of two adjectives that describe yourself. For me, I didn't immediately think of adjectives, I thought of things I like to do in my life right now. I love to learn. I love finding different ways to learn. By thinking of those two things, I thought of "Eager to learn..." After that, I naturally connected learning to teaching and my current feeling on teaching is I am ready to teach, hence, "Ready to teach." Sourcesde la Peña, M. (2015). Last stop on market street. New York, NY: Penguin Group.
Dorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017). Growing a narrative from beginning to end. Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 111-148). Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Saunders, J. M., & Smith, E. E. (2014). Every word is on trial: Six-word memoirs in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 67 (8), 600-605. As a teacher, strategies are what keep a classroom going. They are what enable all students to access interact with the tasks they are invited to partake in. This week I really want to focus on why other teachers should consider using some of the strategies that help students find topics to write about that I have quickly grown to love and admire. Why should you use these strategies in your classroom?Over the past four weeks, I have read about so many strategies that can help student begin writing. Overall, I think beginning to write can be one of the hardest skills for young writers or striving writers. In fact, even as a thriving writer in graduate school, I still find it challenging to pick up a pencil and start writing. It is not always a quick and easy process for student to find topics to write about, which is why I think so many teacher rely on prompts to get kids writing. Unfortunately, when we take away the opportunity for students to choose what to write about, writing becomes a meaningless task for students to complete, rather than a way to foster a love for curiosity, persuasion, or just narrating stories. With that being said, I want to share a handful of strategies that I have personally tried out to help me start writing that you can and should use in your own classroom. First things first, the user BethMooreSchool from the blog Two Writing Teachers (2017) had the best recommendation: start the school year with narrative writing. Narrative writing, although personal, is a great way to initially invite students to start writing in the classroom because they get to write about what they are experts in, which is their own lives. Not only is it super motivating for students, but it allows you as a teacher to get to know your students very early on and build a strong relationship over the course of the year. It also helps your students get to know you because your own narrative story will act as their model. With that being said, it's important to show young writers how to draft entries and be okay with the idea that the first draft might not look anything like the second, or third, etc. I drafted my own narrative story on a small moment that would be relatable to students. My first draft was a table I found in Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017). The table was originally meant for students to analyze a mentor text for sensory details, but I used it to brainstorm sensory details to incorporate in my narrative. My second draft was then a free write where I jotted down anything I could think of all while including those details from my first draft. I am not done with this narrative etiher, but I think it's also important to help young writers understand that writing is a process that does not have to be totally consistent. Before I officially publish this work anywhere, I will type my second draft up and polish it with even more small details, but for now, I am proud of the progress between draft one and two. That user also made a good point to say narrative writing can also be some of the toughest writing for kids. As a striving writer, how do you pick one event from your whole life to just start writing about? That can be really ominous and intimidating. Here's one of my favorite ways to help kiddos find that perfect moment to write about; it's called a Hand Map (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017). Hand Maps allow students to think about various common emotions they may feel either on a regular day or a special occasion, really anytime. Students can then generate small moments when they have felt that emotion to later use as writing topics, or starting points, for small moment stories. When I tried out my own hand map, I really liked the freedom I had in choosing my moments, but I also really appreciated how quickly I seemed to link emotions with moments from my whole life. I also really liked how some moments were pretty monumental, while others - like the one I wrote my small moment story about - were seemingly insignificant. Hand Maps are incredibly useful to help give students the push they need to start writing. They are even more useful if they are used in tandem with a mentor text. Two really fine examples of mentor texts to pair with hand mapping are Lost and Found Cat: The True Story of Kunkush's Incredible Journey (Kuntz & Shrodes, 2017) and Happy Like Soccer (Boelts, 2012). Both of these stories include emotions that are powerful for readers to connect with, as well as emotions that are typical enough for readers to connect with. That contrast of emotions is important for readers because they can take what they've read and model that same effect of varying emotions in their own writing. Writers can also use these books to help them collect emotions they have experienced in their own lives. From there, hand maps can be draw and events can be identified so that students can write small moment stories about a single emotion. I have attached a lesson plan that a general education teacher and I collaborated on using that same idea. SourcesBethMooreSchool (2015, Oct. 7). Why narrative writing matters [Two Writing Teachers. Retrieved from https://twowritingteachers.org/2015/10/07/why-narrative-writing-matters/
Boelts, M. (2012). Happy like soccer. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. Dorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017). When writers use a magnifying lens. Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 77-110). Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Kuntz, D. & Shordes A. (2017). Lost and found cat: The true story of Kunkish’s incredible journey. New York, NY: Crown Books for Young Readers. It is week 3 with my own writer's notebook and I already feel like a true WRITER! It's crazy to think it could takes such a small amount of time and commitment with students before years of red marks and teacher "edits" begin to reverse themselves, too. This week I really focused on using my own mentor texts to guide my writing. I've mentioned this in my past two posts, but each week the details I find in my mentor texts become more minute and as I mimic them in my own writer's notebook, it boosts my writing to the next level. What details am I talking about?This week I used three books as mentor texts, and two academic readings as informational texts to guide my writing. I started by reading chapter three of Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017) and 180 Days: Two teachers and the quest to engage and empower adolescents (Gallagher & Kittle, 2018). These two texts taught me that as students are learning to engage with their writer's notebooks, more attention can be brought to details in writing - like dialogue and grammatical structures, such as breaking your writing up into paragraphs or stanzas. Including dialogue in my writing has always been something I have struggled with because I have always wondered what is too much dialogue and what is too little, but as I read my mentor texts for the week, I began to learn where that line was. The three books I used as mentor texts were Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson, 2014), Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal (TAKR) (Rosenthal, 2016), and Shortcut (Crew 1992). Each of these books made me realize what nearly every really skilled writer does: they tell stories that may have only taken place over a few seconds or minutes with such detail that they do not seem like small moments at all. The whole book or poem or entry from these authors could focus on one quote, one word, one night, or one person but they all are told with such detail that as the reader, it felt like I was there with the author. Sometimes it even made me imagine that same situation or event in a familiar place for me. That's the power of mentor texts. Reading these in combination with other academic texts opened my eyes to the power of seemingly small details writer's use to connect with their readers and provide common experiences they can use in their own writing. How did I do it?Once I read these texts all those texts, I, of course, needed to try some of those techniques in my own writer's notebook. The two things I really focused on were including dialogue in my texts and focusing on small moments. To include dialogue in my writing, I looked to Brow Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (2014). Nearly every one of her poems have dialogue that take already powerful poems to personal, powerful messages. One poem I really analyzed by her was on page 97, called harvest time. This poem uses dialogue and focuses on a very small moment which made it easy to connect with. It also talked about cooking which is a passion of mine, so naturally I copied that idea. I wrote my own entry about cooking and how food can be magical. Another text that encouraged me to write about small moments was the picture book, Shortcut by Donald Crews (1992). This book tells a story of one night when a group of children try to take a shortcut home knowing how dangerous that shortcut can be, but they take the risk anyways. There is minimal text in that book and the most powerful part of that book was the dialogue - specifically the shouting between the children. In my writer's notebook, I talked about the moment I walk into my sister's house. Her dog, Violet, wags her tail and smiles at me, and I always interpret that to be like her own dialogue with me, so I wrote it out that way! Of course, TAKR by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (2016) is another mentor text for me. I have never read a book quite like her's. She is incredibly skilled at writing about small moments in small entries. Something I have admired about her writing since I started my writer's notebook is the way she includes her thought process in her writing. She is honest about things that so many people would not be honest about, so I tried to do that too. Being honest isn't always easy because it can be hard to accept what you're thinking, but using TAKR as a mentor text helped me craft a short and sweet entry about my own validation and/or vanity. Take a look at the side-by-side comparisons of the mentor texts and my own writing: I cannot recommend each of those texts enough for your own classroom! I can only imagine how helpful it would have been for a teacher to model reading a mentor text and then using techniques from that author's writing in their own writing. SourcesCrews, D. (1992). Shortcut. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
Dorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017). What are you really writing about? Discovering the inside story. Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 51-76). Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Gallagher, K. & Kittle, P. (2018). 180 Days: Two teachers and the quest to engage and empower adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Rosenthal, A. K. (2016). Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York, NY: Dutton. Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Puffin Books. The writer's notebook is a great way for students to cultivate a love for learning, but inviting students to engage in a writer's notebook is crucial. Students often say "I have nothing to write about" because no one has ever taught them how to collect ideas or give them strategies that can launch their writing. This blog post will dive deep into a few strategies that can be used with students to get them writing in their own writer's notebooks! Let's Talk StrategyThis week I read 2 poems, 2 textbook chapters, 1 part of a 5 part book, 1 blog post, and 3 lesson plans, and from those readings I crafted 6 different entries in my writer's notebook mimicking strategies I had read about. Before I dive into any of these strategies, I want to acknowledge the idea of students "digging for treasure" in their writer's notebooks (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017). Essentially, digging for treasure means allowing children to have a place to store their writing ideas so they have a reference point to come back to during writer's workshop. Ideas can take form in pictures, sticky notes, lists, or short phrases and these ideas can be stored in the writer's notebook. In this chapter, the authors discuss the importance of modeling how to collect and store ideas in a writer's notebook using a series of strategies, but I want to highlight just one for now. The first of many strategies I want to talk about is called Reading a Photograph (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017). This strategy came from chapter two of Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing through Children's Literature, K-6. On page 33, the authors describe pictures as a common way for young writers to introduce family members or people important to them. The strategy encourages students to jot down a short phrase about any memory associated with the picture in their writer's notebook so they can come back to it during writer's workshop. One thing I really enjoyed about this strategy is the fact that the authors pointed out the teacher needs to model how to write the story from their own perspective rather than the perspective of a family member who may have told them the story later on. The next two strategies I want to talk about are called the Heart Map (Heard, 2016) and the History of a Name (Frye, 2020 & FHO, 2020). This week I read the poem Where I'm From by George Ella Lyon (1999), and it connected these two strategies together for me. Her poem detailed the places she grew up as well as the things in life that were special to her or made her who she is today. Both of these strategies allow for writers to express what makes them who they are. Essentially, a heart map is an outline of a heart that is filled in with anything that is special to you. There are various types of heart maps - blank canvas, small moment, my pet, special place - but each of these gives writers the freedom to be as creative as they want with their heart maps. Once writers create their heart maps, they can then expand on anything they want from that map next time they write. The history of a name idea came from two separate lesson plans that encouraged writers to explore how our names relate to our identity. We can do this by looking at our own names (FHO, 2020) or by looking at the names of characters we read about (Frye, 2020). Another strategy I want to share with you all is Walk Like a Writer (Shubitz, 2015). I found this strategy on Two Writing Teacher's blog. The strategy invites teachers and students to engage in class walks to "see what [you] see." In other words, walking is a way to collect ideas for writing because it is an physical entry into nature that can then be perceived and recorded in a writer's notebook. This strategy seemed to fit well with the poem, When I Am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver (2016). This poem describes Oliver's attraction to nature as well as the healing power nature can have on her. This perception may be different for some writers. They may not enjoy being in nature, but that is the beauty of taking a walk: one shared experience will guarantee a classroom full of different entries. The last two strategies I want to mention were not explicitly named in any textbook; however, two books inspired my writing, both in form and content: Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal (TAKR) (Rosenthal, 2016) and Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson, 2014). TAKR inspired me to take a risk in my writing formats. Each page of her book is a different form of writing, and I have already tried to mimic three or four of her passages. Using this author's writing as a mentor text is an easy way for me to engage in writing, and I think if young writers were able to find a book that was as intriguing, they could have the same experience. The other book I mentioned that has inspired my writing is Brown Girl Dreaming. This book, so far, is telling the story of Jacqueline Woodson's parents before she was born and the struggles they faced as black citizens in the south. The book is written in verse, but the content of the book is what really inspired another one of my entries. She is so skilled at telling a story, it sounds like her own memories. I wanted to then write a poem using similar language choices and perspectives as her. Books grant writers opportunities to grow because book show writers new ways to write. How do these strategies play out?For each of the strategies I mentioned above, I tried them out on my own! I really enjoyed using these strategies to guide my writing, because this type of personal and creative writing was not something that ever felt natural to me, nor do I remember receiving any instruction on how to write personally or creatively. For my reading a picture entry, I narrated that memory in prose. For my heart map entry, I chose to write about all the details and memories I could remember that went along with my favorite place. For my walk like a writer entry, I wrote a poem about rainy days after having to walk through the rain. For my name poem, I posed the question, "what's in a name?" and I answered it using my own name. For my last two entries, I mimicked what I saw in other books. So, the entry titled "Empath" was modeled after the writing of Jacqueline Woodson in Brown Girl Dreaming (2014); and the entry titled "melancholy" was modeled after an entry in TAKR (2016). Here are some of my entries from my writer's notebook this week: After writing my own entries, I decided to try it out with a student of mine! Since I launched the writer's notebook during this session with him, I wrapped up the notebook and gave it to him as gift. I then explained what a writer's workshop is and how we both are new to a writer's notebook. Once we chatted about what the notebook is for, I invited him to make his first entry using the heart map strategy. Before I modeled anything for him, I wanted to show him the many different options he had while creating a heart map. After that, I showed him my heart map and talked through my thought process as I had written every detail down. I then turned it over to him and he got straight to work! Once our session was over, I invited him to take the notebook home and personalize it however he wants! That could mean covering it in pictures, sticky notes with his favorite quotes, coloring it, or anything that would make it feel special to him. Here's how the invitation and heart mapping played out for this third grade student: SourcesDorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017). Digging for treasure: Discovering personal stories by connecting with literature. Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 21-50). Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Facing History and Ourselves (2020). Identity and names. My part of the story: Exploring identity in the united states. Retrieved from https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/my-part-story-exploring-identity-united-states/identity-and-names Frye, B. M. (2020). Writer's notebook: History of a name-mini-lesson. Heard, G. (2016). Heart maps helping students create and craft authentic writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Lyon, G. E. (1999). Where I'm from. Spring, TX: Absey & Company. Oliver, M. (2006). Thirst. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Rosenthal, A. K. (2016). Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York, NY: Dutton. Shubitz, S. (2015, Sept. 4). Walk like a writer [Two Writing Teachers]. Retrieved from https://twowritingteachers.org/2015/09/04/walk-like-a-writer/ Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Puffin Books. I've recently learned what a "writer's notebook" is. A writer's notebook is essentially a notebook that students find relevance in and are able to safely react to the world around them, as well as experiment with various writing methods. A writer's notebook allows students to grow as a writer without receiving unwelcome criticism or judgment from teachers or peers. Students have total control over whether or not they share their entries which allows students to write without the stress of incorrect spelling or grammar. I LOVE the idea of writer's notebooks not only for my students but for myself. As a fellow writer with a writer's notebook, I can build stronger academic relationships with my students based on mutual respect rather than authority, and that is something I always strive for in my classroom. What have I been reading?So what have I been reading that lead me to the writer's notebook? I started out by reading The Writer's Notebook by Ralph Fletcher (2001). This short article (not pictured) introduced the idea of a writer's notebook to me. It highlighted three main benefits for students: 1) allowing students to "live a writing life," 2) allowing students to have a safe place to react, and 3) allowing students to have a safe place to experiment with their writing. These three benefits are important for teachers to acknowledge because so often schools ask students to respond to a prompt that students may not know much about, or even care about, all while the students anticipate receiving a paper full of red marks back. Writing in schools does not foster a love for writing that students can use in their lives to wonder and learn about the world around them. The writer's notebook allows students to questions, analyze, or just process the world around them without any repercussions. It also teaches students how to give and receive constructive criticism when someone chooses to publish an entry from their notebook, which is another thing I do not think teachers are doing enough. This article also briefly discussed how to introduce the notebook into a classroom; however, I found chapter 1 from Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017) had so many ideas to help introduce this notebook into a classroom. Although this textbook does not explicitly talk about a writers notebook, the book discusses how helpful mentor texts can be for growing writers. Children imitate when they are learning. Mentor texts give children ideas or starting points to start writing, but they also allow students to try out new writing techniques they may not have known before reading the mentor text. Ideal mentor texts are children's picture books because they are relatively quick reads that can be revisited over the course of a school year. I think mentor texts would be a great way to get students ready to start their writers notebook because a book can spark so many thoughts in a child's mind. Any thought a child has can then become an entry. The last reading of the week was the Geography section of Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Rosenthal, 2016). This book was unlike anything I have ever read. This book uses text messaging for interactive experiences throughout the book. Unfortunately, for me, the text messaging feature did not work (I'll have to work on that), but I am so excited to continue reading this book! A recurring theme in this book is "serendipity," or as I define it, a series of fortunate events. The author essentially told stories from her life that contained coincidences that are hard to ignore. Each entry is set up in a different format, just like a writer's notebook. There were poems, short stories, simple sayings, lists, and more. This textbook acted as the perfect mentor text before I started writing in my own writer's notebook. What have I been writing?One really important part of those readings was the idea that children will respond better to teachers that are fellow writers, rather than just teachers of writing (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017). When students know that as the teacher, you are engaging in the same activities as they are, the tasks at hand seem relevant. As a teacher, if I am writing in my own writer's notebook, it shows students that even as a teacher, I still have to process the world in my own way, and I use my writer's notebook to do that. This model will be so important for my future students, which is why I engaged in some of my own writing. I wrote three entries on three different ideas that evoked a lot of emotion for me. I personally find it easier to write when I have a strong emotional response to whatever I am writing about. The first entry I wrote about was a song that always makes me cry. The song is called Julep by Punch Brothers. The song itself has always had chords that made me tear up, but overtime, the lyrics became more and more pertinent to me so now the song is very special to me. I did not plan out any of the entires, I just wrote and decided to add as I went. For this entry, I wrote in short contrasting lines because that's how I seem to think when I am listening to the song. After I wrote why the song was special to me, I wrote specific lyrics that stood out to me or justified those feelings for me with time stamps. The second entry I wrote about was my family dog, Maggie Mae Jones. I thought I would write a short story about how we picked Maggie out and how much she helped me, but I had a hard time with that. Instead, I wrote small lines that defined who she was at certain points in her life. After I finished I decided to add the timeline to show where she was in her life with each line. I think everyone has a pet or person in their life that was around during the most formative years, which for me, happened to be some of the hardest years of my life too. I think each line carries a lot of meaning and, again, emotion. My last entry was about a print I have hanging in my apartment. I found this print in Asheville a few months ago and bought it to hang in my future classroom, but I quickly realized how incredibly humbling the quote was for me, which is why it is not hanging in my apartment. Unfortunately, I think when something is hung up, it quickly fades into the background. When I was looking for inspiration to write about, I glanced at this print and realized I hadn't really read those words in a while. As I was trying to figure out what to write about, I tried to come up with one word that embodied the print and, for me, that was existentialism. Existentialism proved to be a really hard thing to write about. This one wasn't as emotional for me because it was so general, but I do think I became more conscious of my place in life. Each of these entries carried different meaning for me, and I think that was reflected in the formats of the entires. My first entry was written in short, contrasting lines which illustrated my thought process while absorbing that song. The second was written in short, definitive lines again, and I think it's because Maggie is always a huge part of my life, but for various reasons. My last entry was more of a ramble because existentialism is such an abstract concept that I do not fully understand. Writing about topics that were meaningful to me allowed me to include creativity in the entries, which I would not have been able to do with any prompt. I also really liked that as I finished the entries, I was able to find meaning in my words that I didn't initially intend for. The writer's notebook is just an incredible way to record and process the world around you, and I am so excited to learn more about this over the semester so I can bring this into my future classroom! SourcesDorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017). Reinventing the writer with mentor texts. Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 6-20). Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Fletcher, R. (2001). The writer's notebook. School Talk, 6(4), 1-6. Rosenthal, A. K. (2016). Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York, NY: Dutton. |