National Poetry Month came late to my students. Spring Break and a field trip conspired to make yesterday our first classroom school day of April. Poetry had to wait too. Or did it?
We’ve been reading Locomotion by Jackie Woodson a page at a time. Students annotate their copy with what they notice, know, and wonder. I read it aloud, they write, we share, I write their thoughts on my copy. Poetry has engulfed us daily — the sound, the structure. We’ve been looking closely.
To begin our “official” poetry unit, I started out with an inquiry. I asked students to complete this:
Poetry….
describes feelings in an easier way
can tell something about yourself
expresses things around yo
sometimes hymes
sometimes tells a story
sometimes has a form like haiku
sometimes has a rhythm like rap
helps you imagine
shorter slices of life
words from the heart
The power of their thoughts. Unfiltered. All from the word poetry.
They know so much. Little snippets of poetry snuck up on them with The One and Only Ivan. Then Woodson’s beautiful words showed the many ways poetry could go. Students have read May B, Brown Girl Dreaming, and The Crossover and begged for more. Poetry has been with us all along.
* * *
What follows is some erasure poetry from this post. Last year Dana introduced this writing to me. I took my post copied it and started deleting words that didn’t contribute to what I thought was the essence. I don’t allow myself to change the order. I can just erase and change line breaks.
Thanks to Anna, Beth, Betsy, Dana, Stacey, and Tara at Two Writing Teachers for Slice of Life Tuesdays. Read more slices here.
To Read To Write To Be 
Poetry is a fun and easy way to enter fiction writing. Once I wrote a sequel to a popular song in short story form. It was “The Trooper 2.” Like Lord Tennyson’s, “The Charge of the Light Bri9gade,” “The Trooper” was about The Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War: the British and Ottoman empires vs. Russia in the mid 1850’s.
Thank you for sharing how you begin your unit. I am trying poetry for the first time and you gave me two good ideas! I am just realizing that poetry can be “Slicey.”
Clare
Love your erasure poem. I was testing yesterday and picked up Locomotion and couldn’t put it down. Wow! This has been on my shelf all along. Poetry has been with us all along.
Julieanne,
Thanks for the reminder about erasure poetry. . . so many ways to “reveal” the poetry that is hinding in other forms”!
“Poetry has been with us all along.” Yes, it has and what a discovery that is. Your kids get poetry because the sounds of language has been woven into their being. Powerful poem that is the essence of your message.
We’ve been trying to do NaPoWriMo, but testing has interrupted. Fortunately, the groans I heard when I introduced it have now been turned into groans of disappointment when we don’t get to write a poem a day.
AWESOME!!!
It is true that poetry is around us and as teachers, we just simply need to provide the space to honor it as you did with your students so well. You remind me that, yes during April I honor poetry but really, it is apart of us all year long!! Thanks for the reminder and for teaching me about erasure!
Awesome poem at the end, Julieanne. It shows exactly why we need fewer words to show our true meaning. Keep having fun with poetry!
Somehow I have the feeling poetry doesn’t really have to wait in your room each you. You strike me as the kind of teacher who infuses it during the year. (I could be wrong.)
Would love to see some of your students’ annotations of Locomotion (if you’re willing to share). I used to read that book to my 4th and 5th graders, but it was as a read aloud. (You do know about Peace, Locomotion, right?)
Yes! I have Peace Locomotion ready and waiting for a book club. The students’ annotations are a goldmine of info about how they think. I will share soon! Thanks for the push to do so.
I just love this – the poem and the whole way in which it came to be.
I love your poem and that your students have been reading Locomotion so intently. It’s such an amazing book.