Lesson for 02-15-2010: Poetry Slam

Poetry Slam
Lesson Plan

Objective: Students will prepare and perform poetry to a live audience

Materials: Poems written during previous class periods, white boards/score cards

Time allotment: One class period for performance after other class periods have been devoted to poetry instruction and writing

Grade Levels: 6-12

Procedure:
1. Begin by explaining the concept of a poetry slam to the students. Ask if students have attended a poetry slam and ask them to share experiences. Poetry slam explanations and examples can be found online at YouTube or at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june00/poetryboxfreestyling.html
Discuss with students proper performance etiquette, listening when someone is reading, reading loudly and with feeling. Encourage students to look up from their poem as much as possible. If students are prepped ahead of time they could be encouraged to have poems memorized but students may need the poems with them for comfort. Also discuss with students what the job of a judge is to critique the poem, not the person. Listen to the poem for elements of poetry that have been discussed during previous lessons.

2. Divide the class into three groups (or four depending on number of students). Group one students will read their poems first while group two students will serve as judges. Group two presents and group three students judge, etc.

3. Hold the poetry slam. Record scores awarded to students during each round. After all students have read, the top poets from each round will compete for the title of Class Poet. They can read the same, or a different poem in the final round.

Assessment:
Teacher will informally evaluate students’ poems. I often use a half piece of paper to write notes to students about their expression while reading, eye contact, and presentation and give the sheet to the students after they have read.

Spoken word- 02-15-10

Yikes, is all I have to say about this piece. I have a newfound respect for writers and performers of spoken word because, 3 days for 30 lines that I'm not even sure about... this was tough!

That’s how it is

It is the sympathetic stares
Of doting do-gooders
That marvel at the miracle
That I can dress myself.
That’s right, dress myself at age 30.

Don’t you dress yourself?
I want to say with a sneer
But turn away to hide the tear
How many blind people
Do you know that walk around naked?

It is the Equal Opportunity employer
Soaking up the notoriety
For hiring the Blind anomaly
While whispering, wondering
Waiting for That One Mistake that I can’t make

Oops, that’s right
Blindness is my bad
The trait to blame for everything
It is only white, sighted
Middle class “ables” that get a screw-up allowance

It is the feature in the weekend news
Highlighting my abilities
In spite of a disability
USA Today celebrating diversity
Success in the face of adversity, applauding me

Oppression, no, can’t be
I mean, God, look at me!
Celebrity in the face of a tragedy
These pet projects putting people on paper pedestals
Nothing more than society patting itself on the back

A second lesson plan 02-09-10

Lesson number 2
02-09-10

A poetic response
Just as people can respond to one another through dialogue, poems can also be used to respond to one another. In this exercise students will work as partners to write a series of two poems, one that, in some way, responds to the other.

Objective: Students work together to write effective poems that respond to themes and references made in other students’ poems.

Class periods: 1-2

Procedure:
1. Begin with a discussion of dialogue. What is the purpose?
2. Ask two students to dialogue about something in class for 15-20 seconds. Record the dialogue on the board. Point out that when we dialogue, we use what others are saying to determine how we respond. We often restate what people say or reference their comments.
3. Explain that this can be done in poetry as well. Poems can be written in response to other poems, to events, to pieces of art, or for many other reasons.
4. Share an example of two poems written as a response to one another. Point out how one poem might include references from the other poem, and visa versa.
5. Students will be given the class period, and possibly a second period if necessary to write the poems and type them if assigned to do so.

02-08-10 Lesson Plan

A Lesson in Imagery Development

All too often I find that my students do not think beyond an object, color, etc to develop the idea. For this poem activity I require students to think about colors in ways that they normally might not consider in order for them to push themselves into thinking more abstractly and developing vivid images.

Color Poem

Objective: Students will develop their abilities to write vivid images related to colors.
Time required: One class period
Grade level: Middle School

This lesson would fit well within a larger poetry unit, around a time in the unit when there is a need to develop visual imagery.

1. Students will be writing a color poem. Start by asking students to choose a color. Perhaps they will choose a color that is one of their favorites, or one that matches a mood that they are in on that particular day. Now, ask students to brainstorm a list of images using the following prompts.
What sounds does your color make you think of?
What smells does your color make you think of?
What tastes does your color make you think of?
What textures are related to your color?
What objects come to mind when you think of your color?
What mood do you think about when you think of your color?

Using these prompts hopefully the students will come up with an extensive list of images and ideas. Now, the next step is to develop these ideas into a poem that will better capture the color in a non-traditional way. I encourage kids to choose a mood for the poem before going forward because, for example, the color red can evoke feelings of love and sweetness (like at Valentine's day) or anger and hate. White could be innocence or emptiness.

Next, students choose some of the senses or images from their brainstorming and transform these into a poem format of two stanzas with five lines each. Use the following poem as a starting point.

Pink
Have you heard the color pink?
The quiet cry of a newborn baby girl
The sigh of a flower as it opens its petals to welcome the sun
The whispered dreams of little girls planning fairy tale weddings
That is the sound of pink.

Have you felt the terror of black?
Shadows lurking on a starless night
Swirling angry clouds banking in the west
A man with a mask at your front door
That is the terror of black.

Students go on to write their own color imagery poems. Poems can then be printed on the corresponding color and displayed or read aloud in class. The color poems that my students have written in the past become part of a poetry anthology that they create.

02-08-10, A poem or something like that

So, here's a poem that I'm totally not loving but I gave it a shot nonetheless. The challenge I tackled on this one was especially hard because I couldn't quite find the language I wanted. What do you think?

Untitled

Before it happened I knew the world to be one of sounds and textures
I felt my words, heard my locations and made friends with voices, not faces

The way it happened was sudden, one day lost in a deep, dense, unrelenting fog
The next, light screaming into my eyes, burning, reaching, filling them with the world

When It happened I lost the words to name what I’d known for years
Yearning to feel, to hear, but encouraged to see, I had to learn to know with my eyes

After it happened she was there, the voice I knew to belong to my mother
My fingers ached to know her, my eyes confused by this face? Smile?

As it happened I became an infant in a grown-up world, swaddled in wonder
Force-fed a formula of colors, faces, letters, places until the words dribbled from my mouth

Suddenly it happened. The cold cylinder on the bottom left shelf in the refrigerator
became the aluminum silver can branded by black and red letters, Diet Coke

Then it happened. The doorbell rang and, who was this He at my doorstep?
The man I’d known by voice stood before me and I didn’t know how to see him.

It still happens. I search for words I do not have to name things I do not know
Still an infant in a grown up world, still learning, everyday, to see.

List Poem 02.01: Things I've wanted to say

Things I’ve wanted to say to those parents

Our meeting today helps explain everything about your daughter
If Brittany spent as much time doing homework as she does making excuses, she’d have that A
Would you like me to sit around waiting for your next email or teach your child?
Yep, I deliberately seek out students like your son and lose his assignments on purpose.
Oh, I’m sure your son searched for “hot pussy” totally by mistake.
I realize your daughter has a great body but some people can’t tear their eyes away from her breasts long enough to learn.
I’ll admit it. Your daughter is my favorite, but in her class the competition is pretty weak.
Why didn’t I think of that? Of course canning pickles trumps writing a speech.
I’m sorry your aunt died. Was it easier to handle being this is the second time this year?
No, I’m not married, and I understand why your ex-wife is no longer married to you either.
While I’m at it, would you like me to hold your daughter’s hand while she goes pee?
He acts up only for people he likes? Well then what can I do to make him hate me?
Now did your printer break before or after your daughter left the paper in her locker, I mean, on the bus, or was that at her friend’s house?
Sorry about your son’s Traumatic Brain Injury; have you considered getting yourself evaluated?
My mistake, I must have gotten Jake confused with the other hornet-shooting, potty-mouth dumb ass in the back row.
I’m all for hands-on learning but Willi and his willy take things a little too far.
If I become an alcoholic, I’ll have your child to thank.

A lesson in Editing poetry

Just Edit:
Exercise in Editing Poems

Objective: Students will practice editing a poem

Procedure:
-Discuss with students general suggestions for good poetry. This would include the following suggestions:
-Rhyming is not always good, especially if it traps you into writing something that doesn’t really fit the poem
-Use words that make sense in our current language
-Be sure that the words included in the poem have a purpose. Avoid the use of lots of “fluffy” words.
-Notice the line breaks. Do they happen in places that make sense, or do they seem awkward?

Before we practice this with our own poems, let us practice this with a poem that doesn’t belong to anyone in our class. Read the poem “The Great Cosmic Birthday Bash”. Pay attention to what the poem says to you. Thinking about the suggestions for a good poem, highlight and underline parts of this poem that you feel could use some work. Students can work together in groups to identify weak areas of the poem.

After students have identified parts of the poem that do not make sense or need additional work, ask students to rework the poem, changing words or rewriting lines if necessary to improve it. Students do this independently at first. This may need to be done as a homework assignment to give students ample time to rework the poem.

Students come back together in groups and share what they’ve written. Each group then selects one poem to read aloud to the entire class from each group. As a large group, invite the class to make general suggestions comparing and contrasting the original poem with the poems written by the students.

This lesson will prepare students for the task of examining the work of their peers and providing feedback in future lessons.

The Great Cosmic Birthday Bash
by Brennan
Today is my birthday, the day of my birth,
The day when my soul reunited with Earth.
It flew through the galaxy, past Jupiter and Mars.
It passed a few asteroids and millions of stars.
Coming from Heaven as it surely has done,
It shot past some angels all aglow in the sun.
And now it is home in my innermost child,
Which is why on my birthday I danced and I smiled.
Poem courtesy of: http://home.swbell.net/moonshad/poetry.html