27 April 2012

Hands


A couple weeks ago I went with a few colleagues to The Literacy Promise, a conference in SLC.  Most of the sessions were enjoyable, but one that I went to stood out to me.  Those of you who teach English should know who Penny Kittle is.  If not, repent immediately and go purchase, read, annotate, and devour a couple of her books.

Her session addresses using writer’s notebooks in the classroom.  A short lesson in revision struck a chord with me, and I’ve decided to share it with you.  By the way, if any of you in the area get a chance to attend The Literacy Promise (held every two years), it is worth the cost.  Get your administrators to spring for the registration in April 0f 2014.

Anyway, as my friend Nacho says, “Anywhays…”…

Penny started before her session by graciously chatting with me about a few teachery writing-type things.  And she signed my book.  I am such a geek!

This particular segment started as she passed out a copy of Sarah Kay’s poem “Hands,” which we then watched the author perform via YouTube.  Check her other stuff out as well.

We were asked to annotate the poem as we read it through the second time.  We traced our hands—not to make Thanksgiving turkeys, mind you, but to give connect us to our past.  We brainstormed any connections we had to our “Hands” annotations, as well as any other images, stories, etc. that came from our hands.  We, in five minutes, circled words and phrases, jotted noted, drew diagrams, vomited our ideas onto paper.

She then gave us an additional five to choose one point from the mess before us and start writing an anecdote about it.

We stopped mid-idea.

And then we had to revise what we had barely eked out of our pens as quickly as we could (two minutes).

Then we turned and talked to a neighbor, not about our stories, although it was what came naturally, but about what we revised, how we revised.  Here I go flashing my geekdom, but I rather enjoyed that little chat with my pal Cassie.  In those two minutes, I saw my revision process as I never had before.  I was systematic; there was a method to my clichĂ©d madness.

Now, I’m not going to go in depth with my geeky revelations, but I thought I might share that process with the few that have ventured this far.  I tried this activity with my 9th graders…and it worked.  Of course, I extended their time.  And the best part by far was the conversation generated by them about their processes.  Whole-class discussion was mediocre, but what occurred between braced faces and zits was almost magic.  Almost.

So I guess I’ll share my product-somewhat revised, even though it’s not what you’re looking for:

 
                When Amy and I were first engaged she would always gush to her girlfriends how much she loved holding my hands.  She’d yank me over and showcase my palms and knuckles like I was some kind of livestock.  Some might have been offended, but I didn’t mind.
Until then I had never really thought about my thick, gnarly, knuckle-popped sausage-finger hands: the hands that couldn’t type quickly without inserting invented letters into words; hands that couldn’t quite coordinate themselves to play the piano with any semblance of finesse; hands that didn’t have much mechanical dexterity other than a death grip of a vice.
My hands, the chunks of flesh that survived pocketknives and scout camp, electric shocks, and even meat slicers; the hooks of flesh madeover with scars and burns, scratches and stings, paper cuts too infinite to count, the knuckles bent and bruised and bloody and busted (and probably broken at one point or another)—are no big deal.
They’re just my hands.
Just my hands—smeared with ink and nervous sweat as they fumble to keep other smaller, more delicate hands close and safe from monsters under the bed, and first days of school and overly obnoxious barking neighbor dogs.
But when the human stock show closed, and we walked away, my fingers interlaced with hers, I knew my hands, though not too pretty to look at, just needed to be good enough.


I might turn it into a poem.  Whaddya think?

17 April 2012

Found Poetry?


There comes a time in every book’s life—every book that has been loved—that is, where decomposition becomes inevitable. And more frequent is the case when you own a classroom library where hordes of seventh graders teeming with pent up, book-destroying energy pillage and plunder because they don’t have access to many books at home, they’re too lazy to go to the library by themselves, or I just happen to have shelves of freaking awesome books. Remorsefully, I have to “put down” several books each year. And unfortunately, those put out to pasture are, more often than not, those that are in highest demand.

Most teachers would tearfully bury each work in the recycle bin, sigh, and mope for a day or two until the next book orders arrive. Not me. I like to make use of the remnants of the shredded pages. I use them to teach with: lessons on voice, imagery, dialogue; the list goes on. Recently, one of the ways I have used these adulterated pages is through found poetry. I first discovered found poetry in a teaching reading methods class several years ago (Thanks, Dr. G) and used it frequently when I first started teaching. Then someone (or lots of someones) in the lower grades abused this awesome technique until my students had been beaten to death with it (along with haiku, PowerPoint, DOL, etc.).

But found poetry is a chance for students to play. And I like to play. With words.

So, for those of you unfamiliar with this technique, let me quickly explain the steps.

1. Give the students a block of text from something already published. Novels with beautiful similes, metaphors, personification, and other rhetorical devices work wondrously well. I let them use a page from a novel (front and back).

2. Have them circle any and all cool words or phrases that stand out to them. They don’t have to be big words, just ones that pop off the page at them. Hint: pages with a lot of names are more difficult to use, as are tables of contents or other copyright pages.

3. Rewrite the list on a separate sheet of paper.

4. Rearrange the words and phrases to construct a poem with new meaning. Key: the new poem does NOT have to be similar to the content of the original page. In fact, it’s better if it doesn’t.

5. You can add small words, change tense or number, delete parts, whatever. Get the students to manipulate the words to make sense. Have them play with punctuation and form.

6. Add a thought-provoking title.

7. Share. Publish.

Below is an example I did in front of my 7th grade students yesterday. My words were found in Louis Sachar’s Holes (pgs. 85-86).

Original word list:
laughed
from a can
come to him next
didn’t even want it
trouble
sure to come back
unclear
spilled
after
it all happened very fast
sorry
approaching
wrong place
wrong time
bury
unthinkable
flies
unearthed
empty
stole

Here is what came from my excavation:

“Repentance”

it all
happened
fast—
wrong place,
wrong time—
unthinkable moment
approaching

sorry.

don’t
want trouble
to come back
thirsty

I’d like to see what you can do. Use my word list, or come up with one of your own. You don’t even have to obliterate a book to do it. Attach your creation here so I can share and you can say that you’ve published a poem. Maybe there will be prizes!
I think I'll post a little writing every so often...some polished...some rough. And I welcome any comments or criticisms or cupcakes you care to throw my way.