October | 2021 | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for October, 2021

Poetry Friday: Starfish

Posted in Books, tagged Book Review, Cybils reading, Lisa Fipps, middle-grade novels, verse novel on October 29, 2021| 19 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Linda Baie at Teacher Dance.

I am reading poetry for Round One of Cybils. To see the nominations for 2021, click here.

This week I read the verse novel Starfish by Lisa Fipps. I’m amazed that this is her debut novel. She uses verse effectively; It’s not a prose story told with line breaks. I was drawn in by the story and by the character of Ellie, but I also enjoyed each verse as its own poem.

I sent this poem to my friend- Inkling writer Linda Mitchell. She is a librarian in a middle school in Virginia and I know she is the type of librarian who would create a safe place for kids like Ellie.

Below is my review on Goodreads:

Starfish by Lisa Fipps

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have never been a fat person until I read Starfish by Lisa Fipps. I became Ellie and felt every pain of the torture her family and classmates put her through. Reading this book, I was reminded of the bullying I endured as a skinny teenage girl with a flat chest. No bullying is pretty and it happens to lots of different people for lots of different reasons.

The way that Lisa Fipps can magically place you into the body and mind of Ellie through sparse, yet powerful verse is transformative. It made me as an adult examine the language that I use to talk to others. Like Wonder by R.J. Palacio, I want to place this book into the hands of all my students in middle grades. There is an important message here: “I deserve to be seen./ To be noticed./ To be heard./ To be treated like a human./ I starfish./ There’s plenty of room/ for/ each/ and/ every/ one of us/ in the world.” You matter. Ellie matters. I matter.

View all my reviews

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, Gulf State Park, metaphor dice, Nature poems on October 27, 2021| 29 Comments »

Always on the lookout for a photo wanting to be a poem, I pay attention to photography on Instagram. James Edmunds often posts amazing photos from his travels with Susan. James and Susan live in my neighborhood and have been friends of ours for years. James has a wit comparable to his good friend, author Calvin Trillin. He posted this photo of a heron taken in Gulf State Park, Alabama on his most recent jaunt into nature with Susan. Not only did the picture attract my eye, but his clever wordplay caption made me chuckle.

Inside every heron is… hero! by James Smith Edmunds

I’ve been playing with metaphor dice lately, and thanks to Taylor Mali, now have a set of make-your-own dice. I rolled and got this metaphor. “Kindness is a blue poem.” Even when you make your own, they stretch the brain cells.

Kindness
is a blue
poem
written for
the hero
who makes
me smile.
Margaret Simon, draft

Now it’s your turn. You can use the metaphor dice roll or not. As always, support other writers with comments. I am considering making a Facebook group to expand our horizons a bit. Let me know your thoughts. If you don’t already, follow me on Facebook @MargaretGibsonSimon.

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Slice of Life: Getting Outside #Writeout

Posted in Gifted Education, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged #writeout, Conservation, Louisiana wetlands, Nature poems, Things to Do Poem on October 26, 2021| 8 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

The last two weeks have offered a wealth of writing inspiration as we participated in #write0ut, a National Writing Project and National Park Service collaboration. Teaching gifted kids challenges me to find quality writing activities that will inspire, motivate, and engage my young students. #Writeout 2021 did not disappoint. And the resources will remain available on the website here.

My students have created storyboards with Storyboard That about geological changes over time.

Chloe’s storyboard about Louisiana’s loss of wetlands.

They wrote poetry. Things to do if you’re a puppy by Avalyn:

Pound on a window when you want
to go on a walk, purr when you want pets.
Go outside and dig when you’re bored.
Lastly
only bark when you’re in danger.
Avalyn, 2nd grade

On Friday, we ventured outside to the playground. At one school, there is a large live oak. My students sat underneath the tree for writing inspiration and gathered natural materials to create an art piece.

Golden petaled flowers
spring up from the ground
Leaves slowly drift
from each branch
Clouds painted
on the sky’s canvas
Tall great trees
with green leaves
Spider webs
glisten in the sunlight
Squawking birds
angrily yell
Fellow rodent squirrels
sprint across branches
For nature
For habitats
For life
Jaden, 6th grade (form inspired by Irene Latham)

Another #writeout prompt asked students to make a poster. We used Canva and Adalyn create this one. On Canva it’s animated. You can view the animated version here.

Created by Adalyn, 3rd grade using Canva

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Poetry Friday: Metaphor Dice with Taylor Mali

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged memoir poem, metaphor dice, Taylor Mali on October 22, 2021| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Jama at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

Reading has begun for Cybils Round One. I am judging once again in the poetry category. This is such a treat, to read new poetry books and select my favorites. Stay tuned…

This week we had a special visitor in my 6th grade gifted classroom. One of those serendipitous things about blogging and connecting with authors is exposing my students to real authors doing the work. Taylor Mali joined us on Tuesday. Prior to the visit, he sent a package of create-your-own metaphor dice. Here’s a link to order some. We struggled with deciding which words to put on our own set of dice. We made lists in our notebooks of concepts, adjectives, and objects. I’m glad we had a little struggle because we could ask questions of the master.

Jaden asked, “What is the difference between a concept and an object? Isn’t “father” an object?” Taylor was quick with the answer. He explained that many people like to write about their fathers and mothers in a metaphorical way, more like a concept than an object. He went on to tell the story of a student of his who wrote about their father as shattered glass. “I can still see myself in the shattered pieces.”

We shared our own metaphor poems and he offered feedback. One of the things he noticed in my students’ poems was the absence of their own lives. He talked about how poetry should be beautiful language, yes, but also should be the truth. He suggested ways that they could put more of their own life experience into the poems they wrote.

I tried this idea myself with a roll of my own homemade metaphor dice. The roll I got was “The past is a soft wind.” I was pleased that Taylor’s advice to my kids resonated with me, and I tapped into a true story from my childhood.

The Past is a Soft Wind
blowing wind chimes
in the old cypress tree,
ringing like a distant train
that left the station years ago.
The year we drove to Morton, Mississippi
for Thanksgiving and gathered pecans
with great grandfather. We thought
he was 100 years old. He knew things–
How to crack pecans in the palm of his hand
and how many minutes from the engine
to the caboose. We stood together watching,
counting, waving to the conductor
who, as that red house rounded the curve,
always waved back.
Margaret Simon, draft

Photo by Lawrence Schaefer on Pexels.com

I think metaphor dice will sustain us in poetry writing for the rest of this school year. Thanks, Taylor, for a wonderful, engaging writers workshop.

Taylor hosts an Instagram Live event every Monday night.

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Fall Leaves

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged #NationalDayofWriting, #poemsofpresence, #WhyIWrite, Nature poems, small poems, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on October 20, 2021| 23 Comments »

After hurricanes and weeks and weeks of heat, things in the deep south are finally feeling like fall. Fall is one of my favorite seasons. Surprisingly not for the colorful foliage of today’s image, but for the scents in the air. Here in Louisiana, the sweet olive blooms. The satsuma ripens, and the sugarcane is harvested. A plethora of scent-sations. And don’t get me started on gumbo. If someone is making a roux, you can smell it for miles around.

This photo comes from the Northwest where my blogging friend Ramona Behnke lives and writes at Pleasures from the Page. We do not get this kind of color here. Most of our trees are live oaks and pines that stay green and cypress trees that drop brown fuzzies. But I do love a good photograph of fall leaves.

If the trees could play
a melody the wind
would sing, we’d know
the secrets of the song
and blend with
harmony.
Margaret Simon, draft

Write a small poem in the comments. Let the muse take you where it will. I have no idea where my little poem came from. Writing is like that, mysterious and magical in so many ways. Be sure to come back and write encouraging comments to each other. I love it when someone sees something in my poem in a new and different way than I did.

Today is the National Day on Writing, an initiative of NCTE and National Writing Project. Use the hashtag #WhyIWrite.

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Slice of Life: Masterpiece/ Monsterpiece

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #beingmamére, grandchildren, kid art, Monsterpiece on October 19, 2021| 4 Comments »

I recently won a book giveaway (Don’t you just love free books?) from Kidlit 411 of a new book My Monsterpiece by Amalia Hoffman. The illustrations for this book are done with mixed media and photography. The artist-kid wants to create a scary monster but becomes frustrated as each person he shows his art to isn’t frightened at all. They eventually come to understand that monsters don’t have to be scary (and neither are kids). I was excited to read it to my almost 3 year old grandson Leo when he came to visit this weekend.

Sunday morning came early as Leo woke up well before the sun. “Mamére, it’s dark outside.” So while I had my much-needed cup of coffee, Leo located the art supplies and set to work on his own Masterpiece/ Monsterpiece.

On the Ethical ELA Open Write, the prompt from Anna was to write a 20/20 vision poem, a 20 word poem that sees something more clearly.

Making a masterpiece
comes slowly with
creative attention
to bursts of color.
You look up and say,
“A birthday cake!”
Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday: Making Metaphors

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged 10 x 10 Poetry Anthology, Bridget Magee, metaphor, student poems on October 15, 2021| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Bridget at wee words for wee ones
.

Bridget Magee, our Poetry Friday hostess, just released an anthology around the number 10. I ordered it from Amazon and received it yesterday. I jumped right in and read poems from many of my Poetry Friday friends. Here is what Bridget wrote about her motivation for curating and publishing this anthology:

As the TENTH child born into a family of TEN children in the TENTH month, I am fascinated by the number ten. Add TENACITY to that fascination and the idea to create this anthology was conceived.
Bridget Magee, introduction to 10 x 10 Poetry Anthology

Every week I post a photo that begs to be a poem here on Reflections on the Teche as well as on my classroom Fanschool space. This week I was particularly struck by how the photo of a close-up of dragonfly wings inspired metaphors. Stained glass, mosaic art, prehistoric maps are a few that appeared in the small poems in the comments.

I was able to grab the student’s own writing to teach and reinforce the concept. Children can use figurative language long before they have a name for it.

Avalyn wrote “like a chandelier” in her notebook, and I took the opportunity to teach her about what she had just done. She had created a “simile.” I told her she could use the colored markers to underline it in her notebook and write the word simile in the margins. Her next line was “a clear shower curtain and the outline of your window.” I directed her to choose another color to mark the metaphor. Then I read her my poem and allowed her to mark my poem with the same colors. I was almost giddy with delight to be able to notice and note a gem in my second grade student’s writing.

This experience makes me wonder about photography and writing. Did the writing change if I told the children the photo was dragonfly wings? I told Jaden what the image was before he wrote, so he decided to google “dragonflies” and included a science fact in his poem.

Wings
like glass designs
shedding light
zipping through the sky
30 wing beats every second
bzz-bzz the dragon fly
slips by.
by Jaden, 6th grade

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about retirement. I envy my poet-teacher-friend Mary Lee Hahn who has a poem about retirement today. But moments like these in my classroom writing alongside such gifted and talented writers inspires me and makes me a better person. I think I’ll stick with it a little longer.

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This Photo: Close-up Dragonfly Wings

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, Amanda Potts, dragonfly, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on October 13, 2021| 37 Comments »

Nature never ceases to amaze me. Amanda Potts shares photos on her Instagram feed of nature through a close-up lens. When I don’t have a photo of my own to share, I know I can turn to hers. Like me, she walks every day. Me in South Louisiana and she in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada…a world apart. Yet there are dragonflies here and there. This week’s photos (I couldn’t pick just one) come from her Instagram feed. Follow her.

Tessellation wing
an intricate map open
to wonder windows.
Margaret Simon, haiku draft

Write a small poem in the comments and leave encouraging comments to other writers. Above all, relax and let words flow.

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Slice of Life: #WriteOut Portals

Posted in Gifted Education, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged #writeout, Golden Gate Recreational Park, National Parks, National Writing Project, story writing on October 12, 2021| 7 Comments »

#WriteOut sponsored by the National Writing Project in partnership with the National Parks began yesterday with a wonderful video and prompt from Golden Gate National Recreation Area. My students and I had a productive day of writing in response.

As a teacher of writing, I am interested in prompts that lead to creative and imaginative writing. This first prompt did the job. Because there was a way into the story (a character enters a portal), students created a variety of different responses. Each one carried their character through the portal in interesting ways. Avalyn, second grade, chose herself as the character who finds the portal on the monkey bars and travels to the desert, then the rainforest, and back home where she lives happily ever after. Her story is here.

Katie and Jaden, 6th graders, chose to be animals in their stories. I think their chosen animals say a little about who they are. You can read their stories on Fanschool here and here.

Chloe’s story reminds me of a book I read this summer on Netgalley, Once Upon a Camel by Kathi Appelt. It’s a book to grab up if you teach middle grades. It’s a lovely story of a camel who saves tiny twin kestrels from a dust storm. I loved all the characters in this book and love that it weaves in a history of camels in Texas. Chloe hasn’t read this book yet, but the creative magic wand waved over her with these words:

Once in a desert, a camel walked into a purple glowing light. He knew it was a portal. He shifted and swayed until he stopped, opened his eyes and saw a horse running around a castle that had the words “Mississippi Land” on it.
Read the whole story here

I wrote alongside my students and may work on my story for a regional Louisiana picture book idea. There, I put it in writing. I know it needs a lot of work, but what do you think about a mosquito and banana spider that take a ride through the swamp on a brown pelican?

The Write Out prompts and resources will be remain available on NWP’s website, so even if you don’t have time to work them into your lessons now, tuck them into a back pocket. They are gems!

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Poetry Friday: Trash Monday

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Kamilah Aisha Moon, poems about trash, The Time is Now on October 8, 2021| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Irene at Live Your Poem.

I am judging the first round of Cybils Poetry this fall. If you have a favorite poetry book or verse novel that was published between October 16, 2020 and October 15, 2021, consider nominating it here.

In her poem “Taking Out the Trash,” the late poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who died at the age of forty-eight last week, takes a seemingly mundane task and makes the activity profound. Write a poem about a daily chore or everyday task that brings attention to your body. Try, as Moon does in her poem, to take time describing the movements of your body.
Poets and Writers, The Time is Now

I often write poems on my daily walks. Maybe I’m building a collection of these? Today’s poem is in conversation with Kamilah Aisha’s poem Taking out the Trash. It is definitely in drafty draft stage.

Viking Funeral
after Kamilah Aisha Moon
On trash Monday
when the men of the house rush out
to fill the can with white bags bulging
with detritus of our lives,
I turn my pace against the wind,
watch toilet paper streamers (is it homecoming?)
grow into ghostlings dancing beneath old oaks.
They mound like fairy mushrooms in a circle around bulging roots.
I gather my dog’s waste into a green bag,
flip it around my hand like a glove. The neighbor
stops her barely awake car, rolls down the window to say thank you
for being a responsible pet owner.
I guess not everyone does this. Some leave their trash
where it lands to rot and rest until the soaking rain washes
it out to sea. Place me
in a canoe for a Viking’s burial, my husband says.
There will come a time to say goodbye, to lay our bodies
down to fire, but let me be
breathing today, again and again,
not ready to release air into fire.
Margaret Simon, draft

Sign of the times, Trash on my walk photo by Margaret Simon

Ever since I read Naomi Shihab Nye’s collection Cast Away with poems about trash, I pay more careful attention on my walks. I pick up things I can carry and create my own poems about trash.

Irene has the round-up today. She has an amazing collection of poems about art called Artspeak. I asked my second grader to choose a poem to read today and copy. She chose Why Roses. We copied the form on the board like this:

Why ____________

because…

I am __________________

Here is Avalyn’s debut poem on my blog about the Van Gogh painting Starry Starry Night.

Why Starry Night!
after Irene Latham
because our solar system has stars
because the stars are in the Milky Way
because the moon looks like a face
because stars make constellations
I am the galaxy.
by Avalyn, second grade