Did you know that Wednesday, Jan. 29th was National Curmudgeons Day in honor of W.C. Fields’ birthday? I didn’t either until I got an email from Jen Laffin’s blog Teach Write. Jen listed some great writing prompts to use with your students.
My students loved this. I loved giving them a word they didn’t already know, which is a challenge when teaching gifted kids. In their notebooks, they wrote poems and character sketches as well as drew pictures of Grumpy Cat, Oscar the Grouch, and the two old men from the Muppets.
I reminded them of the poem form, definito, which was created by my friend and fellow poetry swagger, Heidi Mordhorst. A definito is a poem of 8-12 lines that defines a word and ends with the defined word.
I worked on this poem playing with a rhyme scheme. Writing this poem cheered me up, out of curmudgeonliness.
National Curmudgeons Day Definito
When your day starts out in slush and mud, When nothing seems quite right, When your cat scratches drawing blood, When you’ve already lost the fight, When all you want to do is rest or hide, just slam the door, You can’t suppress your grumpiness; Your mom says you’re a boar. Your face turns green and grouchy, shoulders glum and slouchy. It may be better to stay in as you are a curmudgeon.
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Over the weekend news traveled quickly of Kobe Bryant’s untimely death and the heart-wrenching revelation that his 13 year old daughter died with him. I’m not a huge basketball fan, but I knew my students would come Monday talking about this tragedy. So when I saw Sara Ahmed’s tweet, I took notice.
This is the piece of writing that got me hooked on the @PlayersTribune
This is the piece of writing I would share with students on Monday to remember #KobeBryant
I copied Kobe’s poem Dear Basketball. We talked about Kobe, about the accident, and read aloud the poem. Later in the day, I saw a Facebook post of this video, so my last class watched the video as well.
As a writing prompt, I told my students they could write a letter to something they love or write a letter to Kobe from his basketball. This prompt worked especially well with my boys. I want to share three of my students’ poems.
Dear Kobe
From the first time you made me from a ball of socks and threw me into a hoop,
I knew that you would become one of the greatest. I knew that you dreamt of being one of the greatest, by how you put your heart and soul into me, day and night, never resting. You put your blood, sweat, and tears into me.
You worked day and night, making shot after shot after shot after shot, until you were finally able to put on that Lakers jersey with me in your hand, doing the thing you love the most.
I am grateful for all the years we spent together, but as you grow older, your body isn’t into running up and down the court, throwing the ball into the hoop, but I know your heart will always be with me forever and ever.
Poetry Friday round-up is with Kathryn down under at her website.
When I started #100DaysofNotebooking with my students, I couldn’t imagine that we would be reading and writing poetry every day. But poetry is where my radar goes, and a good poetry prompt for me is also good for my kiddos.
Thanks to Ethical ELA, I had many ways to lead my students into writing this week. The prompts are still up on the website, and I highly recommend them. Writing together day by day helps me and my students to be vulnerable together. From this prompt, we wrote poems about loved ones who have passed away. My students touched me with their honesty. They had to bear with me choking up when I shared this poem about my dear friend Amy:
Amy Who inspired by Abuelito Who by Sandra Cisneros
Amy who looked like Sandra Bullock but better, whose smile glowed a mile away, who wore a crown with grace when she threw beads to the crowd, whom you may call a social butterfly, but her conversations were real; she didn’t stray from the tough stuff, and laughed aloud at funny happenstance, who held my grandbaby the last time I saw her, tears in her eyes as she said, “I will never have this.” Who faced cancer with wisdom, never giving up while knowing all the while her body was, who left us all missing her, whose joy lives on, and her smile.
Margaret Simon, draft 2020
This photo of Amy from the first Berry Queen Ball in 2008 stays on my my refrigerator.
A prompt from Teach this Poem led me to a video of “Imagine” by John Lennon. Sadly, most of my students didn’t even know who he was, much less the song. But this freshness caused them to be open and creative in their writing.
The world breaking into countries some people can only imagine while others can do something. We would want our world to be like clouds in the sky staying together to make a huge crowd shouting and singing. They contain heaven where everyone lives in peace not separating their clouds. We don’t want our world to turn into nothing
Jaden, 4th grade
Photo from PIxabay
No reason, to kill or die for. Imagine, I might be called a dreamer, but there are others who think the same. I hope some day… you’ll join us, a brotherhood of man… No need for greed or hunger. Imagine us all living and loving,
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Warning: This is another shameless Grandmother post. I received a wonderful gift from a friend, “Letters to My Grandchild”. It’s a little book with envelopes to tuck letters into. I love this idea because those books that you write in intimidate me. What if I mess up? This little book is just envelopes, so I can do multiple drafts before I place them into the book. Thanks, Dani!
I’ve been reading Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes. This book will tug at your heartstrings as Nikki overcame a terrible childhood bouncing around in foster homes and facing her mother’s alcoholism and schizophrenia. The memoir is constructed with poems and notebook entries. Each poem is a poem in and of itself. Because of this, I can share poems from the book with my students without having to read the whole book to them. The content can be too tough for my young students.
On Thursday last week, I shared the poem “The Mystery of Memory #3”.
Think food, and nourishment comes to mind, but we all know it’s so much more. One bite of pineapple, and my tongue sticks to the roof of memory, gluing me to the last moment I savored a slice of pineapple upside-down cake at my grandmother’s kitchen table.
To read the complete poem, read Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes.
One of my poems came out as another grandmother joy poem.
Think baby, and crying comes to mind, that piercing sound first heard as life. But we all know it’s so much more. So many firsts– first bath first smile first step first word.
When you send me a picture or video text, my heart swells with joy. Something new, something yours, now mine. A tiny finger wraps around my finger tingling with love.
Margaret Simon, after Nikki Grimes
A gummy Thomas smile to warm your heart.
My second grader Rylee is not yet worried about line breaks, but she heard the rhythm and sentiment of Nikki’s poem and wrote this (hands off from me) in her notebook.
by Rylee, 2nd grade
With line breaks by me:
Think of you buying a cake saver for your mom, and she’s going to open it, then she knows what it is. She likes it, then she is so happy that she bakes a cake.
Poetry Friday round-up is with my friend and critique partner, Catherine Flynn.
In my school email inbox, I get a weekly poetry lesson from Poets.org. called Teach this Poem. I don’t do these every week because the intended audience is middle and high school, and my students are elementary. But this week the author’s bio drew my attention. Jericho Brown is from Shreveport, Louisiana, a native to our state.
In the lesson, students were to identify a picture from the Library of Congress of the March on Washington. Enough of my students know about MLK, Jr. that they understood what they were seeing. Relating the poem to the march was a stretch for them, however.
Nevertheless, we wrote after Jericho Brown.
The water is one thing, and one thing for miles. The water is one thing, making this bridge Built over the water another. Walk it Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We have crossed the line, that imaginary space between you and me, a wall covered in vines. Tearing at the weeds, I find a flower– morning glory. Help us, Jericho, to see the flower in the weeds, the flame inside a rainbow, crossing over barriers to a place where we can all leap together.
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I saw the tweets, Facebook posts, and blog posts from Michelle Haseltine, and I said, “No!” I don’t need another group to join, another challenge to conquer, anything else to do! Just. Say. No.
That “no” lasted a few days, but the more posts I saw, the more I realized that this was the perfect thing to rejuvenate writing in my life and in my classroom.
Last year at NCTE 2018, I attended a notebooking workshop (wrote about it here) with Michelle and others. I came home inspired to make a commitment to notebooking in my classroom. At the end of the year on a field trip bus, I overheard one of my students talk to another one from a different school. She said, “I love notebook writing. Do you?”
Somehow things got in the way this school year. So the #100daysofnotebooking was just the thing I needed to bring out the notebooks again. We wrote every day last week.
I printed out this page, so we could keep a count of the days.
The notebook writing takes about 20 minutes in each of my three classes. I begin with some sort of prompt. We write to the Insight Timer set to 7 minutes. Then we share. Some of my students post their writing on our class blog, but this is not required.
Watching the Facebook page is inspiring (or daunting, depending on your point of view as some posts are very creative), but there is room for every type of notebooker. I’m enjoying trying out collage, writing to poetry, and word collecting.
As we continue, I’ll know more about how my students are growing their writing skills. Right now the routine of it is working. They look forward to the time to write, the time to draw, and the time to be themselves on the page.
Here’s a gallery walk of some of our pages:
Jaden was inspired by a poem by Nikki Grimes, Journey from Ordinary Hazards.
Notebook time leads to Flow, the concept that time disappears while we are immersed in a creative activity.
Karson’s One Little Word notebook page.
Breighlynn’s poem in response to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s poem The Pie of Kindness.
While the news of the world has most of us down and wondering what will happen next, my fellow poets and I turn to nature. Molly Hogan lets her eye find solace in nature in her poem this week. Linda Mitchell has haiku to share. And Catherine Flynn shares “Making Peace” by Denise Levertov, “The poets must give us the imagination of peace…”
For more links to poetry peace, click over to Sally Murphy’s site. Sally is an Australian author supporting #authorsforfireys on Twitter, an auction to help fire relief in Australia.
I was recently driving to New Orleans on a stormy day, but the closer I got to Nola, the clouds turned red from the setting sun and a rainbow appeared. Who doesn’t love a good rainbow to inspire promise?
But I was driving, so taking a picture was tricky, and writing a poem impossible. Later I tried dictating my idea into the notes app. Some of the words recorded. Enough for the idea to germinate into this draft.
A car wizzes past going 85 or 90 miles an hour. Weaving in and out, the driver couldn’t have noticed the sun drawing light into the clouds like a bonfire on a cold night,
Or the rainbow that appeared streaking more red than any rainbow I’ve ever seen. I slowed to snap a picture,
longing to forget the speeding car, the violent news of the day, and drive into the sunset with the promise of a rainbow.
My Sunday Night Poetry Swaggers Group discussed the One Little Word tradition and found that everyone had a slightly different take on whether or not it was a good practice. Heidi challenged us to write about whether or not we word for the first Friday of the month. You can read their posts here:
I’ve been choosing a word each year for 7 years. I enjoy the process of trying to find the one right word to guide my year.
I’m a two on the Enneagram. That means I’m a giver, someone who spends most of their time trying to ingratiate others. The good side of a two is being helpful and selfless. The idea is to get better at being who you are. So I subscribe to an Enneathought of the Day. This came on New Year’s Eve.
Present has been my word before, but it continues to fit because being present is a constant goal. For 2019, my word was Grace. Grace goes beyond presence to actually live with the peace of knowing you are loved.
My word this year was suggested by my son-in-law who knows me pretty well. I wrote about Embrace in my Spiritual Thursday post yesterday.
I joined Michelle Haseltine’s #100DaysofNotebooking challenge and wrote about Embrace in my notebook. This challenge is not only a good way to restart a notebook practice, but it connects me to a new community of writers I can “embrace.”
I also received a serendipitous postcard from Irene Latham. The poem just makes me want to embrace her and embrace writing.
Writing in Winter by Irene Latham
Here is a second draft of my Embrace poem:
Embrace says yes to now, holding on tight to this one moment finding a heart full of love.
Embrace is a word of grace, silently listening, open for the world to fill.
Embrace is here for you to welcome, knowing nothing ever stays the same.
The Winter Poetry Swap has arrived. Our friend Tabatha Yeatts matches us up for a rich exchange of poetry inspired gifts. This year I was paired with Tricia Stohr-Hunt. This week I received her gift.
Tricia spent some time on my gift. That impresses me because these days, especially in December, time is precious and small. She cross-stitched my favorite line of poetry from Naomi Shihab Nye. Now to know this, she had to read my blog posts. Then design and stitch.
And to top it all off, she wrote a wonderful golden shovel using the line.
Golden Shovel for Advent
It is not the season of me or I. nor the season of greed and want. It is time for reflection, time to prepare for the guest. We must be ready to reach out to someone, anyone who needs, anyone who asks. Let us draw nearer to what makes us whole. As the year crowns, it is music that fills the air and our hearts with expectation. Stars keep watch. My, how they shine! Rejoice, for the Lord is coming.
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Last week our gifted students in grades 4-6 went on a field trip that incorporated three activities. Each teacher’s group rotated through practicing for the Shadows Christmas play, visiting the Bayou Teche Museum, and going on a Poetry Walk.
Pelicans, a sculpture at Paul Allain’s Architecture office
The Poetry Walk took students through a sculpture garden, bayou side boardwalk, and a pocket park called Church Alley. I wanted the students to experience each space in a unique way. For the sculpture garden, we wrote a simple free verse poem of 15 words or less, along the boardwalk, a haiku form that reflected the theme of nature, and in the alley, a mask poem written in the voice of someone from the past.
At the museum, we learned interesting facts about the Bayou Teche and the founding of New Iberia. Frederick Duperier, a founding father, wanted a pathway from his home to the church, and later, the alley was used by nuns who lived in Mount Carmel, the Duperier’s former home.
Here’s a sampling of poems from my students.
Bayou Teche, a snake slithering its way past us. The Teche silent still.
Breighlynn, Bayou Teche haiku
Walking through an alley a very dark, dark alley to be lit up by a beautiful church. The dark dirt of the alley much darker than I thought but a bit brighter from my very own steps.
The nuns, somber and solemn, pass silently by my form. They are hope, in a dark world.
Madison, Church Alley septercet
eyes big nose as big as an elephant peeper sees everything no matter mouse or bug
Landon, Sculpture poem
On the Bayou Teche pelican in the distance lily pads floating
Maddox, Bayou haiku
We celebrated these small poems with sharing time after each writing time. The students cheered for each other and enjoyed being poets paying attention to common places. Each poem was unique. The whole walk took about an hour with 20 minutes in each site. I recommend creating a poetry walk for your next field trip.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
