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April ABCs

Posted in Poetry, Teaching, Writing, tagged anaphora, bullying, gifted classroom on April 2, 2014| 8 Comments »

It’s National Poetry Month and I am posting poems using forms, styles, and tools in alphabetical order. (For as long as it works. I may take some poetic license for this.) Jama has graciously gathered all the wonderful poetry blogs at her site, Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

One of my students named this month of writing “April ABCs.”

A is for anaphora. Have you heard of this before? I love it when my gifted kids say “I’ve never heard of that before.” A true teachable moment.

I have written a blog post for Caroline Starr Rose that speaks more about this writing technique, so stay tuned for the publication date for that post.

Anaphora is the repetition of a word or group of words at the beginning of successive phrases. Politicians use it for emphasis. “I Have a Dream” being the most famous. Poets use it to create memorable images and details. When writing with my students, I realized that anaphora can lead to powerful metaphor. If I teach this technique again, I think I would ask the students to include all the senses as well.

Henri-Francois Riesener

I am a Mother

I am the small gold locket you wear on your neck.
I am the scented perfume on your skin.
I am the taste of sweet milk on your tongue.
I am the curl of hair you place behind your ear.
I am the voice that sings a soft lullaby.
I am the warm tender finger wiping away a tear.
I am the earth under your feet, the heart that beats
in time with yours, reminding you each day
you are loved.
–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

Poetry writing has a way of getting to the core. When the quiet student reads aloud, we realize he’s not only a poet inside, but a real thinking feeling human being. I’m afraid gifted kids, especially the boys, often become a subject of bullying. Sadly, I think K had experienced bullying, and he expressed it in his poem.

This is the quiet kid sitting in the corner.
This is the annoying kid sitting on the porch.
This is the little kid sitting on the lonely swing sets.
This is the lonely kid sitting at the table with no friends.
This is the unnoticeable kid sitting while being bullied.
This is the “weird” kid, a victim with memories and scars

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National Poetry Month

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged Amy Vanderwater, poetry about poetry on April 1, 2014| 8 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Rather convenient that the last day of the Slice of Life Challenge month fell on a Monday, so the regular Tuesday Slice of Life followed. No rest for the weary. Let’s just keep up the momentum. Why stop now?

That’s what I said to my students as they wrote their final slices. Let’s keep this going. So my plans for the month of April is to challenge my students to write a poem a day. Now April is a busy month. Next week we have state testing all week. The last week of April is our Easter/Spring break. I hope you will visit occasionally on our kidblog to read their poems and comment.

National Poetry Month 2014 is exciting and busy! I will try to post a poem a day using different forms. I have a few guest posts coming up; one for Caroline Starr Rose about writing poems using anaphora, and another one about source poems for Laura Shovan. I will link up on the days that these are posted. I am also participating in Irene Latham’s Progressive Poem (links on the sidebar.)

Flickr by Maureen

Let’s begin with a poem about poetry. This poem was prompted by a quote from Amy Vanderwater in an interview posted on Jone MacCullough’s site: Check it out.

“usually I just let a poem find the voice it wants to find.”

Let a poem find the voice it wants to find.

Real things can happen there,
even imaginary ones.
Dreams…yes,
dreams, too.

Poems hide in unexpected places,
their voices buried in the sand.
Grab your shovel.
Let’s dig them out.

Take me with you on the walk with your new poem.
Let’s build a castle together.
Whisper softly the sound of the ocean waves.

I’ll know when I hear your special voice.
Words will find me watching.
Words will find the hearts they need to find.

–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved.

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This I Believe

Posted in Chalk-a-bration, Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged Betsy Hubbard, chalkabration, I believe, Laura Purdie Salas, nonfiction rhyming poetry on March 31, 2014| 6 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 31. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.
Audrey Hepburn

On Sunday, Patricia Pollacco posted this quote from Audrey Hepburn on Facebook. I took it on as a writing prompt for my last Slice of Life. I wrote 31 posts in 31 days, writing everyday and joining an amazing community of teacher-writers. The month has flown by. My students have loved this month of writing, too. Recently I overheard one student saying to another, “I can write about anything!” What a wonderful feeling! Please visit my class blog, Slice of Life Challenge, as they write their final slices and reflect on what this month has meant to them.

I believe flowers make the world more beautiful.
I believe every one can be creative.
I believe God is inside each one of us.
I believe the only way we can solve the world’s problems is through kindness.
I believe I may be one person, but to someone I may be the only one.
I believe we must pay attention. Listen. Be aware.
I believe when one door closes, another opens, and that we must be diligent in finding the open door.
I believe there are miracles every day.

Join the Chalk-a-bration over at Teaching Young Writers.

And now for Chalkabration! The end of the month Betsy Hubbard gathers teacher-writers who celebrate writing with chalk. Friday was a rainy day, so we stayed inside and wrote on our portable chalk paper. Partners worked together on nonfiction rhyming poems as inspired by Laura Purdie Salas’s Wednesday Workout.

They are cute
like a bamboo shoot
Can they play a flute?
They come in many shapes,
even grapes.
Can you guess our _____
They are fruit. Tyler and Kendall

Look upon this lovely sunset
The moon has not risen yet.
Earth and sun in perfect duet.
Look upon this lovely sunset. Brooke and Vannisa

Mesmerizing clouds of iridescence
Inky black plumage of brilliance
Dark plump birds in coexistence
Nature’s way of perfect balance. Kaylie and Matthew

The above poem was written about a YouTube video we viewed about starling murmurations.

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Storybird

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged digital literacy, gifted education, storybird on March 23, 2014| 8 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Slice of Life Day 23. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Today is Digilit Sunday. Link up your digital literacy post each Sunday. Use the logo on your site and link back here.

I teach gifted elementary kids. At any time during the year, I can get new students. Recently I was blessed with two first graders. I am not as comfortable with this age as I am with middle grades. I introduce them to using technology for presentations. They will need technology skills as they move up in grades in gifted classes. These two students are total opposites in tech savviness. Andrew (is it a boy thing?) learns quickly. He has made two Powerpoints learning how to upload images and use the animation tools. So I wanted him to try something different and new. I directed him to Storybird. If you haven’t tried Storybird, you should. I think it is great for younger students. My older ones feel restricted by the choices of images.

Andrew found a palate of images that he liked, and immediately wrote the title, The Sad Bear that Didn’t Have Friends. The pictures led him to write a story about a bear and his friend, a girl named Gina, who were separated in the woods. The bear found new friends, but Gina only found a tree shaped like a peacock. The images led Andrew to write more and add a little humor as well. Using Storybird, I was able to show him some basic editing, such as adding punctuation and capital letters. He also wrote using and over and over. I read his long sentence without taking a breath to show him that the reader needs a period or a comma, so she can breathe. I think we both enjoyed this process. Andrew was proud to read his story aloud to his classmates using the smart board.

http://storybird.com/books/the-sad-bear-that-didnt-have-friends/?token=qsuvuqe5vc

Link up your Digital Literacy post this week:

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Celebrating a Break Through

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gifted Education, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged gifted education, Hatchet on March 22, 2014| 7 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 22. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Slice of Life Day 15. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

My post will be short today. I am spending the weekend with my Berry Queens in Jackson, MS. for the Sweet Potato Queens weekend. I’ll be writing about this wholesome-woman-power fun later, but today I want to celebrate what may be a breakthrough.

I have a 6th grade gifted boy who has been extremely underachieving all year long. This is a typical problem with gifted students, boys in particular. He has resisted almost every incentive or motivation I have put before him. I have tried a number of things, but this week I may have made the miracle happen.

Karl(not his real name) may have found the just right book, Hatchet, to finally make him love reading. His reader response on Tuesday, posted late as usual, was 48 words long and began with “I really like this book.” I read this and had a serious talk with him. I did all of the talking. I blasted him. Then I looked at his tear-stained face and said, “You may not think that you are able to do this. You may think you are not good enough to be in this class. But you are here because you are good enough. You can do it.” I took another student’s journal and read to him her response to Hatchet.

I prompted him with questions, “How would you feel if you were Brian and the pilot died? If you had to fly that plane, what would that feel like?” I told him to go read a chapter and come back to the computer and write another response. I threw in more bait. “If you make a personal connection to the book, you can use it as a Slice of Life.”

He came to me later and said with a grin, “I read more than one chapter.” Then he wrote 250 words! Not only did he write more words, he made a connection to the character. I’m not sure if it was the “discussion” or the student model or the just right book, perhaps all three, but I am celebrating a break through. I gave Karl praise, but to top it all off, Anna Gratz Cockerille, the Two Writing Teachers leader for the Classroom Challenge, commented on his post. You can read his post here.

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Big Words

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged poetry, Slice of Life Challenge, strong words on March 21, 2014| 10 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 21. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Poetry Friday Round-up is at The Drift Record

I am constantly amazed by my gifted students. They can process and learn at such a rapid rate. I love words. That’s no secret. They know it. So we often spend time talking about words.

Vannisa, a 4th grader, and I are reading A Snicker of Magic together. (Actually, she has passed me up.) I asked her to put some of the magical words on the board. She made a list including felicity, serendipity, paradigm, gargantuan, spendiddly, snicker-doodle, lickety-split. Aren’t these great words?

I pulled up a poem that Katie Muhtaris posted on her blog Coffee Fueled Musings to show her students how to use strong verbs. Her poem, Oreos, inspired Vannisa to write about cookies.

Chewy Cookies

Stretching for the red box it slumbers in,
peel off the wrapper
decant a glass of milk into the tall transparent cup.
Let the flow of white water dive into the pool of air.
Snatch a crispy golden cookie.
Devour the serendipity.
Taste the felicity of the snicker-doodle.

–Vannisa, age 10

Matthew, otherwise known as Magic Matt on our class blog, took a break from his magic tricks to write a poem. He didn’t know it was good. He told me, “Don’t post this anyWHERE.” Then I read it and said, “Wow!”

Matt said, “Mrs. Simon, did you just say Wow about one of my poems?”

I think you will say Wow! too.

Felicity

Felicity fills my soul,
warming my heart like a gargantuan fire.
Isolated mountains dot the Earth
like looking through a kaleidoscope.
A paradigm of God’s grandest creation meeting reality.

–Matthew, age 10

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A Poet with my Name

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged American Academy of Poets, Margaret Gibson, Poem a Day on March 19, 2014| 8 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 19. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I subscribe to The American Academy of Poets Poem a Day email blast, so every day I get a poem. Sometimes they pile up in my inbox. I really hate to just delete them, but I don’t often have time to read them when I am checking my email. But this morning, the poet’s name caught my eye, Margaret Gibson.

When you’ve lived the first 20 something years of your life with a name, you get to know it, so imagine how surprised I was to find out I was a poet. At least I like to think of myself as a poet, but in actuality, I haven’t published much poetry. And truth be told, I use my married name more often now. But still, I was taken aback.

Of course, I didn’t write the poem. Another Margaret-Gibson-named poet did. I can only dream of being published by LSU Press. This namesake of mine lives in Connecticut, not Louisiana. I googled her. She is older than me (good). She is attractive (also good). I actually think we would like each other a lot.

Margaret Gibson, the poet. Not me.

Here are some lovely quotes by Margaret Gibson:

Poetry is really an act of taking things that come to you, a scarlet tanager or an act of war — whatever takes your attention, you study it for yourself, but you also take it into that part of yourself where you test things. You look out and you look in.

You realize everything is personal and everything is impersonal. We’re all part of one enormous, sometimes painful, sometimes joyful experience.

One of the things I think we’re here to do is to find the things that are broken and to mend them. Or to find where there is fracture or division and create a wholeness.

from Grace: A Magazine for Women

Margaret has a new book coming out in September entitled The Broken Cup which includes poems about life with her husband, author David McKain who has Alzheimer’s. The poem I received in my email is Losing it, speaking so frankly and eloquently about the loss of things.

What little I know, I hold closer,
more dear, especially now
that I take the daily
reinvention of loss as my teacher.

Read the whole poem here.

Funny thing, this daily writing practice. I had no idea what I was going to write about when I sat down at my computer. My avoidance strategy was to read my emails. What a gift I received today from a woman with my name!

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Full Ides (of March) Moon

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged erasure poetry, found poem, full moon alert, Jim Foret on March 17, 2014| 9 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 17. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I have a tree-hugging naturalist friend who sends out an email every month around the time of the full moon. His email is called Full Moon Alert or FMA.

One of the methods of writing I enjoy is erasure poetry or found poetry. I often find a poem in Jim’s FMA.

Full Ides (of March) Moon

Full moon rises Sunday at sunset.
Spring officially starts Friday,
Buds swelling,
swamp red maples coming into bloom,
thangs were moving y’all.

Sky reverberates
with the smudge of cranes.
I love you little.
I love you big.

My ladies are working hard already.
European honey bees are an all-girl operation,
and these are happy dancing
their butter butts, like the warblers
catching Crane flies.

A pair of raptors dive spectacularly,
two lovers celebrating newfound love
in this the season of love.

Happy spring y’all!

Get out and enjoy the fine spring weather.
Get out and stand there with your mouth open
watching that moonrise and sunset with loved ones.
What a gift! And bring some little ones along.

–Margaret Simon, found from Possum Foret’s FMA March 15, 2014

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Mother Nature

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged gifted education, lift a line, poetry on March 14, 2014| 10 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 14. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Join the Poetry Friday Round up at Rogue Anthropologist

Today, I am featuring a new and upcoming poet, Kaylie. She was my student for 3 years. This year she is in middle school, but she has joined the class as we participate in the Slice of Life Story Classroom Challenge. Her mother teaches across the hall from me. She came in one day earlier this week and said, “Thank you.” She told me that Kaylie has not been writing much at school this year, and she forgot how much she loves it. She now comes home every day and goes straight to the computer to write her Slice of the day. Kaylie is a poet. She has an amazing sense of language for her 13 years.

Now she has returned in spirit as a leader to the others. She is lifting lines and writing poems. In her slice yesterday, she wrote, “I don’t know why I am ADDICTED to writing lift a lines. I guess this is just a great way to make someone else feel good because you like their writing.” Kevin Hodgson has started something. He stopped by yesterday and left a poem response. And, yes, as Kaylie said, “It made me feel good.”

Wordle made by Kaylie

Her feelings come and go
As quickly as leaves fall
In the brisk autumn months.
Her spirit will always be with the earth.

If you are quiet, you can hear her heart thumping, thumping,
Dancing to the beat of the cicada song,
Steady and slow, on time
You can see her eyes, the stars

That glitter in the twilight,
Inconsistent as the moon.
She is restless,
In the ocean that crashes toward shore,

Always there, always churning
To the gull’s cry, to the burning sand,
She is present.

In the winter, her heart is cold as ice
Her heart thumps slow, quiet, soft
The snow falls, her whispers
Her secrets that we catch on our tongue
Only to be melted away.

In the spring, she is generous.
It is a time for life and rebirth,
She lets her children frolic among the daisies
In the sweet breeze she blows.
She is everywhere, she is invisible.
She is the Earth.

–Kaylie

See more of my students’ Slice of Life writing (Maybe even steal a line.): http://kidblog.org/SliceofLifeChallenge/

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I want to stay

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged meditation, relax, teaching, yoga on March 13, 2014| 9 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 13. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I want to stay here
in deep meditation
focusing on one word,
letting light dance in my eyes,
letting go of stress.
Let me stay a little longer.

I want to stay here
in this warm shower
with scents of fresh herbs, a hint of rose
rubbing my itching scalp.
Steam wraps me in comfort.
Let me stay a little longer.

I want to stay here
reading in my teacher chair
while kids are spotted all around
with noses in their books.
I stop to read a favorite line.
Can I stay here a little longer?

I want to stay here
in shavasana, toes pointing to heaven,
holding my color focal point
melting away the day,
bowing in namaste,
Please let me stay.