I am poem | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘I am poem’

Slice of Life: I am Poem Videos

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged #NCTE22, Canva video, I am poem, Poetry Lesson on November 15, 2022| 7 Comments »

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

Last week fellow poet-blogger Patricia Franz taught me how to make videos on Canva. It’s so easy that my students picked up on it pretty quickly. I had to do some of the audio and adjusting time on each image, but they were able to add elements, text, and record their own voices.

I will be sharing this lesson this week at NCTE in a session I am giving called “Are Your Words Like My Words: Accessing Your Inner Light Through Poetry” on Thursday at 11:00 AM. I’m excited to be presenting live, in person again and alongside two of my favorite poets, Laura Shovan and Mary lee Hahn.

My book Bayou Song opens with an I am poem, I am a Beckoning Brown Bayou. I projected this poem for my students. We discussed the alliteration of the opening line and how each line begins with an I + action. They selected their own topic and wrote their own poems. Here is a link to the Google doc I am form.

I am a Cypress Tree, Sincere in my Surroundings by Avalyn, 3rd grade and Mrs. Simon

I’m a Big, Bouncy Bubble by Brayden, 3rd grade

I’m a Big, Brown Box Turtle by Adelyn, 4th grade

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: I Am

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, I am poem on October 11, 2019| 16 Comments »

Join the Poetry Friday round-up with Catherine at Reading to the Core.

Every week I am delighted to visit The Poem Farm. Amy Ludwig VanDerwater posts a poem and a student writing activity. A few weeks ago, I borrowed this post, The Real Me, and wrote I am poems with my students.

My students loved the activity. Many of them chose to post their poems on our kidblog site. I invited Amy to write comments. You should have heard them reading aloud their personalized comments; the pride in their voices made my heart sing. Amy has a talent for connecting to kids and finding just the right words to say. Thanks, Amy.

I wrote alongside my students. I put together my favorite lines to create this poem:

I am a lionness
set in the stars,
that drumbeat
around a warm campfire.
I am a longing look
from a silent child,
a melody strummed
on his guitar.
I am a secret
scratched on a yellow sticky note.
Don’t tell anyone
who I am.
Margaret Simon, after Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Photo by **Jeremy Bishop** from **Pexels**

Read Full Post »

SOLC2019: #24 Silent Super Moon

Posted in Bayou Song, Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged I am poem, Supermoon on March 24, 2019| 13 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

March Super Moon
Photo by Margaret Simon

I am your silent super moon
I light the equinox sky
I touch the tips of trees
I hear nocturnal owls
I whisper secrets to your soul.

I am your silent super moon
I tell the myths of constellations
I cry tears for fading Earth
I pretend to keep my eyes on you.
I pull tides of ocean waves.

I am your silent super moon.
I wonder if I’m magical
I play hide-n-seek with stars
I carry your wishes in my moondust
Sprinkle heaven with hope.
I am your silent super moon.

This poem came to me in stages beginning with my morning walk with the super moon earlier this week. I was reminded of this form when Elisabeth Ellington used it to write a response poem to the first poem in my book Bayou Song, I am a Beckoning Brown Bayou. I’ve used the form with students and adults in writing workshops. Here is a template for the form. If you use it to create your own poem or have students respond, let me know. I love to share how Bayou Song inspires on my book Facebook page.

Read Full Post »

Slice of Life: A Book Festival Kind of Day

Posted in Bayou Song, Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged I am poem, Louisiana Book Festival, zeno on November 13, 2018| 5 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

Bayou Song is on the wall of books!

The rains had ended, the cool front came through, adding an element of celebration (like Christmas) to the Louisiana Book Festival. This year was the 15th annual book festival and the 15th awards ceremony for LA Writes, our state youth writing contest. I have been involved since the first contest and the first book festival. I always marvel at the young authors as they arrive dressed up with their whole extended families with them. It is an event for celebrating good writing and for families celebrating their authors.

My student Chloe reads her winning poem, Cool Words.

Following the wonderful awards ceremony, I offered a student writing workshop. You never really know what kind of audience to expect. I was delighted to have 3 writers join me. One was a 6-year-old who wrote and drew, then buzzed around. Her mother said, “She’s doing a lap.” Then she was back to writing and drawing. The other two girls were a sister pair. The older sister is a student at LSU. I am not accustomed to teaching college kids, but I was pleasantly surprised at how she responded to my prompts. She wrote an I am poem about the river. (Baton Rouge is located on the Mississippi River.) When I taught them about the zeno poem, she transformed her I am poem into a zeno. This was an unexpected transfer that worked well for her poem. She gave me permission to publish it here.

I am a rusted red river.
My mouth echoes
rising
flood.
I touch cities
with their
blood.
Reminder they
come from
mud.

–Jami Kleinpeter

Thanks, Jami, for enriching our lives with your poem and for showing me how a simple (meant for elementary kids) prompt can be transformed into a sophisticated and profound poem.

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: I am a Silver-tongued Storyteller

Posted in Bayou Song, Creativity, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Acadiana Center for the Arts, art collage, I am poem on September 21, 2018| 12 Comments »

I am in the process of planning a workshop for teachers for the Acadiana Center for the Arts to be held on October 11th. When I met with my teaching partner, artist Marla Kristicevich, we discussed creative ways a teacher/writer/student could respond to my poems in Bayou Song. I loved her idea of creating magazine collage. I wanted to give it a try myself and with my own students. The collages are as diverse as the students themselves.

From the collages, we then wrote an I am poem. For this, I offered sentence stems to get the ideas flowing. Today, I am posting one of my collages and poem along with Madison’s. Madison wanted to use a unique word, so we looked through what I call “the big whopping dictionary,” a two book set my daughter bought me at an antique store. Madison found the word reliquary, and we had a discussion about the metaphorical use of a river as a reliquary. I love what she did with her poem.

I am a silver-tongued storyteller.

I wonder where my path leads.
I echo laughter, tears, and songs.
I watch the sun, moon, and stars.
I call your name.

I am a silver-tongued storyteller.
I remember tales of old.
I nurture time and treasures.
I say the heart is true.
I hope you’ll hear my call.

Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

I am a Rambling River Reliquary

I wonder if I can ever turn back.
I echo the past.
I watch the present.
I call for the future.
I wind a wide bend.
I touch every memory.
I nurture your thoughts.
I want to never stop.
I remember the crashing thunder.
I say ” Swshhh, rrww! ”
I tell the wind my tales.
I hope I can find more.

Madison, 5th grade

Read Full Post »

Slice of Life: Making Poetry Zines

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged I am poem, Making a zine on July 31, 2018| 9 Comments »

Without young kids or grandkids of my own, I’ve been known to borrow them. Last week I was planning to hold a workshop around Bayou Song, but no one registered (end of summer syndrome perhaps), but no worries. My neighbor sent over her almost 8 year old, Jack. We worked together on an I am poem. Rather typical boy in the summer, when I asked Jack what he wanted to write about, he said, “Well I really like soccer.” So soccer it is. We are going to write a poem from the point of view of the soccer ball using I statements. Jack caught on pretty quickly and started spouting lines.

When Jack got to the part where he wanted to write words like cool and awesome, I directed him to more specific language.

How do I know you’re a soccer ball?

I’m a sphere! And I am patterned with black and white!

Write that down!

I am a super stylish soccer ball.
I spin as fast as a jaguar.
I fly like an eagle.
I get kicked around.
I want you to stop kicking me!

I am a super stylish soccer ball.
I am a sphere.
I am patterned with black and white
like a panda.
I roll to the goal.
I like to win.

by Jack

Then we watched a video of Jen Vincent’s son making a zine with a single sheet of paper.

I made a zine with a snake “I am” poem alongside Jack. He helped me with some of the facts, like snakes sleep with their eyes open. We Googled what a ribbon snake eats to find an s-word. I made a video of my zine.

Thanks to Jack for being my guinea pig for this activity. I look forward to sharing it with more students. Working one on one, though, is a great way to try out a workshop.

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: I Am…

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, tagged Allan Wolf, Gifted by Nature Day, I am poem on May 12, 2017| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Tara at A Teaching Life.

Gifted by Nature Day was coming up, and I had forgotten that it was my job to do a poetry activity. Yikes! What would I do? Some middle school students would be doing a play based on The Jungle Book. Their teacher explained in an email to me that the theme would be Be Yourself.

I typed into Google search “Bio-poems.” I didn’t want to use the same ole bio-poem form. Up pops one of my favorite performance poets, Allan Wolf. On his website, he had this mentor I Am poem.

I created a document that outlined each line. As each student completed their art activity, they came over to my poetry table. My first question was “Do you know what alliteration is?” Most of the kids didn’t recall this term, but that’s OK. I taught them very quickly, and they said, “Oh, yeah!”

Writing that first line proved the most difficult. The students I was working with are gifted, and there’s nothing better than watching a gifted kid feel a challenge. Encouragement came from other kids who had found a first line.

Wyatt was happy to share his first line. “I am an All Star Athlete.”

Noah, who loves to hunt, created, “I am a hard-headed hunter.”

A young Laotian girl named Patra sat next to me and said with complete honesty, “I am a little, lovely lark.” I encouraged her to use that metaphor throughout her poem. Her teacher texted me a copy to feature here.

I am a little, lovely lark.
I wonder what it’s like to fly.
I hear people talking.
I see the puffy, fluffy clouds.
I want to fly.

I am a little, lovely lark.
I pretend to fly.
I touch feathers.
I worry when I’m late.
I cry when–I don’t cry much.

I am a little, lovely lark.
I understand Laotian language.
I say, “Ha! Ha! Ha!” (me laughing)
I dream about flying.
I try to do my best in school.
I hope to grow wings!

I am a little, lovely lark.

Patra, 3rd grade

Jacob missed Gifted by Nature Day, so I presented the activity to him back at school. He decided to take his poem in a different direction and become a planet, specifically Mercury. You can read his poem here.

This form worked for multiple elementary grade levels from 2nd graders to 6th graders. If you chose to use this activity in your classroom, I’d love to hear from you.

Read Full Post »

Slice of Life: Cherish a Swamp Tour

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged #cherish, Animoto, cypress swamp, I am poem, Lake Martin on May 2, 2017| 5 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

Cherish is my 2017 one little word. So when my youngest daughter came home and wanted to go on a swamp tour, I took the morning off to cherish this special time. Whether it was the high air pressure or the slant of the sun in May, but the cypress swamp on Lake Martin was glowing. I wished I had brought my big camera, but my phone had to do. Even so, I captured some amazing images.

Lake Martin is a nature preserve and bird sanctuary, so there is no feeding of the animals of any sort. The guides do not attract the alligators to the boat. Even so, there were plenty of gators around to see. All sizes, from a small baby about 2 feet long to an old grandpa at 14 feet. Many of them were perched on branches sticking out of the water sunning themselves. Gators have no sweat glands, so they open their mouths to cool off. This makes them look fierce. They pretty much ignored us, though.

I learned that there are few snakes in the swamp because the birds and the gators eat them. The lake is home to all kinds of birds from the largest species of heron, the grey heron, to the littlest chickadee. We were mesmerized by the roseate spoonbills flying above, a spray of pink on the sky.

I enjoyed being a tourist in my own home. We should do this more often. I loved learning new facts, some of which I want to “fact check”, such as Spanish moss was brought into Louisiana on a bird. How do they know that?

If you plan to come to South Louisiana, you should plan on a swamp tour. However, it’s pretty warm, so you’d probably not want to take the trip during the summer.

I made an Animoto video and digital poem about the cypress swamp. Enjoy!

Read Full Post »

Gifted by Nature

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged Gifted by Nature Day, I am poem, torn paper art on April 24, 2015| 10 Comments »

Join the roundup with Renee at No Water River

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Every year we gather all the elementary gifted students at our local city park for a day of playing strategic games and combining nature, art, and poetry. This year our 6th grade students led the day. They’ve been working together once a month all year to plan a day of wonder for all our students. They performed a play about the Wonders of New Iberia. Written, designed, and performed by students, the play led the audience on a tour of the wonders of our area.

The 6th grade students led an art and poetry activity. Their instructions were to think of something you wonder about and write an I am poem about it. The form was simple. The students wrote and tore paper to create an art piece to accompany the poem. I participated because I wanted to sit next to students and be one of them. I thought about my diva cat, Mimi. One of the students helped me with my torn paper art.