Embarrassed? Frightened? Write a Poem!

by Jacqueline Jules

Poetry is a great outlet for expressing strong emotions. The Poetry Friday Anthologies are a wonderful source for poems about first day jitters, disappointments, fears, and other emotional moments students experience on a daily basis. I’d like to share two poems I wrote that your students could use as models to write about their own feelings.

“Embarrassed” appeared in The Poetry Friday Anthology, K-5 Edition,2012.

In this poem, I use food images to describe the feeling of being embarrassed after saying the wrong thing. I say “Words spilled like soda/Now there’s a stain.” Sometimes things slip from our mouths in a sloppy way we didn’t intend. It can feel like being a sloppy eater and having potato chips end up in your hair.

The use of images to describe one’s feelings is a powerful tool in writing, particularly in poetry. Ask your student to think of an embarrassing moment. It can be a time when they said something they were sorry for or it could simply be a time when they dropped something or lost their balance in front of someone they wanted to impress. Can they think of an image to describe their feelings? Can they compare it to another situation or object readers will immediately identify with?

Begin with a freewrite, asking your students to describe the situation in prose, with as many metaphors or similes that come to mind. Freewrites give writers the opportunity to find their images first before trying to rhyme or condense their thoughts into a poem. Sometimes, writers choose words only because they rhyme. Doing a freewrite first can help writers avoid this pitfall.

Another strong emotion is fear. Fear of homework. Fear of thunder. Fear of being embarrassed. These poems, “The Math Beast” and “Thunder” appeared in Balloon Lit Journal, August 2015.

In “The Math Beast” I compared math homework and my fear of failing to a tiger roaring in a cage. In “Thunder” I compared the frightening sound of a storm to a stampede of buffalos on the roof.

Ask your students to write about something they fear. Storms? Tests? The High Dive? Monsters? Can they compare their fear to something else?

Once again, begin with a prose freewrite, encouraging your students to identify images before they try to write a poem. Poetry should contain at least one clear picture for the reader and having one in mind before you start is very helpful.

There are so many emotions to write about. Encourage your students to explore emotional terrains and describe their feelings in concrete images.

www.jacquelinejules.com

TRANSFORMING A FREE WRITE

by Jacqueline Jules

Free writes are a staple of writing workshops. Gurus like Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within) frequently advise writers of all ages to just keep that pen moving across the page. It doesn’t matter what you write in the first draft, just get some words down. And it is good advice. Before I start a project and every time I get stuck, I put my fingers on the keyboard and type ideas, questions, fears, memories, and anything else that comes to mind in a random manner. I don’t worry about figurative language, clichés, or didactic phrases. I just get words down, something that I can re-read to rework later. 

Here is an example of a free write I did for a poem later called “Daddy and Venice.”

The final poem, published in Imitation Fruit, May 2010. 

had only one line from the free write: “dressed in pigeons.”  I used that image to describe what it was like to feed the pigeons in Saint Mark’s Square in Venice when I was a girl.

So how did I transform a free write which essentially says I don’t remember much beyond the pigeons and my father’s desire to show me the beauty of Venice? My poem makes references to the Doge’s palace, a grand staircase, gondolas with Persian rugs and velvet seats— details I absolutely did not remember from my eight-year-old-experience in Venice. How did I do it? Research! I went to Venice travel sites and used the facts I found to create imagery in my poem.

The next time you study countries, ask your students to write a poem using highlights described in their research. Travel websites are designed to entice the reader to spend the necessary dollars to see that not-to-be-missed vacation spot in person. They are great sources of persuasive language and generally chocked full of sensory images. Using interesting details spices up any piece of writing.  

 www.jacquelinejules.com

  

THE BEST WORDS IN THE BEST ORDER

by Mary Quattlebaum

The title of this post is taken from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s definition of poetry—but it should hold true for stylish prose as well.  In this era of sound bites and Instagram, though, how might we help our students to better appreciate the power and beauty of language?

A writing prompt that gets people looking deeply at words and thinking about how easily we take language for granted is the “How to, for Aliens.”

1.  Ask students to do this exercise:  An alien is visiting from outer space and has no knowledge of our world.  Write down the directions for him or her on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Or how to cheer for the school’s football team.  Or how to wash a dish.

2.  Share and discuss May Swenson’s poem “Southbound on the Freeway.” How do you know that the alien is talking about cars?  What specific words give you the clues?  How does the alien see people?  What images seem especially vivid and fresh?

3.  Have students return to their initial writing prompt and revise for clarity, word choice, and sound.

4. Share some pieces aloud, asking students to try to figure out what the alien is being asked to do.  Enjoy!

www.maryquattlebaum.com

PENCIL TIPS: PREPARING TO WRITE

by Jacqueline Jules

In many schools, writing workshop, like math or science, has a scheduled time that must be adhered to if all the elements of the curriculum are to be covered before the spring testing season. The schedule insures that writing will take place a certain number of times per week, but it also limits the amount of time students spend writing. This makes maximizing writing time all the more important. How do you get your students ready to write? Mary Quattlebaum provided some wonderful transition tips in her November 8^th post. I’d like to add to this by offering some tips for structure when you have a specific goal in mind.  

BEFORE YOU GO OUTSIDE: A direct experience is easier to write about than a dim memory, so going outside to write is always helpful for seasonal descriptions. However, before you walk outside with clipboards, take a few moments to discuss what the students might encounter, and encourage them to use imagery to describe it. Last month, I accompanied a group of second graders on a leaf hunt. Before we left the classroom, I asked the students to consider the following:

Listen to how the leaves sound when you step on them.

Be aware of how your cheeks feel outside today.

Compare colors. Is that leaf as red as an apple or as yellow as a lemon?

Look for shapes.

Think about how the leaves feel on your fingers.

We were only outside for twenty minutes, but during that time, the second graders came up with wonderful imagery. Here are some of the things they wrote: “The leaf feels silky.”“It sounds like crunching newspaper.”“This leaf is shaped like a star.”“There are orange veins in the red leaf.”

BEFORE A GROUP ACTIVITY: Class writing projects can be excellent models or uninspired disappointments. Structuring the time into three parts can help produce more creative results. I recently helped a third grade class write an acrostic poem to honor a retiring custodian. We gathered on the rug with our writing notebooks in hand. First, we brainstormed, writing a list of specific memories such as “Mr. B helped save a sick bird.” “He started the lunch stars program. He helped us open juice boxes and thermoses.” After listing specific memories, along with some adjectives to describe Mr. B, I asked the students to open their notebooks and work on an acrostic poem silently before we created one together. For ten minutes, the students did a quick write with open notebooks in their laps. Then we looked up at the board and worked together again. Since each student had written a possible line for the acrostic, we had several delightful choices, some of which were easily combined. My favorite lines to describe our wonderful Mr. B. were: “Magnificent with kids” and “Nice to everyone, even sick animals.”

To be honest, the three-part structure of the lesson--brainstorming, silent writing, and group work--was a spur of the moment decision. But the technique worked so well, it will be part of my lesson plans from now on.    

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