Day Four: Drafting a Where I'm From Poem

Yesterday we worked on writing our own Where I'm From Poems. We started by looking at a template and a couple of student examples from this PDF: https://www.sps186.org/downloads/attachments/44633/Where%20I%20am%20From.pdf

Then we reread our own lists from the last session and broke into writing partners for a "turn and talk." I provided the following prompts if partners wanted to use them. 

• What are three things from your list that you want to include? Why?
• What from the list might lead to its own piece of writing?
• What from your list do you think might be most important to where you are from?

I didn't suggest marking the items to include, but probably should have. Neither my partner or I were ready to tackle the third question. I set the timer for six minutes and that seemed about the right amount of time for both partners to share for everyone. 

After going over the guidelines below we each drafted our own poems. 

• Multi stanza and free verse
• Each stanza starts with "I am from . . ."
• Rearrange and/or extend from your list
• Use sensory imagery
• An idea for pulling it all together at the end?

I put the template from the PDF up again on the screen during writing time, and some of the writers found it useful and others found it too much like a Mad Libs with only nouns as an option. I found it helpful as a framework to get started writing, but didn't follow it exactly. I didn't like that the template includes lines directly from George Ella Lyon's original poem. 

We had the longest drafting/writing time during the workshop, and while the participants had a variety of degrees of satisfaction with their results, everyone seemed to spend the time writing. 

Our next session will be focused on revision. 

As homework please watch "Simile School" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT6_PXXjU94

Also, in addition to the student examples on the PDF linked above, several video examples are on George Ella's web page: http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html

Day Three: Where I'm From Intro and Lists

Remember, we are moving to 5:30 as a start time!

Today we were Introduced to Georg Ella Lyon's "Where I'm From." She has a webpage at http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html that includes the poem written out, a sound file of her reading the poem, a video with her reading the poem, information about using the lists as writing prompts, and how others have used the poem as a jumping off spot for writing. 

Even though I set us up to pick any time from our lives, we all came up with substantial lists mostly about our childhood using the following prompts. The more I think about it, focusing on our childhood is key to this model. In general, childhood is where we are from.

The next time we meet, we will have writing time to "extend, rearrange, edit," and revise our Where I'm From lists into poems. We will also be exposed to some revision strategies so we can choose at least one of our poems to revise and publish. 

Day Two: Image Poem

Today, we started by reading "Beehive," by Jean Toomer which can be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148499/beehive. His poem is a great example of the use of imagery, as well as having some examples of alliteration and onomatopoeia used in a poem. 

Here is one definition of imagery:

While somewhat formulaic, this image poem form pushes writers to use sensory imagery. We started by collaborating with each of us contributing one image to create a "Quiet Poem" using this outline:

        

    

Then we each wrote an image poem, following that model with the following suggested topics from which to choose:

• Quiet Poem
• Loud Poem
• Silent Poem
• Winter Poem
• Summer Poem
• Morning Poem 
• Night Poem
• Waiting Poem
• Calm Poem
• Anxious Poem

After about 10-15 minutes of writing time, we all shared our image poems or poem sketches.

Ina pointed out today that her cousin had some of his poems featured on the "Writer's Almanac." Here are the links to three poems and a short biography:

https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2003%252F12%252F29.html

https://www.writersalmanac.org/episodes/20161031/

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-january-27-2020/

https://hannahtest.com/perlberg/writing.html

Day One: Chain Poem

 Many of our poems will be free-verse. Here is one definition of free-verse from Nancie Atwell:

Free-verse is poetry that doesn't have a regular rhythm, line length, or rhyme scheme. It relies on the natural rhythms of speech. Today it is the form of poetry that most American poets prefer. Free-verse poetry invents and follows its own forms, patterns, and rules.  

As an example of free-verse, we listened to Garrison Keillor reading Ron Koertge's "Cinderella's Diary," so I will put a link to the author reading it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxbV8jfUQnY

Our first form is the "chain poem." I learned about this form at a teacher's workshop, if my memory serves me well, led by Ingrid Wendt the originator of the chain poem. Here is a link about it: https://archive.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/580.

Here is the process:

• Create a vertical list of six to ten words
• Free associate from the word before
• Start with either window or mirror
• Start at the top center of a page
• Fill in the blanks around the chain
• Add words before, after, or both
• Change tenses or plurals

My family and I free associated off of the word, party:

party

line

conga

Gloria Estafan

crash

course

study

While they created their own chain of free associations, I came up with the following draft:

At the frat house parties

we form a line

 and dance the conga.

Gloria Estafan leads; 

the disco ball crashes

of course . . .

So, we go back to our studies

Based on free association and surprise connections, we all have at least one draft. According to Ms. Wendt, by following this model we are thinking (and writing) like poets, right from the start.

Introduction

This poetry workshop is a writing workshop re-created for my family as a balm for the times and an activity to stimulate our creativity and exercise our brains. It is based on a writer's workshop unit on poetry developed while teaching middle school. The original lessons were chosen and designed for reluctant poetry writers, so most of the strategies involve some kind of prewriting activity, a poetic form to structure our writing, and a focus on free-verse.  At several points, we will explore revision strategies specific to poetry and take some of our work through the entire writing process. While predominately writing focused, I will share some poetry to illustrate ideas or forms. 

The plan is to have sessions on Zoom twice a week, and to document the activities, supply some additional resources, and publish here.