It's that time of year again: Standardized Test Season.
I've had students want to crumple, rip, burn, chew, even fold and fly their standardized testing bubble answer sheets. But this year Taylor takes the prize, "I am going to turn this into a piece of music."
And so he did. Yep, it's true. So far he's translated his vocabulary bubbles to a little Schoenberg-esque ditty.
Can't wait to hear Reading Comprehension! This is what I call new heights!
Writing begins with words.
Enacting poetry is a great way to get excited about words.
Rainy days were bittersweet when I was in elementary school. While the playground was sorely missed, watching the rain run like a waterfall down the side of our classroom that was mostly made of glass was poetic. And of course, there were the rainy day games to brighten the atmosphere. I remember one teacher in particular who introduced us to the best rainy day game of all: Dictionary. She would choose a word that none of us had ever heard and then have us write our made-up definition for the word on a slip of paper. We dropped the definitions into a basket, then she randomly read them out loud and we voted for our favorite. When she read the real definition from the dictionary, she planted, seed by seed, an appreciation for words that has not left me these many years later.
Once, while teaching poetry on a rainy day, I remembered that teacher and the classroom with the glass wall, and with a dictionary in hand, began my own lesson. We were reading a poem by William Wordsworth, I began by having my students think of the poet’s last name as a really great compound word. I went on to share my rainy day memory and began exploring vocabulary from “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802,” Wordsworth’s famous sonnet.
We were about to embark on a game of Dictionary with a twist. I would attempt to take my students on a field trip across that bridge, enable them to compose their very own poem. When I gave them the first word to tackle, their definitions were non-specific, close to the real thing, but not precise. I opened the dictionary, flipped then ran my finger down a page, “Infuse, to fill; pervade.” I read the second definition, “To release flavor or healing properties while being soaked,” and then I infused tea in a glass mug of steaming water. The students liked this so much that we experimented. We infused darkness with light by closing blinds to slits and watching light stream in, by lighting candles in dark corners.
After our little game of Dictionary we took a few steps across the bridge, time for the real lesson to begin. I had them close their eyes and listen to the word infuse, encouraged them to let sounds seep into their ears, “The sounds of words matter, so does the shape.”
Now the students in my workshop were curious, “Shape?”
“Yes, shape.” Writers of all ages often forget the vital connection between words and image.
I led them into another room, to a table laden with jars of glitter, paint and brushes, drawing pencils, chalk pastels, scissors, glue sticks, stacks of newspaper and magazines, and a basket of Dymo label makers. It was time for my students to “find” poetry and in the process discover the power of words.
I showed the students how to begin with a random block, “Rip out a chunk of words from a page of newspaper or magazine.” I instructed them to read the block of words out of the context of the article, “Now the poet must think about the specific meaning of the words being read to discover a new, personalized, context to place the words into.” I showed them how to paint out certain words to make their new context emerge and to move from there to an original poem. Then I set them free to explore the supplies on the table. They didn’t need much instruction beyond, “Create a poetic collage.”
I am devoted to connecting writers to words by teaching them to crave what all good writers crave: Specificity.
Taking time to consider words is an undervalued skill, is often considered a tedious task. Taking the “boring” out of something ultimately involves changing the attitude about the task. Exploring words is an adventure. Learning to use a dictionary, the kind that you hold in your hands, is the skill that over time will allow young writers to infuse the worth of words into the world.
– Kim
There simply is not enough time. I panic and move faster through another day, tackling the stacks set before me.
This time every year I get the itch to plant a garden, but, “…there are children to care for, grades to issue, dishes to wash and clothes to fold, dinner, emails, phone calls…”
This past weekend Sara taught me to dig for sunshine, to be warmed by dirt.
Just as my dear country mouse (I am admittedly jealous) was about to get into her little car and escape this city, she looked at me with that gleam in her eye and said, “Let’s do it…”
The next thing I knew I was in the garden furiously dumping ancient dirt from garden containers. Topsy turvey.
We moved on to tackle weeds that sprung up around the edges of the fence where we would be moving the containers so that afternoon sun will tempt vines to crawl up twine and drip with snap peas. But the problem was, fun as this moment was, as much as I wanted to be in the garden, especially with my friend, checklists were flashing in my mind.
I was grabbing at weeds hand over fist when I came to a plant that was flowering—yellow blossom—I paused, “Pretty.” I was mesmerized until I remembered it was a weed that would that would turn to thistle and stick to my socks. I yanked it out and noticed that the checklists haunting me disappeared.
So what’s up with that?
– Kim
If we dig deep enough into the heart of a story, dig to its very core, I believe we will always spark curiosity. And when we press into that curiosity, we often discover a treasure to inform our own life. A good mentor leads us by the hand on an exploration of discovery that will make us a richer person.
As I am passing out the books and discovery guides, I introduce them to the story, “Allegra Leah Shapiro has been selected as a finalist in a prestigious violin competition and this stirs up all sorts of inner conflict.”
Why does summer have to be so hectic?
What does it mean to be half Jewish and half gentile?
Why is soprano, Diedre, crying?
How can I be a twelve-year-old a violinist and have time to be a friend?
Why is my brother so annoying?
How has Mr. Trouble lost his song?
What is this gift from Bubbe Raisa?
And what of this great-grandmother I’ve been named after?
Will I be able to dig deep enough for Mozart?
Can I undo what has been done?
“The Mozart Season,” I tell them, “is a quiet story, one filled with resounding music that just might change your life.” I leave it there, hand them the book and tell them I am looking forward to what will unfold.
Five months later, I gather my group together to congratulate our writing and visual art students who were recognized regionally by Scholastic Alliance for Young Artists & Writers this year, plus two high school students who had work published in an international online literary journal.
As I am handing out the awards, it dawns on me that four of the award winning projects began with the writers and artists responding to The Mozart Season and blossomed into something imaginatively original.
A great book can be a mentor.
Here you can view a short film inspired by the book as well as a beautiful piece of writing by a 6th grade student.
Gurgle gurgle, trickle trickle, swish swish swish, everything is music. The bubbling fountain sings a heart shattering song while the wind hums a chilling melody. Rain jolts in, dancing on its stony stage. He stares into the shame of another day, where bold shapes of towering buildings blot out the rising sun. Glass windows taunt the morning dew. The dense noise of honking horns and blaring radios submerge as the day grows old, life in the city. It’s all a blur–work, school, play, eat, sleep–never ending cycle. Those who can’t keep up are thrown to the side. There are no second chances in the city. Money is what matters, money money money. Without money you can’t survive, no need for creativity in the city. So he has no purpose, The man, his music, and a violin.
ead the entire story by clickng here: Download The Green Violinist
Want to inspire your students to dig deeper? Consider exploring The Mozart Season (grades 5-8) using our Blackbird & Company Literature Discovery Guide.
If you really stop to think about it, it's more than miraculous that a humble, hard-shelled little thing called a seed, once buried in dirt, watered, and warmed by the sun, transforms into something beautifully alive, growing, and life-giving.
Evelyn is a high school graduate. I closed the book on her transcript over a year ago. Recently she taught me how to connect the dots:
Ever since my mom introduced me to pysanky egg making many years ago, I have been hooked. When Easter rolls around I have my friends over to create these brilliantly dyed eggs. Every year I get better and better and learn more helpful techniques. This year I was so obsessed with making eggs I would stay up ‘till midnight painstakingly scratching on eggs with a wooden kiska.
Ukrainian egg making teaches patience. It’s a quiet, slow, endeavor but all the hard work and patience pays off. My favorite part of the process is when, after hours of work, I finally get to melt off the black wax with a candle and reveal the masterpiece!
A few years ago we suffered a pysanky egg tragedy: Years worth of eggs had been left on the kitchen table while we were out to dinner one night. We returned to a floor covered in smashed eggshells. Our dog Jack had smelled the eggs and jumped onto a chair to get to the top of the table. He crushed them all.
My mom cried. She’s never gotten over the loss. I, on the other hand, just wanted to punt Jack down the staircase.
Slowly we have begun to build up our pysanky egg collection…
I remember being on a Patricia Polacco roll one spring. After reading Rechenka’s Eggs to our group I heard Sara say, “We can do that.”
The next thing I know we are blowing the insides out of eggs and teaching our primary aged children the art of batik. I find it interesting that the Ukrainian word “pysanky” comes from the verb “pysaty” which means to write. So picture teaching a group of 12 or so under ten-year-olds to write with wax on eggshells! Did I mention that there is fire involved in this activity? Yes, that’s right, fire.
Here’s the deal: children are capable. Was this activity chaotic? You bet. But not once did it cross our minds that this group of children was too young to engage in a sophisticated craft. We rarely purchased construction paper! Looking back those young children proved that focus is not the issue. Children possess an incredible store of focus power, but we deny them opportunity to demonstrate their prowess when we hand them coloring books.
The art of pysanky teaches patience, true. When pure white shells, a tiny surface of potential, are painstakingly decorated individuality emerges. As a teacher who’s a poet, I see a metaphor emerging.
– Kim
When my youngest son, Søren, and his literature circle buddies began reading Perloo the Bold, by AVI his imagination was captured. Perloo, the protagonist, is a peaceful, fairly introverted scholar much like my son. I think they hit it off from the get go.
So in this story, Perloo has been chosen to succeed Jolaine as leader of the furry underground creatures called Montmers. When Jolaine dies and her evil son seizes control of the burrow, Perloo must step up to the plate.
During the second week of thinking deeply about the story, my quiet, unassuming son slipped under the loft where we keep our overflow art supplies and came into the study arms loaded with a box of assorted Fimo clay. He got to work conquering his idea.
When I asked him about the project he told me he was making a claymation film of Perloo the Bold. Søren spent many hours cleverly crafting characters and posing them in one position, then another using his camera to capture the motion.
Midway in his movie making he set the project aside, went back to the art cabinet, this time for paper and colored pencils and began work on a set of original proverbs complete with ornately illuminated letters.
With this task complete, Søren resumed progress on his little film. When the filming was complete, he enlisted his older brother, Taylor to compose original music for his piece. He was so proud when Taylor was done and his movie was complete. When I made one last suggestion, that Søren make a title slide, he knew just what to do, “I will make the title fade in, Perloo… the Bold. Yes, that’s it.” In a matter of seconds the slide was complete. Most fascinating of all, at least to me, was the strategic placement of the slide that was seemingly intuitive. He did not put the slide up front, but a couple frames into the movie to line up with a significant change in the rhythm of the music. Fantastic!
Søren’s creative response to this book not only demonstrates his deep understanding, but that his critical creative thinking skills are alive and well.
Sometimes it is the quiet, unassuming creatures that save the kingdom. Pondering this possibility, no doubt, inspired my son.
– Kim
We teach our children that letters have sounds, that sounds combine to form words, that words combine to form sentences, that sentences grouped in just the right way form the stories we all know and love. We teach our children to read and write.
Last week it hit me as I was helping my students mix color wheels. I was teaching color literacy, an equally important academic (and life) skill.
Color is scientific. Color can be harmonious or not harmonious. People who understand this can use this knowledge to their advantage—artists, painters, designers, people just trying to get dressed in the morning.
We teach color because we see in color.
We teach color because human beings feel color.
Color affects us so profoundly.
Why wouldn't we teach our children about color?
– Sara
This time in the school year can be particularly difficult—a sort of doldrums. Everyone has been working hard for many months and summer still feels quite a ways off. You're starting to feel the pressure of all that you haven't accomplished…or wanted to. Standardized testing may be looming. The weather around Southern California becomes a confusing mix of sweater days and t-shirt days and at least for me, the urge to purge kicks in strong with garage sale season right around the corner.
With April being National Poetry Month, why not infuse your last weeks of school with a focus on the wonder of words. Poetry is at the same time economical and extravagant. It has the power to unlock a child's voice and encourage writing skills in ways that prose and essay writing simply cannot. My own daughter has a stunning gift for poetry that would never have been unearthed had we not delved into reading and writing poems at a young age. Don't be intimidated, jump in, be creative and have fun. Try to incorporate a little something into everyday.
• Revisit past four&twenty posts for some ideas. A personal favorite uses chocolate bars as inspiration for writing poems about place and taste!
• Participate in Poem In Your Pocket Day on April 14. I love the idea of having a poem on hand to sponatneously share with family and friends throughout the day.
• Great Poems to Teach lists important poems, some with audio readings. Poetry 180 also has a compiled list of poems geared towards high school students—one for every day of the school year. Both are helpful for getting to know famous poets and various forms.
• Start a book club with friends using our poetry-focused, litertaure discovery guides. Younger students can explore animal poetry with our Douglas Florian guide while Love That Dog and Locomotion both tell profound stories through the use of verse.
• Use technology to share poetry with the world! Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, PowerPoint, Flickr, iMovie, digital cameras….the possibilities are endless.
• Here are some really creative ideas for word play from The Crafty Crow. Click through to Austin Kleon's inventive newspaper blackout poems. What a great exercise in eliminating words to find the poem that was hiding there all along.
• Embark on our Exploring Poetry unit. Read about it here from a blogger-mom who did!
• For a creative lesson idea, read The Poetry of Words recently written by Kim for Heart of the Matter.
• Plant a PoeTree.
Most of all, enjoy learning, exploring, discovering, and creating with words!
– Tracey
Q. What sticks with you from your research of famous women?
A. Hannah: I remember clearly being confused about Polio when we read about Wilma Rudolph, but so impressed that she did not let this mysterious physical handicap stop her from winning gold. I remember making prairie bonnets and dresses when we read about Laura Ingalls Wilder and being thankful that she bothered to share her recollections of pioneer life with me. I remember wishing I could have been a stowaway in that plane with Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt. I remember thinking how awful I would have felt in Faith Ringgold’s shoes when that teacher told her to give up her dream of becoming an artist because she had no talent… imagine that! Vivid among these memories is having the privilege of meeting Faith Ringgold and being able to share this thought with her in person. I remember making an appliqué wall hanging of Faith Ringgold inspired by her many quilt-paintings hanging in museums like the one I saw at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I remember my mom reproducing my quilt in miniature so I could cut and paste the images onto greeting cards. I remember handing a stack of these cards tied neatly together with a bow to Faith Ringgold and showing her the quilt I made. I remember that the artist not only autographed my copy of her brand new book, The Invisible Princess, but also applauded my artwork. Research of famous women was an ongoing elementary assignment. That was more than ten years ago. After all this remembering what I remember most is that the assignment still matters.
A. Evelyn: I loved doing art projects to go with our write-ups on each famous woman in history. I clearly remember working on my watercolor of Amelia Earhart one night and showing it off proudly to my brother and his friend. I remember when Hannah and I sat together and traced drawings from the book about Wilma Rudolph and learned about her inspiring story of perseverance. I remember working on my art project for Faith Ringgold—it was a canvas divided into three sections depicting things I love—cooking, my friends, and art—and illustrating scenes that were important in Faith’s life. I remember specifically learning about how an art teacher told Faith Ringgold she could never become an artist because she didn’t know how to paint mountains. I thought that was so unfair because Faith had never even seen mountains before. Getting to actually meet Faith Ringgold and show her my art project, well, how many kids get that kind of opportunity? I was recently reading my college art appreciation book and I noticed artwork by Ringgold and I said to myself, “I’ve met her!” I remember learning about the first black woman millionaire, Madam C.J Walker. I liked learning about how she created beauty products for women. Entrepreneurial success stories have fascinated me ever since. I remember painting a portrait of Princess Diana and on “Person I Admire Day” dressing up like her. One not so fond memory is when I spent what seemed like hours crafting my write up on Louisa May Alcott and then accidentally feeding it through our paper shredder! These things happen! When we read about Rachel Carson, we participated in a coastal clean up day. I still carry with me striking memories from our research and art projects.
