On Friday I had asked about how to create a homegrown version of magnetic poetry
for when students are finished with classwork. Thanks for all the suggestions! They
were as follows:
Purchase a few sheets of magnetic paper for your printer and print up then cut out
the letters. Use cookie sheets for creating the poetry.
Print up the letters and then glue/rubber cement them to magnets. This can also be
done with oaktag.
Use a carpet square for the work surface, then stick velcro on the back of each
poetry word.
Use a label maker to create the words and stick the words to magnets or magnetic
sheets.
I also had some people suggest the magnetic poetry website (
www.magneticpoetry.com). I don't have computers for students to use in the library,
but I did use that site to come up with some of my poetry words. I think I may go
the lazy route by printing up the words, then seeing if kinko's will copy them to
magnetic paper (maybe even cut them for me?) I'll be checking garage sales for
cheap old cookie sheets. I plan to make two sets for each school I'm in--kids can
use them after they are finished with work (alone or in small groups) and on game
day.
I also had this lesson suggestion...
I teach a lesson about found poetry using cut strips of white paper in a ziploc
baggie and 100 of my favorite poetry books. I tell the kids that today we're going
to grow poems; they already know I'm weird so this news does not phase them in the
least :-) So then, I talk about if we wanted to grow apples, what would be needed?
Finally someone says apple seeds. I pose the same questions with oranges and
pumpkins. They've got the pattern down now and easily respond orange seeds and
pumpkins seeds. Then, I say, what do I need if I want to grow poems. Some free
thinker (every class has one... hard to believe with NCLB and standardized testing,
but we haven't killed
them all yet) will respond poem seeds. I ask what are poem seeds. Someone will say,
words. Then, I remind them that poets don't just use any words; they use the right
ones. Then, we talk about where we find apple seeds (inside apples), where we find
orange seeds (inside oranges), where we find poem seeds (inside poems). Then, I give
everyone a baggie of blank strips (about 100 strips... that's about five pieces of
plain white paper cut into 20 strips/sheet per student) and a stack of books. They
use a pencil to go through the books of poetry and collect seeds for their own
poems. They can copy words or phrases-- one per strip (front side only). I do some
samples
from a poem on the overhead so that we practice getting strong words-- good quality
seeds. Then, they work. Every once in awhile, I'll issue a challenge to the room
like, "Good poets often have questions. Find a question to write on a strip." or
"Find a color word that isn't the basic box of crayons." or "Find five strong
action words
(verbs)."
Once they've collected seeds from lots of different books, with me all the time
stressing to find things from Shel Silverstein and Robert Frost, Jack Prelutsky and
Naomi Shihab Nye, they lay all their strips out face up and begin to find the
magnetic words... the words that stick together. They write their own found poems
this way, and
they're always very good. The funny thing is though that they end up reading an
awful lot of poetry before they write their own poem. They even read poems that may
be too sophisticated for them because their reading to find words not symbolism.
They sometimes will become more sophisticated readers through this experience,
however. I'll
never forget the fourth grader who I overheard tell her friend, "You should use
this Sandburg guy's book. He's a really good poet." It made me giggle that she
thought she was discovering Sandburg's genius until I remembered that she was
discovering it for her... in the fourth grade! :-)
After the students grew their poems from their seeds, I then did some art history
with them about collage and we created collage art to complement their poems. The
teachers hung these up in the hallway and the principal wanted to know how the kids
wrote such sophisticated poetry. The kids told my principal, "Ask Ms. Rod. She made
it
seem really simple. We could teach you if you want, but good poetry and good art
takes time. You can't hurry. You can dig a hole in an hour, but it takes eons to
create the Grand Canyon." I just had to laugh. I didn't think they had even heard
the analogy. I was wrong.
The nice side benefit of this lesson however was that the circulation of my poetry
section increased exponentially. So much so that the teacher asked me to limit the
number of poetry books her kids could check out because that's all they wanted to
do in class is read poetry. What a lovely problem to have! :-)
Amanda Power
Library Media Specialist
Lincroft & River Plaza Elementary Schools
Middletown, NJ
powera@middletownk12.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------
All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation.
LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/el-announce/
LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home