Manipulating Texts: Unmagnetic Poetry

Since reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, my 9th grade students have been focusing on the concept of the American Dream, analyzing companion texts such as Steve Jobs' 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University, MLK's I Have a Dream, and Ashton Kutcher's  2013 Teen Choice Award Acceptance Speech. We close read them, answered comprehension questions, and made comparisons with how each text answers the question, "What is the American Dream, and how does one achieve it?" Wanting to provide them with a "fun" (ok English teacher's definition of fun) way to engage with the texts, I divided my students into groups and had them compose original poems from the words a la magnetic poetry. 

I'm sure we all remember the magnetic poetry kits.  I may still have a few hiding in a box somewhere from when we moved to our house four years ago.... Magnetic poetry kits are useful for sparking creativity, but there is no need to rush out to the store (or in my case, tear apart boxes in the attic).

To create the kits, I copy/pasted each speech into a Google Doc (Word works fine, too), played with the font and size of the text, and deleted common words, then cut the words out by hand and stashing them in their own envelope.  At first I tried creating word clouds of the speeches in Wordle, but the variation of font size and the way in which the words were laid out on the page made it difficult for cutting the words out. I was also running out of time and had to quickly devise a new method when I realized the word cloud wasn't working out as planned.  The Word doc worked fine and I varied the font per speech.

Students got into groups of 3 or 4, making a table top out of their desks. Each group received an unmarked envelope and got to work composing their poems and snapping pictures that were uploaded to our Edmodo class group. It was interesting to see how students initially maintained a linear structure for their unmagnetic poems, and it took prompting by me to try out other formations.

Towards the end of the period, I reconvened the class and we discussed their artistic choices and if they recognized the original text. Students easily figured out which speech was which, and we had a lively discussion about diction and theme.

Check out some of their poems below:

On Being a Literary Parent

Encouraging
    Then cajoling
Bribing with a sirens' song
Escalating to 
     ordering 
          and demanding, 
Once a Lady, now a Tiger

 Disheveled shelves 
        scattered toys 
I had Great Expectations

Stubborn 
   Determined 
      This will not be a 10 year siege,
or A Tale of Two Cities

My best laid plans have gang aft agley
I need divine intervention for laundry

I shout as the Prince to Verona
(but they don't know my allusions):
"I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
Therefore use none..."

Banish Barbie, drive your little ponies away

Just help me clean

Look What We Found: POETRY!

April is National Poetry Month, and, while I'm excited that poetry is showcased this month, really, poetry is all around us everyday.  Rather than teaching an isolated poetry unit for two weeks during the school year, I incorporate poetry into every unit all year long. Look for some more blog posts highlighting poetry that connects to canonical texts.

Found Poetry

Midway through the school year, I like to do a lesson on Found Poetry.  I photocopy pages from the books we have read in the first half of the year and the books that we will read in the second half to use as the basis for the found poems. Titles include Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, The Odyssey, Great Expectations, Tale of Two Cities, Pygmalion, and Declaration of Independence. This is a creative review activity, and it gives students the opportunity to preview the texts that we will be reading in the second half of the year.

To learn more about Found Poetry, check out this Google Presentation.

What I like about found poetry is it allows students to play with the text on a new level using a constructivist approach.  It is a creative way of actively reading and patterning, and is an artistic way to practice literary analysis.  We can also talk about the choices the students as artists make in creating the poems:

• Why did you choose this page or story as your foundation?
• Why did you make the choices you did in selecting the words and phrases in the text?
• What was your "writing process"?
• Did you start with an idea and pull words from the text to fit your idea or did you let your background knowledge of the text guide the writing of your poem?
• How does your poem align or contrast with the themes in the original text?

I was so impressed with my students' work that I plastered the backwall of my classroom with the found poems. Students also marveled at the poetry, remarking on the ingenuity and visual design of particular poems.

Take a look at one of my students' creation.  Poetry doesn't have to be scary, but her artistic choices bring out the monstrous and ghostly aspects found in pages of The Odyssey.

Full shot of Haley's creation

Close up of Haley's creation. 

Another close up of Haley's creation.

Showcasing another student's work, this one also chose to connect pages of The Odyssey to the Hunger Games.

While this student may state that she is not artistic, she was able to use a symbol from a book she had
read for pleasure and overlay it on the page. The visual design is effective and draws the viewer in. 

Notice the use of white-out to create the found poem

From the pages of Pygmalion, this student made a poem focusing on the theme of travel and photography. When we read Pygmalion at the end of this month, I'm excited to see what she will say about her poem.

Take a look at the other creations from my students in this Loupe Collage. Who knows what you may find! 

Poetic Voices via BYOD

Lacking time and energy (and talent perhaps),  I haven't written poetry in awhile. Using the Blogger app, I "wrote" this with the voice recorder keyboard on my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone. The voice recorder is close, but not exact (I was also on my Bluetooth ear piece while cooking dinner dictating this piece--multitasking as always). I didn't say the word "whiskey" but evidently my phone heard it (subliminal? subconscious?). I actually like the serendipity in this-- even if it lacks a certain sophistication.

I believe in
my crown.... my crown
and max... big and little things
Micro little the day in the micro com patterns illusions
everything is interconnected
and whiskey we see
here is repeated on the microwave
a land, the star, system is like a microcosm
the ass an electron
we are what we are and everything is
read the rhyme
understand in all things

For the Classroom: BYOD Voice Poems

For a fun (according to an English teacher) poetic activity, have students compose poems by using the voice keyboard on a Google doc.  

1. Working in pairs or alone, open the Google doc on the phone and speak into the phone. 
2. Another student (or the poet) could edit the Google doc using a computer or netbook by inserting line breaks and punctuation (and potentially cleaning up any curses--although the Galaxy S3 will use * for letters in certain curses--go ahead test it out yourself!)
3. Use text tools and images for an artistic flair.
4. Discuss the "hidden meaning" in the poems-- students love to question the validity of a teacher's insight into a poem, now they can be the author and determine the depth in which the poem should be analyzed.