D.I.Y. Deadlines

I must have been off my rocker.

A few weeks ago, I sent in the first ten pages of my middle grade novel ("Archieology" -- not the novel in verse) for a conference critique. The feedback I've received from a handful of editors and agents has convinced me that the opening chapters are missing something.

I had a great discussion with children's author Mary Quattlebaum, my critiquer. With Mary's feedback and comments from our SCBWI Asst. Regional Adviser, Edie Hemingway, I couldn't wait to revise. Just as soon as I finished my fall poetry residencies and CityLit class.

Then, last weekend, an enthusiastic moment. "Now is the time to revise," I decided. "The novel (which is at Scholastic) is not going to sell without the changes." I made a revision plan. First fifteen pages due in one week. That's today.

Even by the middle of the week, I was trying to reason with myself. "It's still just four pages a day. That's nothing." Ugh! I hate self-imposed guilt.

Now the week is over. No pages. When will I learn that I can't write while I'm teaching? Anyone else out there have the same problem?

Does teaching require the same heart/mind energy we put into our poems and fiction? Or am I just crazy? (Crazy, probably. I also have a paying deadline for Baltimore's Child Magazine this weekend.)

Picture storybook author Debbie Clayman, who heads up my SCBWI critique group, says she wrote more when she was teaching full time. Having a regular schedule forced her to squeeze in a regular time for writing.

I love being a visiting teacher. But I'm looking forward to having writing time & revising that novel. Finding the time is going to be a challenge. Wrestling season just started and "DJ Rob Man" is on the travel team this year. Miss J has basketball.

I'll just have to cart my laptop around and avoid socializing with anyone but the characters of "Archieology." If Archie or his best friend Billy decides to take up wrestling, you'll know where I was squeezing in that writing time.

Amok in Third Grade, Day 2

It's Poetry Friday!

I'll be in residence at Norwood Elementary in Baltimore for another week and a half. Our second workshop session was onomatopoeia.

The lesson begins with kids volunteering sound words: bam! pop! shh, crash, zoom, whisper. They know onomatopoeia has something to do with sounds but -- what a cool idea -- these words actually make the sound they are describing!

Before I introduce the model poem, Eve Merriam's "Weather," the kids and I create a rainstorm in the classroom. They follow me as we tap the desks, snap our fingers, clap our hands, slap the desktops. It actually sounds like a rainstorm in their classroom. The children love making noise and moving their bodies.

We write down all of the rain sounds we made: rumble, tap, snap, drop.

It's especially fun when it rains the day after we do the "rain dance." Kids look at me and say, "Mrs. Shovan, we made it rain."

That's a nice segue into the Merriam poem,

Weather by Eve Merriam

Dot a dot dot dot a dot dot Spotting the windowpane.

Spack a spack speck flick a flack fleck Freckling the windowpane.

A spatter a scatter a wet cat a clatter A splatter a rumble outside.

The rest, here: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15415

Not only is "Weather" filled with onomatopoeia, it has a hidden surprise that's great to share with kids.

Merriam never uses the words "he," "she," "boy," or "girl," but there is a person in the poem. It's easy to miss him/her on the first reading (I did) because we focus on the juicy sounds.

I love walking through the stanzas of "Weather," one by one, with children. Together, we figure out what the person in the poem is doing. It's enough to make me splosh in a mud puddle.

Last, we write.

Writing Exercise (All Ages)

A sound riddle.

Using mostly sounds, describe a place (the school cafeteria, your house in the morning, a diner), or activity (a sport you do, riding bikes in your neighborhood). See if your readers can guess where you are and what you are doing.

Yat-Yee Chong is hosting Poetry Friday today. You'll find more poetry at http://yatyeechong.blogspot.com/

Amok in Third Grade

This is why I love teaching poetry...

Yesterday, I was working with a third grade in Dundalk, Maryland. We were writing "Grow/Shrink Poems."

My model poem for this lesson is Stephanie Izarek's deceptively simple, "Under the Sky Is." The poem begins in the great big sky. In a few short lines Izarek takes us to a place where things are so small, "we can never see" them. You can read the poem here: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=1558

It's a wonderful first day poem. Kids love the repetition (each object in the model poem is "under" the object from the previous line). Their job is to start with a big object (the sky) and end somewhere small. Or, they can begin small (a seed) and grow the poem (outer space). Even first graders can use language and ideas creatively with a structured form like this.

One boy sitting in front was stuck. No ideas. I asked, "What are you interested in?" Shrug. "What do you like to do after school?" Shrug. "Do you know if you want to grow or shrink?" Shrug.

I noticed he was fiddling with a small, round magnet, about the size of a washer. I asked him, "Can we start with your magnet?" No shrug! A glimmer of hope.

"What do you see around you that the magnet could attract? Start small." He looked around the classroom (a trailer).

A desk, he told me. I scribed. A blackboard. Then, "The City of Gold."

Wow. Did I just witness a huge leap of the imagination? Okay, he was inspired by the second "National Treasure" movie. But how did we get from a blackboard to a city of gold? Amazing.

The reluctant poet proudly volunteered to read his work to the class at the end of the lesson!

Writing Exercise: Ekphrastic Poetry

Recommended Ages: All! William Carlos Williams wasn't the only poet to write about Brueghel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus." Another -- more famous -- poem about this painting is W.H. Auden's "Musee Des Beaux Arts."

The two poems and Brueghel's painting make a great lesson for high schoolers.

Auden's poem begins:

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters; how well, they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

This week's writing exercise: try your hand at an ekphrastic poem.

Choose a favorite work of art -- one that would stop you as you walked through a museum or gallery to have a conversation. What is it about the painting that "talks" to you?

Mine is by Mark Rothko (54).

I'm prepping for a poetry residency at Norwood Elementary in Dundalk, MD tomorrow, so time is short. Each Poetry Friday, I visit Laura Salas' blog: 15 Words or Less Poems. That blog, and my time constraints, inspired me to keep it short!

I know I'm not supposed to see realistic objects in a Rothko painting, but...

Torii at dusk,

I approach you.

What is beyond

your gate? Sleep,

dense as stone.

Have a fantastic ekphrastic experience, y'all.