In Residence: Fibbing in Third Grade

Writerly Friends, this month I am in residence at Northfield Elementary School.

What does "in residence" mean, exactly?

Fifteen years ago, when our family moved to Maryland, I applied to my state arts council's "Arts-in-Education" program. Through grants, often matched by a school's cultural arts budged, the program sends opera singers, playwrights, painters, bookmakers, mosaic artists, dancers, and others into schools around the state.

Some artists visit for a day, conducting assemblies. Artists-in-residence like me work with smaller groups, over a longer period of time.

The teachers and I have lost count of how many years I've been visiting Northfield -- at least eight. Instead of meeting with the whole school, I work with one grade: third!

There are five third grade classes at Northfield this year. Every day that I visit the school, I work with two different classroom groups.

The grant pays for a certain number of sessions. It works out to five workshops for each third grade class, a few meetings with the third grade educators, and a Poets Tea at the end of the residency.

At the Poets' Tea, we show off work like these
third grade portrait poems in response to fine art.

I'm sharing this background now because ...

this week I make my first appearance as a regular children's poetry blogger at Michelle Heindrich Barnes blog, Today's Little Ditty! I'll cover the poet-in-the-schools angle. Other members of Michelle's poetry team include Renee LaTulippe, Buffy Silverman, and Carrie Clickard.

I love having a long-standing relationship with a school, where I return  year after year. Older students see me in the hall and say, "It's the poet! I remember when you came to my class!"

We started this year's residency with Fibonacci poems, a form invented by Poetry Friday blogger Gregory K. Pincus. 

If you'd like to check out my Fib workshop lesson plan, you can read it at this post. 

Since we spend time talking about the Fibonacci math sequence and how it describes a pattern we can see in nature, I encourage the third graders to choose a scientific topic for their fibs. Today's poems are about plants and animals.

Plants
by Alastair

plants
life
green world
beautiful
soil, water, and sun
nature within the shining Earth

Green Earth, from NASA's Earth Observatory site.

In a Fibonacci poem, the poet starts with a small idea ... a single word, but he must use description, detail, and sometimes action -- as in this young man's exciting poem -- to reach those longer lines.

Untitled

AH!
Run!
Be scared.
Shark Attack!
They want to eat you.
It is not fun getting chomped up.

What I love about the Fib form is how it encourages stretching. The poet isn't simply building from one, two, and three syllables on a line to several syllables. As the poem develops, so must the complexity of thought. Watch how Emily uses this technique to build to a 13-syllable line.

Chameleons
by Emily M.

Green
Scales
Climbs trees
Camouflage
Lives in rain forests
Off ground, away from predators
Mysterious looking, thinking of a plan to escape

Meller's Chameleon, from National Geographic

Thank you to the Northfield teachers and families for giving me permission to share the students poems! I hope to post new poems regularly throughout May until our Poets' Tea in June.

Poetry Friday: Voices Fly

My new book is in!

It has the fabulous title Voices Fly -- so fitting for an anthology of student poetry. The subtitle is a bit more weighty (but important): "Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Program." The Artist-in-Residence program funds my schools visits and those by other Maryland poets and artists.

Fellow MSAC artist-in-residence Virginia Crawford and I have been working on the book for about eighteen months. It includes a foreword by Maryland's Poet Laureate, Stanley Plumly!

When the arts council asked me and Ginny to edit a book of student poetry from the program, we were feeling a little more ambitious. What if we designed the book so that it was more than an anthology? What if we invited Maryland's poets-in-the-schools to share their favorite lessons? This way, teachers could actually use the book to teach more poetry in their classrooms.

Christine Stewart, our wonderful administrator at MSAC, agreed to the plan.

Inside Voices Fly, you'll find eight chapters. Each one features a MSAC poet-in-the-schools describing one of her favorite residency workshops, ranging in age levels from kindergarten through high school. Each workshop is followed by student poems written in response to the lesson. The book includes some back matter -- resources recommended by the eight Artist-in-Residence poets.

There will only be a limited number of copies available from the Maryland State Arts Council. However -- GOOD NEWS! -- MSAC's website will have a PDF of the book. In other words, anyone can download Voices Fly for free and make use of the lessons. The website is www.MSAC.org (be patient, the link may not be up yet).

Today, I am sharing a portion of my chapter on writing odes:

Chapter 6: Simple Odes

Laura Shovan

Upper Elementary through High School

Tone is an elusive concept, yet it crosses over two areas that educators are often required to teach as part of their writing curricula – voice and word choice.

When I began doing school workshops on simple odes, my focus was on use of simile, hyperbole and sensory detail. In working with students, I saw that they also understood the concept of tone as it works in a simple ode.
 

I like to pick up something random in the classroom. It might be a blackboard eraser, a paperclip, or a tissue. Together, the class brainstorms all of the things we can do with that object. We exaggerate -- a good time to introduce hyperbole -- in order to highlight the object’s value. With the eraser, all of our mistakes can disappear. The paperclip is like a secretary for our school work, keeping it organized and making us efficient. The tissue comforts us when we are sick, dries our tears when we are sad.

At this point, we read and discuss Gary Soto’s “Ode to Pablo’s Tennis Shoes.” We look for similes, hyperbole and description.

Elementary children need the structure of a specific prompt, so we all write odes to our shoes. Middle schoolers still need to have something on hand to write about but are ready for more freedom. My students have written odes to their desks, binders, a bookmark, even the EXIT sign over the door.

The key in an ode, as the children quickly pick up, is that we are making a persuasive argument. The words, similes and descriptions we use – the tone of the poem – needs to convince the reader that these sneakers are the best sneakers in the universe. Through tone, simple odes remind readers to stop and pay attention to everyday objects that deserve praise.

I recently did the workshop on odes with a group of fifth graders at Swansfield Elementary. Here are two of their poems. I bent the rules about having something on hand for Fahd, because he was itching with enthusiasm to write this ode:

Ode to Firefighter

by Fahd K.

Strong and brave

Fights fire with

Cool water

Gallons and gallons

of water coming

from a hose

like a black snake

A big, hard helmet

protects a face

mighty like a god

of fire

Happy as a winner

for saved children

Tired, happy, good

Back to the

fire station.

Tyler understood that odes can easily go from praising an object to over-the-top rhapsodizing. I love his sense of humor in this simple ode:

Ode to My Pants

by Tyler D.

Dear Pants

Thank you for

Protecting

my legs and

knees from

scrapes on the

sidewalk.

You protect

me like armor

in a war and

steel on a vault.

And for giving

me good style!

Pants you

have the

Biggest meaning

on my body.

I hope you'll all stop at the Maryland State Arts Council website and download a copy of Voices Fly for your classroom or your library. Thanks to Swansfield E. S. and the poets' families for allowing me to share the students' work.

Carol at Carol's Corner is hosting Poetry Friday today. Please stop by Carol's blog for more poetry news and reviews.

Teaching Stanzas Part 1

This month, I am in residence at Northfield Elementary School.

One of the lessons the third grade team likes to do with their students is on stanzas. Thanks to fellow Maryland State Arts Council artist-in-residence Rosanne Singer, who shared a version of this lesson with me in my early days with the program.

The skills we aim for in this lesson are organizing ideas and working within a theme. We use opposites to make it simple. Since opposites comes in pairs, the children quickly understand that our poems with have two parts. For some writers, the result will be a two-part list poem. Other will extend this to add descriptions -- active verbs, setting, vivid adjectives.

Dark and light is one suggested topic for this poem.

In poetry, we have something like paragraphs to organize ideas. The fancy poetry word is "stanza."

I love the word stanza because it means "room" in Italian. Therefore, when you read a poem with multiple stanzas, you can imagine walking through the rooms of a house. Each room is organized around its own purpose and contains the appropriate items. You wouldn't keep your blender in the bathroom, right? (For a poem on this topic, see Robin Hirsch's "You Enter a Poem," from the fabulous book, FEG.)

I use a cooperative activity to help the students brainstorm opposites. It's a little matching game. 

Everyone gets a card with one half of an opposite  face-down on his or her desk. The card might say "Night" or "Big" or "Delicious." I explain that during this quiet activity, each student must find his or her partner (Day, Small, Disgusting). Once they've found each other, the pair will write their opposite words on the board. I time them, just for fun, and make it a competition between the classes. The world record is 24 seconds. Most classes can do it under 45 seconds -- a good indicator of how well they can work together.

We talk about these word pairs and how they might be developed into a poem. This is how I sneak in the idea of a theme. So, the Night/Day poem might be about nocturnal and diurnal animals, or "things I like to do" at night time and in the day. The Big/Small poem lends itself to animals or nature. Delicious/Disgusting would be about food.

We might take a few minutes to generate additional opposites. Over the years, students have come up with some great ideas: wild vs. tame animals, real vs. mythological creatures, boring vs. exciting, happy and sad.

The mighty, mythological griffin.

I'll post more of the lesson tomorrow. Here are a few of the third grade poems to whet your appetite. Thanks to the Northfield staff and families for giving me permission to share the poems.

Yummy & Disgusting

by Matt B.

Yummy food

Spaghetti is awesome dances

in my tummy, ice cream so freezing

I'm Frosty the Snowman. Soda, I can

slurp. I just need MORE!

Disgusting food

Onions, oh Onions, if there is one I

must throw up. Sauerkraut is very

weird, the shape, the taste, oh god

do I have to eat it? Cabbage is wet

it makes my hand soggy.

Thanks, wikipedia.

Fun in the Sun

by Owen B.

In the summer you

go swimming with

the sun beating

on you. Sandcastle

building at the beach.

Plants growing taller

than you. Watering your

plants instead of school.

In the winter it's cold

when you're in the snow

when it's so white with

the quiet wind blowing

in your face.

Dry & Wet

by Bridget T.

Dry things are fun:

tanning in the hot sun pouring

down on you.

Walking in the warm sand.

Lying on a warm towel.

Wet things are awesome:

the big ocean.

The icy soda in your hands.

The cold hose on your

sink to wash the sand

off of your skin.

Tomorrow, Part 2 of the lesson and more wonderful third grade poems.

Interning with a Poet: Guest Post

"I wish I could go back in time and store some of my third grade creativity in a jar." After spending time with the third graders at Northfield Elementary, this thought engraved itself in my head for days.

My name is Alissa Bennett and I am a student at St. Paul’s School for Girls in Brooklandville, Maryland. At my school, the senior class participates in Senior Projects. The Senior Project program gives seniors the opportunity to intern with someone whose field of work they find interesting. For my Senior Project I chose to work with Mrs. Shovan because I enjoy creative writing and one of my favorite ways to express myself is through poetry.

The time spent at Northfield Elementary this past week has been a wonderful experience for me. It was nice to see the students’ excitement when it came to writing poems and learning new information about poetry they did not know before. [Note from L.S. -- this poetry residency was sponsored by the Maryland State Arts Council and Northfield's PTA.]

My favorite lesson was when the students looked at a photo and painting. [Full lesson description is here.] Mrs. Shovan would display the image and ask the students to first state only the facts about the portrait. Then they would imagine what might be happening in the portrait. I loved hearing all of the students’ creative ideas, ranging from alien abduction to dangerous escape stories.

I taught one of these lessons also. Though it was my first time teaching, and I was really nervous, I absolutely loved it! Being able to communicate with students as a teacher is a memory that I will value forever.

The poems that the students wrote were a delight to read, too. One poem that sticks out in my mind was written by Daniel Y. The poem that he wrote was during a lesson on opposites, which I was not there for. Luckily, I got the chance to read a lot of the students’ opposite poems.

Daniel’s poem sticks out in my mind because quite a few of the opposite poems I read were about what they students liked opposed to what they didn’t like. Daniel chose to write about big beautiful things opposed to small beautiful things.

I loved all of the examples and imagery that Daniel used in his poem. The diction that he used also was nothing less than beautiful itself. His poem reads as follows:

Big Things are Beautiful
by Daniel Y.
Grade 3

 Big things are beautiful,
like the dark, deep universe.
The ocean that waves,
and the Earth that spins.
The beautiful redwood tree that
stands with me.


Small things are beautiful,
like a bright green leaf.
A seed that grows,
and a pencil that writes,
A grain of sand that I play with at
the beach.

Read the lesson description and link to model poem here.

Thank you, Alissa, for the post. And thanks again to Northfield E.S. for including Alissa in this residency, and for giving us permission to share the students' work.

NPM 50 State Tour -- Maryland, My Maryland

Please come in and welcome to my neighborhood, Maryland!

We've lived in the Baltimore 'burbs for ten years and I admit, I still feel land-locked. (New Jerseyans get anxious if we're more than 45 minutes from the ocean). Remind me to tell you that funny story about crossing the Mason-Dixon line some other time.

Maryland welcomed me with open arms. I've been a poet-in-the-schools for the Maryland State Arts Council for eight years. And Baltimore's CityLit Project is publishing my new chapbook for National Poetry Month. More exciting news on that in a second.

Some Maryland facts: 7th state, joined the union 4/28/1788, home of the very awesome Berger Cookie (it's a black and white cookie without the white) and the Baltimore Honfest.

Another reason I've proudly adopted Maryland? Unlike my home state of NJ, *we* have a poet laureate -- Stanley Plumly, a professor at the University of Maryland. Go Terps!

To help you celebrate spring, I'm sharing Plumly's poem, "Wildflower."

Wildflower
by Stanley Plumly
Some--the ones with fish names--grow so north they last a month, six weeks at most. Some others, named for the fields they look like, last longer, smaller. And these, in particular, whether trout or corn lily, onion or bellwort, just cut this morning and standing open in tapwater in the kitchen, will close with the sun. It is June, wildflowers on the table. They are fresh an hour ago, like sliced lemons, with the whole day ahead of them. They could be common mayflower lilies of the valley, day lilies, or the clustering Canada, large, gold, long-stemmed as pasture roses, belled out over the vase-- or maybe Solomon's seal, the petals ranged in small toy pairs or starry, tipped at the head like weeds. They could be anonymous as weeds. They are, in fact, the several names of the same thing, lilies of the field, butter-and-eggs, toadflax almost, the way the whites and yellows juxtapose, and have "the look of flowers that are looked at," rooted as they are in water, glass, and air. I remember the summer I picked everything, flower and wildflower, singled them out in jars with a name attached.

Read the rest of the poem here.

The exciting news? SAVE THE DATE! April 17 is CityLit Festival at the Enoch Free Pratt Library in Baltimore. I'll be reading with Stanley Plumly, 1:30 PM, and signing the new book. Hope you can make it!

Tomorrow morning, we'll continue our National Poetry Month tour of the 50 states. We're leaving bright and early for South Carolina. No Wall of Shame for them.

Poetry Friday Out Loud

Thank you, Governor Martin O'Malley!

Got word this week...the Maryland State Arts Council received full funding. Seems ages since I went with a delegation of local artists to the State House in Annapolis. You can read about my day as a lobbyist here.

Hopefully, this means all my poetry residency grants will be approved and my students will soon be writing up a juicy batch of poems.

One of the programs MSAC funds is our statewide Poetry Out Loud competition. Never heard of it? Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation contest. High schoolers are not writing and reading their own poems. They choose from a "book" and perform one poem for each round of oral competition. It's a mix of poetry slam, literary interpretation, and acting monologue.

MSAC sends poet-in-the-schools MiMi Zannino to train kids at their schools. The result?

Fab-u-lous! Took my 9 y.o. to the Maryland finals last spring. Her attention was glued to the high schoolers on stage. ("Do you think someone will do Edgar Allan Poe?" Yes -- we heard a few Annabel Lees. "I bet someone picked Shakespeare." Bingo.)

Teachers -- visit national Poetry Out Loud http://www.poetryoutloud.org/ for some great poetry to share in the classroom. Video clips of kids their age competing will inspire your students!

One poem on the list is Gertrude Stein's "Susie Asado." If you've never heard this one out loud, get someone to read it to you today. It will light your toes on fire.

Susie Asado

By Gertrude Stein

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea. Susie Asado. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea. Susie Asado. Susie Asado which is a told tray sure. A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers. When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a silver seller. This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly. These

are the wets these say the sets to leave a crown to Incy. Incy is short for incubus. A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble,

the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and shove

and render clean, render clean must. Drink pups. Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it shine and a bobolink

has pins. It shows a nail. What is a nail. A nail is unison. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

Poetry Friday Bonus! Have you seen Jonah Winter and Calef Brown's Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude? It's a sweet picture book bio that captures Stein's wordplay. I can't wait to use it in the classroom.

So, thanks Guv. Thanks Gertrude. There's more poetry to light up your toes at Wild Rose Reader. Enjoy!

I Need a Ti-shoe

It's my last teaching day at Northfield Elementary. I'll be back in a few weeks for the third grade's Poetry Celebration, but I'll miss working with the kids on their poems.

Maryland State Arts Council Artists-in-Education get to spend several days working with students. The children get to know and trust me. They're willing to take creative chances, have fun, and view their poems as poems -- rather than writing assignments.

Here's the last crop of shoe odes (lesson here). Kids often capture an energy in their poems that's rare in the adult poetry world. I love the rhythm of Ryan's poem.

Poet: Ryan L. Ode to Nike Shoes Old Nike shoes. Your words: Dart IV. WOW, do you smell! You’re made in Vietnam. Such a long travel as a bird flies migration. Extremely fast like a jet. Old Nike shoes. Elementary schoolers aren't accustomed to working with similes, but they're great at it. We warm up first with the infamous baby powder exercise (see the description here). I told the students to use whatever similes popped into their minds, however wild. Peyton took me up on it!

Poet: Peyton L. Ode to Peyton’s Shoe My shoe looks like A green grape ready to be eaten. Caves waiting to be filled with People. Rocks that go in curvy paths, Mazes you can never get out of. Holes the size of the moon. Words that Mean crazy things. Smells like rotten cheese. They protect my feet From everything. I love my shoes.

See you tomorrow for Poetry Friday.

Yahoo for onomatopoeia!

Onomatopoeia -- what a delicious word.

I love hearing a classroom full of elementary schoolers say it. They relish the sound, "Onomatopoeia!"

Today, I started my annual poetry residency at Northfield Elementary School near my home in Howard County, MD. The residency is courtesy of Northfield's PTA and a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council.

You can read a previous post with detail on my onomatopoeia lesson. If you try it with your students, let me know how it goes.

The third grade teachers are almost as enthusiastic about poetry as I am. We have a great time together. Here is the group onomatopoeia poem, written by Ms. Hilliard's class today:

Cafeteria

I hear screaming.

Ms. Poe says, "Five inch voices."

My friend is crunching on Doritos.

Someone clattering their coins for snack.

People are whispering,

talking, laughing.

"First call for clean up."

"Final call!"

I hear footsteps tapping.

Time for recess!

Don't you just love "clattering their coins?"

More onomatopoeia poems to come...

Author Amok...Lobbyist

Last week, I went to my first Maryland Arts Day in Annapolis, MD. It was an eye-opener! I grew up in the 'burbs of Manhattan, a city that runs on business and finance. Being in a true political town was a new experience for me. Howard County photographer Denee Barr and I travelled together. She's an experienced arts advocate and was a great tour guide. We're both moms and couldn't leave until after the kids were at school, so we missed most of Marin Alsop's keynote speech. Ugh. Here are the basics of Maryland Arts Day. First, the numbers: We got the down and dirty info on Gov. O'Malley's proposed budget and how it affects the arts. Do you remember, as I do, O'Malley's recent ultimatum? It went something like, "If I don't get slots, I'm cutting your arts." Well, he got his slots. And the arts? His proposed budget cuts funding to the Maryland State Arts Council 36%. It would put the state funding for the arts at its lowest level since 1999. Money for the arts would not return to the 2009 level for four years. That's a huge hit to our theaters, orchestras, and programs like the one I work for -- arts residencies in the schools. Struggling schools in particular rely on grants for special programming. One speaker had a metaphor for the proposed cuts. He said it's as if you were trying to climb a mountain, and someone came along and dug a hole under your feet. After four years of filling in the hole, you'd be no closer to reaching the mountain top. Once everyone had some facts, we were given some brief advocacy training. These were dos and don'ts for meeting with the legislators. I always like to emphasize the dos. A few of them were: thank your legislator for past support, state your request and ask for specific support with funding the MSAC budget, and be on time! I went with the Howard County delegation, led by the indomitable Colleen West. She's Executive Director of the Howard County Arts Council. Colleen took about 13 of us (from Columbia Pro Cantare, The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, the arts council and other groups) and brought lunches to our delegates. We met with Liz Bobo, Frank S. Turner, and Gail Bates to state our case on behalf of the arts. Senator James Robey and Delegate Guy Guzzone spent a good hour talking with our group about how important a lively arts scene is to a thriving community. Gail Bates in particular was excited to hear that I do poetry residencies in our local schools. Several legislators weren't able to come to lunch, but Colleen didn't want them to feel left out. She marched the group of us up and down the senate building, in and out of elevators, offices, tunnels and staircases until we visited every single Howard County representative and talked with them or their assistants. Talk about empowerment! Here's the "What can I do?" part. You can go to www.mdarts.org and sign up for their arts advocacy newsletter. You can send an email to your legislator. Basically, the goal is for any wording about MSAC taken out of O'Malley's budget. As Colleen West said, we know the arts will take a hit in this economy, but we want that cut discussed among and decided upon by our legislators, not made in one fell-swoop by the governor.