Poetry Friday: In Residence

Happy Poetry Friday!

Today is my last post from the "In Residence" series, which highlighted lessons and poems from the Northfield Elementary third graders.

Students' poems were on display
at our open house last week.

You can find the other "In Residence" posts here:

• Fibbing in Third Grade [Fibonacci Poems]
• Fibbing about Outer Space [Fibonacci Science Poems]
• Poetry Stories [Growing and Shrinking Poems]
• Once Again, with Feeling [Opposite Poems]
• Poetry Zoo [Animal Opposites]
• Take a Hike! [Nature Opposites]
• Hungry for Poetry [Food Poems]
• Eating Dessert First [Food Poems]
• Open House [Food Poems]
• Imagine That [Pocket Poems]

And you'll find all of this week's Poetry Friday posts at Carol's Corner.

When we last left our poets, they were working on pocket poems. Using a model poem by Calef Brown as their jumping off point, the third graders stretched their imaginations, putting magical objects, invented creatures, and other cool stuff in their poetry pockets.

Here are some poems and photos from our poetry open house.

Reading pocket poems.

Pocket Poem
by Alina M.

I have a jacket,
a jacket made of pockets.
In pocket #13
I have a b each.
It is a private beach.
The water is clear.
The sun is bright yellow.
The sand is tan.
You can see the fish swimming
and the dolphins jumping up,
but here comes a shark. Ouch!
I pull it out when I'm having a bad day,
then relax and have lots of fun.
I invite my friends Paige, Taylor, Melissa,
Hannah and Alike.
We get splashed with the water
and ride on the dolphin far away.
Where do you think I go?

Pocket Poem
by Jackson R.

I have a jacket,
a jacket made of pockets.
Pocket number 1 holds X-ray sunglasses.
My X-ray sunglasses have black liner
and when I look down and I can see
valuable items.
I would use it to find life's mysterious things
that went missing.
I want it because I could find life's
greatest mysteries.
The bad thing is someone might find my
X-ray sunglasses and steal them.
But the best thing I ever found was
the Amber Room.
What will you find next?

Pocket Poem
by Lily B.

I have a jacket,
a jacket made of pockets.
In pocket #2 I have a Pegasus.
It is lime green with different colored
hibiscus on it.

When she flies by unbloomed flowers
they bloom right away. In the winter
I would use her to grow flowers.
When she senses unbloomed flowers
she kicks me but the kick doesn't hurt.
What she eats any kind of flower.
I love having her in my pocket.

When it was time to say goodbye until next spring, the third grade teachers and I exchanged gifts.

For me -- thank you poems in the shape of beautiful stars!

For the Fibonacci-happy third grade -- a copy of Poetry Friday guy Greg Pincus's debut novel!

Check it out here!

Have a great summer, all of you teachers and school librarians out there. See you next school year.

In Residence: Imagine That

Today, I meet with the Northfield third grade team to evaluate our residency. We ask ourselves:

• How did it go?
• Did we meet the goals of the grant?
• Did the students enjoy the workshops?
• What could we do better or try out next year?

My favorite part of the evaluation meeting is sharing anecdotes about what the teachers observed. I love hearing about students who aren't seen as strong writers, but who have a chance to shine during our poetry workshops.

I get to share my favorite moments of the residency also. I'll never forget how excited Chris became when I showed his class the non-fiction picture book GREECE! ROME! MONSTERS! illustrated by Calef Brown. 

Mr. Poe and Mr. Shakespeare are fans of
Greece! Rome! Monsters! -- a picture book
encyclopedia of creatures from classical mythology.

Chris could not wait to get his hands on this book and was thrilled when I loaned it to his classroom for a few days.

I brought the book to third grade for three reasons:

1) Our model poem for the day was by author/illustrator Calef Brown.

2) Our workshop prompt was to focus on the imagination. GREECE! ROME! MONSTERS! allowed us to talk about how creative the human imagination is, and has been for thousands of years, to think up all of these cool creatures.

3) Mythology is enjoying huge popularity with elementary and middle schoolers, in large part due to two series of books: Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.

The imagination lesson has four basic parts:

1. Read and discuss "Eliza's Jacket" by Calef Brown (from POLKA BATS AND OCTOPUS SLACKS). You can read the poem at this post.

2. Imagine -- if you could put anything in your jacket pocket, what would it be? A super power? A magical object? A sunny day? (Two rules on this step. No money. No wishes. Anything students want to buy or wish for goes directly in that pocket.)

3. Write the pocket poem.

4.  When students have finished drafting their poems, there is one more step. Make pockets!

The pockets are designed to look like the back pocket of your jeans, with the poem on white paper to look like a hankie. The teachers put up a display of the pockets.

Our students *love* interacting with poetry in this way. They get to look at the decorations on a pocket, pull out the poem, and what they read is a surprise -- almost like cracking open a fortune cookie to read the message.

Here are some of the Northfield third grade poets' pocket poems, with a few highlights of Friday's open house celebration. Each of today's pocket poems contains an imaginary creature.

Pocket Poem
by Chris W.

I have a jacket,
a jacket made of pockets.
In pocket #565
I have a mini to giant mammoth to
help me survive in the northern
part of Canada and Alaska.
I would take it out when I reach north Canada
and Alaska in winter by
magic passageway from U.S.A. to
Canada and Alaska,
so I could explore northern
Canada and Alaska during
the cold, frigid winter and
use it [mammoth] to carry my survival
kit and to ride on and to
snuggle with to keep me warm.

Pocket Poem
by Ellie R.

I have a jacket,
a jacket made of pockets.
In pocket number 2
I have something blue.
It has glowing red eyes.
It likes to eat pies.
It looks kind of weird.
It has a long beard.
But he's my best friend
and that won't end
because he's very kind.
Sometimes I'm not, but he doesn't mind.
He comes out of my pocket when
I'm feeling sad
and if I start to get mean
he won't get mad.
I have a monster in pocket
number two
and he likes to eat
lollipops -- ones that are blue.

Reading pocket poems.

Pocket Poem
by Julia L.

I have a jacket,
a jacket made of pockets.
In pocket #29
I have a robot that can do anything!
He's made of metal, square head.
He looks well fed.
He only listens to me,
and I bet he can even sing!
He doesn't smell, so my mom won't care.
He can eat too, he also shares!
He smells danger,
has X-ray vision.
Getting a robot, it's a good decision.

I ask him to come out when my homework is hard.
He even gave me a birthday card!
He can sew, clean, and even book.
He reads me my favorite book!
He cheers me up when I'm feeling sad,
and he calms me down when I get mad.

He makes my life better.
He's my best friend.
He's the awesomest robot in the world,
I'm pretty sure.

These poems were posted with permission. Look for the final three Northfield poems -- we have a few more pockets to share -- on Poetry Friday.

Trust Me, I Love the Doctor

Writerly Friends, we often chat about the books that influenced our writing, and how much we love the authors who wrote them.

But we don't often talk about the things that nurtured our imaginations. What made you -- young, not-yet writerly you -- long to spend hours inventing people and worlds only you could see? What made you want to share those people and worlds, realistic or not, with others?

It may have been a book:

But it may just as well have been something else.

Meet my something else:

Tom Baker played Doctor Who from 1974 to 1981 --
from the time I was five, until I was twelve.

I met the Doctor on my own childhood travels to visit my English grandparents. They lived in the Old Rectory, a big old Tudor house in a small Nottingham village. It was another world from the suburbs of Manhattan, where I was growing up.

I loved watching the children's programming on British TV. So different from Sesame Street and Electric Company. And what a treat it was when Doctor Who came on!

Usually, our visits to England lasted a few weeks. Because the original episodes were shown in installments, I almost never got to see a full story arc. I was always entering in the middle of a time-traveling adventure, and rarely saw how the Doctor saved the day.

The Doctor and Romana are in trouble again.

Back at home, my father was a huge Star Trek buff. And there was Star Wars, of course, which we went to see one Mother's Day without Mom (who was treated to a kid-free afternoon). But I always wondered about the Doctor.

Doctor Who's monsters scared me out of my wits, but it was a delicious kind of scary. To travel anywhere and any time--isn't that what authors get to do? (Find a full list of Who monsters here.)

Then, when I was in my late teens, PBS began showing Doctor Who late on weekend nights.

There was an off-season trip to the beach with my neighborhood friend, Liz. Fittingly, dishy Fifth Doctor Peter Davison was battling seaweedy monsters, the Silurians and the Sea Devils, on TV. We were alone at Liz's beach condo and the slithery aliens made the howling storm outside extra spooky.

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sea_Devil

By the time I went to college, I knew I wanted to be a writer. And at NYU's Dramatic Writing Program, I found my first fellow Whovians.

It became a ritual. Roommate date night was Friday, 11 PM, just me, Jenna, Pam and the Doctor. Sometimes my friend Diana joined us. PBS took us through the end of Tom Baker's reign, all the Peter Davison episodes, skipped right over Colin Baker (I know, right?), and ended with Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy.

After Sylvester McCoy's era, Doctor Who
was cancelled for several years.

There's a lot of Who to love, but one of my all-time favorite episodes is "Enlightenment," featuring my favorite Doctor, Peter Davison. 

You may recognize Peter Davison,
who also played Tristan inAll Creatures Great and Small.

The TARDIS (Doctor Who's time traveling machine), has landed on an 18th century sailing ship, or so it seems. The ship turns out to be on a race through space, captained by immortal beings.

What attracted me to Doctor Who, and still does -- even when the cheesy monsters make me scream at the telly -- is its inventiveness.

Racnoss, more silly than scary.

The basic story is bare bones (despite modern Who's attempts to give the character more back story and complicated emotions):

a brilliant time traveler takes his ship through history and the universe in search of adventure. His unflinching morals make him dangerous to humans, and to aliens, who oppress others.

Add monsters, add explosions, add the occasional Queen Elizabeth sighting, and you have a platform for endless imagination.

This Saturday was Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary. My 13-year-old daughter has fallen in love with the modern iteration of Doctor Who. Matt Smith is her man...

because bow ties are cool...

but the girl appreciates a good classic episode, especially if it features companion Sarah Jane.

(Some of my favorite modern Who episodes are "Blink" -- weeping angels are truly horrifying--, "The Impossible Astronaut," and "The Girl in the Fireplace.")

So, there were we on Monday night, sitting in the local movie theater, watching the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special on the jumbo screen. The audience was packed with fez-wearing, long-scarf-wrapped fans and their sonic screwdrivers.

We had a blast. 

Writerly Friends, the human imagination is a beautiful thing. It has created fifty years worth of monsters, adventures, and stories -- and that's just one television show.

Our boundless imagination is what keeps the good Doctor coming back to our backward planet.

But it's also what keeps me, and probably you too, plugging away at our stories. Doctor Who reminds me that the well of the imagination is deep. And for that, I am truly thankful.

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2013/03/07/official-bbc-three-day-doctor-who-50th-anniversary-event-for-november/