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.

In Residence: Fibbing about Outer Space

Welcome back to Northfield Elementary School, where I am in residence this month.

(What does "in residence" mean? I explain it all in this post.)

On Monday, we looked at scientific third grade Fibonacci poems. Those poems were grounded here on Earth. But outer space is also part of science and nature.

Today, let's head to the stars with third grade Fibs. I love the scientific facts that Jay includes in  his poem.

Gravity
by Jay K.

Gs
pull.
Suction
releases.
Can be strong or weak.
Secures all of us to the ground.
There's not that much gravitational pull on the moon.
If there was no gravity, we would be floating around
     in outer space with no air.

From NASA

Lindsay starts in outer space, then returns us to Earth.

What Space Is
by Lindsay H.

Stars
Space
Planets
Galaxy
Comets and the Sun
Go away as I now wake up,
Many miles away from my planet where I live.

From NASA

Dylan uses onomatopoeia to think about the future of our world. Look how the last line of Dylan's poem adds an unexpected twist.

Robots
by Dylan

Clang
Crank
Robots
Everywhere
Robots rule the world
Robots are low on batteries

Check out what today's robots are capable of: 



Great job, third graders.

Thank you to the Northfield teachers and families for giving me permission to share the students poems! I will continue to post student poems until our Poets' Tea in June.

Poetry Friday: Rhapsodic for Robotics

This week is a momentous one in the Shovan household. It is the first time that one of our children is in a different time zone from the rest of the family. Many of you mom and dads know how strange that feels.

Our fifteen year old son, Robbie, is with his school robotics team in Omaha, Nebraska. They are competing in the Vex National Championships.

I rose at 3:30 Thursday morning to get him to the airport for a 6:50 AM flight. There was drama, of course (the forgotten wallet, the rest of the team's late arrival at Dulles). But, the team and their two robots arrived in Omaha, on time, on the same plane.

To help cheer on the team, I am rhapsodizing about Robotic poetry today.

First, some robot poems for elementary schoolers:

My Robot's Misbehaving

by Kenn Nesbitt (author of My Hippo Has the Hiccups)

My robot's misbehaving.
It won't do as I say.
It will not dust the furniture
or put my toys away.

My robot never helps me
with homework or my chores.
It doesn't do my laundry
and neglects to clean my floors.

It claims it can't cook dinner.
It never makes my bed.
No matter what I ask of it,
it simply shakes its head. 

Read the rest at Kenn's site, Poetry4Kids.com.  

My Robot

by Gareth Lancaster

My robot must rate as my favorite toy,
A wonderful, whirring, mechanical joy.
My robot can talk, but he'd much rather sing,
Or go to the park and play on the swings!

My robot is silver and very astute.

For instance this week he was learning the flute.

The "sweet" ending is at Fizzy, Funny, Fuzzy: Fun Poetry for Kids.  

For middle schoolers who are into technology, robots, and maybe poetry, here is one to make you think. (It's a bit smaller to preserve the line breaks.)

And here is a robot reciting Ogden Nash poetry. It recommends some additional poetic reading. There's nothing like a robot saying, "Have fun," to make you feel a sense of joy and playfulness 
(kidding).



Robot Poem

by Christine Howey

This poem was written by a robot.
Do not be afraid.
Okay, now you’re reading these words in that funny voice all     humans
use for robot voices, the droning nasal monotone.
This…po...em…was…writ...ten…by…a…ro...bot.
Please stop doing that.
It’s really kind of insulting.
Robots don’t sound like that anymore.
Okay, now you’re noticing that a lot of the lines are short and clipped,
like you expect robot language to be. But in reality, it’s quite easy for a
robot to embroider looping and complex sentences, such as the one
we’re in now, with many subordinate clauses, and never, as you say,
miss a beat.
This is because robots can now sneak in through small cranial
openings, take a sample of human brain tissue, no bigger than half a
postage stamp, and use that neural material to make full-size 3D
replications of the human brain.
Even a poet’s brain.
We use a copying machine.
We Xerox your brains and then write poetry.

You will find the rest at Pudding Magazine.

For high school poets, a book I want to check out:

Robot Haiku: Poems for Humans to Read Until Robots Decide It's Kill Time, by Ray Salemi. (I'm guessing no real haiku were injured by robots in the writing of this book.)

And you can find a long poem/short play, "Death and the Robot

Powers," by Robert Pinsky at the Poetry Foundation.

We are excited that Robbie has this great opportunity to meet and talk robot with other tech-minded kids. He's really enjoying being on the team.

Here's an animation showing what the robots must do to earn points:

 

However, I'd have to be a robot not to miss him. How about cheering myself up with some poetry? Our Poetry Friday host is Gregory K. at GottaBook.