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I’ve also found using photo prompts as an effective way to help students get over initial apprehension over writing poetry.

In the past, I’ve used the following calendar and the images from the calendar as prompts. It’s a beautiful project that provides an unique perspective into our own backyards. https://www.hopeinshadows.com/

Here’s an example:

Yesterday, I met with my former School Advisor because she wanted to run her new Grade 9 year by me. This past year, she focused on privilege, prejudice, stereotypes, and power; this upcoming year, she’s focusing on the environment—the personal, social, and physical. One resource she showed me are the Vox Climate Lab videos on youtube. They explain complex ideas in simple language. It’s super accessible and would create some great discussions! There’s 9 videos and they’re no more than 10 minutes each.

Hi pals,

I was reflecting on the conversation we had on how humour can be used both as armour when undergoing trauma and as an entry point into difficult themes or events. Another TC in my Aboriginal Education class remarked that she was surprised we hadn’t included more moments of humour and levity in our classes because her experience of the Indigenous cultures she has interacted with, is that humour is a large part of their different cultures. I think it can feel tricky to know how to include humour depending on your positionality. What kind of humour is respectful? What kind of humour is helpful?

There is a really great improv duo called Folk Lordz who bring together two different types of storytelling formats into their improv comedy. The improvisers, Todd Houseman and Ben Gorodestksy, combine both Cree-Blackfoot war stories/oral storytelling with Jewish fools tales from Yiddish lit as each come from these cultures. It turns into really fun cross-cultural comedy. They also make videos about Indigenous issues in Canada (including Boyden, Indian Status etc.). Here’s a video they made in response to the common complaint of “why do we have to learn about residential schools when they happened so long ago?” that I would definitely show to my class:

I am from laundry detergents

from samosas and Ginger Ale

I am from the Surrey ghetto

curry chicken smell

I am from the sunflower

The Oak whose long gone limbs I remember

as if their were my own

I’m from soccer cleats and soccer watching marathons

from “stop whining” and “try harder”

I am from soccer fanatic

and celebrating mass in St. Peter Basilica

I’m from Munich, soccer epicenter of the universe,

White Sausages and Pretzels

From the camping in roundabouts, the bike and road trips to France,

the first dibs on reading the newspaper in the morning disagreements,

and the wheelchair pushes to go to church

I am from Sweden, France, Italy, Germany, and Canada

We probably all need a good excuse once in a while… a version of this happened to me this morning:

A few years ago, in the UK, Cathedral City started using spoken word in its advertising campaigns. The Evening Standard followed suit. Then NatWest. Before long, spoken word was everywhere and poets like Hollie McNish (cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6nHrqIFTj8, probably my favourite poem) were rock stars.

Included below are a few exemplars I’ve used in the classroom – they offered a good entry-point into the relevance and power of poetry, and they helped us explore whether or not, in thinking about ‘corporate art’, the corporate compromises the art:

A Love Song (Anthony Anaxagorou, for The Climate Coalition): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD3YxrZdyzo.

I’m On A Journey (Ainsley Burrows, for Guinness): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2K0ys8sACY.

The Somme (Molly Case, for The Royal British Legion): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW97kmm4QYA.

For Natasha (Dominique Christina, for Under Armour):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WFrHNYLApk.

Two Worlds (Leonard Cohen, for Sony): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLKsomPow-s&list=PL2DD45D25A3B989DC&index=4.

Dear Brother (John Bang Reilly, for Johnnie Walker): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2caT4q4Nbs.

Here’s one practice I use to assess poetry: the artist statement. Whenever kids write poetry, I require an “artist statement” where they explicate their own poems. I ask for very specific reflections, otherwise they only focus on meaning. So I say… tell me about the content, meaning, structure, and devices you used in your poem. Tell me about everything you tried to do intentionally. Tell me about the happy accidents. Is there intentionally ambiguity? For what purpose? What did you do purposefully with line breaks? How did you use sound devices? I do not give students a score, ever, without an artist statement first. I tell them it’s their chance to ensure that I catch everything they were trying to do. Conversely, if they don’t have much to say, it could be evidence that there’s more work yet to be done on the poem. These statements are posted alongside poems in gallery walks, with black matting. They are also useful in peer revision. Did your partner see the things you intended them to see? Why or why not?

Hey all, just passing on another assessment tool that I find very helpful: the single-point rubric (see cult of pedagogy and edutopia articles). You create a column of expectations only in the middle column which sits around a “meets expectations” or C+ish range. The column to the left is free for feedback on how to improve and the column on the right shows where expectations were advanced. Here’s a link to one I used for a Compare and Contrast two poems assignment – students could complete as a traditional essay or as a highly detailed mindmap. I find it helpful as you never foresee all the ways that a student may not quite meet expectations or the fantastic ways that they surprise you. You can play around with the suggestions in the articles and see what works for you. See Rubric Compare and Contrast

Here’s a sketch quote/doodle I did based on a quote I pulled from Courageous Voices: Using Text Sets to Inspire Change: “[Using] multiple texts as varied entry points to tackle more complex reading and writing”. I was thinking of the complexity of a rollercoaster track/ride and the various entry points can be seen as the slow build up/scaffolding before students plunge into more complex reading and writing.

Yesterday’s poetry prompts were a good reminder of how the most interesting/vivid lines are often ones created from otherwise mundane observations.

Here were a few of mine from Monday:

1. you left in your wake

utter devastation

a grand mess

your legacy

2. my heart

it just hurts

like

I ain’t got a metaphor for that

3.

makeshift mortar filling in cracks

a temporary fix

hoping that it’d

last long enough to

take us through

the foreboding storm

In retrospect, they all scream teenage angst a bit …