LLED 449 Blog

A few of my 6-word memoirs samples:

1. Relentless dreamer – pocket teacher by virtue
2. England winning in penalties. Apocalypse now?!
3. Summer classes fun, stuck in traffic

Here are my 6 word memoirs:

1. Seriously!? Another EPSE class? The frick?
2. Outgoing, but introverted dancer and teacher.
3. I’m on a book buying ban.

I could definitely use 6 word memoirs in primary at the beginning of the school year to get students to describe and introduce themselves to the class. I don’t personally enjoy writing poetry so this task was more comfortable for me than the four 1 minute poems we had to write. I tend to overthink my writing and my thoughts/ideas didn’t easily flow. I like to have more time to think. Here’s one of my 6 word memoirs I came up with in class yesterday: Long time waiting, it’s a miracle.

From someone who did not enjoy English in high school, I really enjoyed the 4 minute poetry activity. As Amber mentioned, by forcing students to just write, I think it will give them freedom to just have fun with it!

I absolutely loved the 6-Word Memoirs poetry task.   I find in visual arts classes that sometimes students need more constraints in order to unwind and get creative. Here are a few 6-Word memoirs I wrote on the bus on my way home today:

1. Always conforming to becoming your misfit.

2. Suffering, we join hands. Unexpected pleasure.

3. Sick sad world/leading heart first.

I love this activity!!! I think this activity can be used with both  elementary or high school kids.  I think that this would work well teaching adjectives to ELL students. Poetry is not my thing but I liked  the quick poetry writes . It makes writing poetry seem less stressful.

Tawnshi everyone!

I read a play by Drew Hayden Taylor called “The Baby Blues” that I believe would be a great text to teach! It is a fairly short play that is rich in contemporary First People’s perspectives. Also, the text is hilarious and contains young characters that I feel students would really be able to connect with.

Cheers!

1. Total strangers who know everything. Al-anon.
2. English teacher meets director, storytelling commences.
3. Baby’s heart fixed, my heart fragile.

Hey everyone!

Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King is a great text to teach to grade 12’s and possibly grade 11 students.  The narrative structure, themes, and humour make this text a worthwhile inclusion! I believe the text offers itself towards getting into the lived experiences of contemporary indigenous people through the many lively characters in the text.  The article Against Mastery: Teaching Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water by Robert Mcgill is a great resource for developing units!!

A week after I left my practicum school, my school advisor (SA) contacted me to tell me that she was going to find a way to incorporate Childish Gambino’s “This is America” into her (I so badly want to say ‘our’) students’ poetry unit. She created a graphic organizer for students to pick up on references Gambino makes in his video—like the importance of his dancing, the treatment of the dead body at the beginning, and the reference to Jim Crow. “This is America” is filled with references (check this article for more) and the students had to do their own research into what these references meant. They were also given the lyric sheet so that they could do a close reading of the lyrics. I returned to the school after this activity and the students were so engaged and excited to tell me about it.

Additionally, my SA incorporated Kendrick Lamar winning a Pulitzer as an example of poetry to tie pop culture into poetry to make it more accessible and engaging. She also had her class do poet bio projects and allowed students to choose canon poets (Emily Dickinson) to modern poets (Rupi Kaur) to singers (Tupac). The students had to look at how their background influences/d their writing in addition to analyzing their poems.