School-Wide Wednesday: Found Poetry

Tagxedo Word Cloud of My Found Poem

Today, for a special School-wide Wednesday post, I'd like to share a poem I wrote inspired by Jen over at www.empathicteacher.wordpress.com.  Last week, Jen shared a strategy she used in her class involving old issues of Upfront magazine, a nonfiction serial publication for teens spanning relevant news, issues, and current events and topics of interest to teens.  Her goal wasn't for students to think about the main idea and supporting details and then write a five sentence summary of an informational article.  Her goal was for students to play with language and create a response to the test in the form of a poem.  



Found poems are deceptively simple:  they require that the reader glean words, phrases, and sentences from a text or multiple texts in order to compose a poem using the author's language.  In my experience,  using found poems in response to literature, they allow students to let down their guard and throw away inhibitions about writing poetry.  Found poetry also allows students to gather and collect details that "stick with them" without having to worry about why.  


One of my favorite uses of the found poem in an English classroom is in response to difficult texts such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. After reading an excerpt from "Pearl," I invited students to highlight adjectives and phrases that Hawthorne uses to describe Hester's strange daughter.  Then, they went back to the text to glean the language that they felt was most important to create a poem using Hawthorne's own words to represent Pearl.  


We shared our poems, talked about the patterns and dug deeper into the "so what" or "why" in regards to the author's purpose and style.  Then, we moved into a formal analytical response.  Since we took the time to play with language and form creative responses, students were ready to think analytically.  

Levels of comprehension with found poetry:

1)  Literal --What's the gist?"

2)  Interpretation-- So what does this mean?

3)  Application--Now what do I understand about the author's purpose or craft?

In content areas other than English, found poems are a quick, accessible tool to engage students in thinking about themes and topics found in expository and informational texts.  I decided to take an emerging text form, tweets, to create a found poem in response to last week's Digital Learning Day #DLDay and the plethora of information I received at TCEA in Austin.  

Here was my process:

Step 1--Read my tweets and notes that I took on Digital Learning Day and during the conference.

Step 2--Pull out words, phrases, and quotes that "stick with me."

Step 3--Draft a poem by rearranging phrases, creating repetitions, thinking about form, etc.

Step 4--Publish poem:

“I can’t create my future with tools from your past.”

Personalized learning

Collect Consume Create Communicate Collaborate

Student-centered, relevant

Podcast, publish

Digital advance team

New tech adapters

Problem-solving, inquiry

Envision, re-vision

Reflection

Student-student collaboration

Tech risk-taker

Student-teacher collaboration

Teacher-teacher collaboration

Reflection

Envision, re-vision

Application of innovation, not acquisition

Culture of collaboration

Advocate

Integration

Pedagological shift leads to real transformation

vision

Collect Consume Create Communicate Collaborate

Tipping point

“It’s not you teaching the children; it’s the children teaching you and one another.”

If I can create a found poem out of Twitter-text and tweets, then it can be done in response to ANY text in ANY content area.  

What are your thoughts?  How could students use a found poem in your content area?  What types of texts could they respond to?  

Module 12: Hole in My Life

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Summary:
Jack Gantos loves books and loves writing, but as a mischievous, dreamy-eyed teenager, his determination and drive to get to college to study writing take him down a dangerous and criminal path;  he agrees to help to smuggle a boat-load of drugs to Manhattan from the Virgin Islands.  As a result, he serves his sentence in a federal prison, chronicling his days in a copy of Karamazov.


APA Reference:
Gantos, J. (2002).  Hole in my life.  New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Girous.

Impressions:
It is a memoir about the author's decisions that led to him being incarcerated in a federal prison at the age of nineteen for smuggling drugs from St. Croix to Manhattan. Gantos was received the Robert F. Sibert Honor Book and a Printz Honor Book awards for this title. 

In the opening and the final chapters, Gantos takes the reader into his experience in a federal prison. He does not shield or protect teen readers from its realities (violence, rape, depression, drug use, etc.), but he doesn't provide gratuitous and graphic details in excess either. The moments and scenes where he does get graphic are balanced with a sensitivity and profound revelation or reflection on the part of the author, making the overall message of the book that much more effective. 

In his first chapter he writes, "Ironically, in spite of all the fear and remorse and self-loathing, being locked up in a prison is where I fully realized I had to change my life for the better, and in one significant way I did" (p. 7). Had he not slowed down and taken us into his world during these pivotal scenes, this message would not be as resounding.

In places the memoir reads like a travelogue, chronicling his days at sea with the cantankerous former British sailor, Hamilton.  Gantos also honestly conveys his feelings of limbo, being neither here nor there.  As a whole, the memoir is a compelling and sometimes cautionary coming-of-age story, warning of the impetuousness of youth and will appeal to a broad reader base of teens.  

Professional Review:
Section:

Focus On: High School

Nonfiction

GANTOS, Jack.
Hole in My Life.
Farrar. 2002.

Gr 9 Up-- The autobiographical account of the author's search for his magical muse is thwarted by a get-rich-quick scheme of pirating a ship of pot up the coast. Gantos takes his consequence in the dregs of prison and reinvents a plan to spring free his intellectual aspirations. This candid, vivid, and illuminating page-turner emphasizes the salvation of journaling while showing how smart choices can right wrongs. Audio version available from Listening Library.

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Compiled By Alison Follos

Follos, A. (2004). Hole in My Life (Book) (Review of the book Hole in my life). School Library Journal, 50(11), 67.

Library Uses:
Hole in My Life would make an excellent selection for a book club for boys.  Gantos' style, humor, and realism might appeal to reluctant teenage boys, especially those with difficult pasts.  

Jack Gantos talks about how his life moving from place to place helped to shape the person and writer he is today. 

Module 11: How They Croaked

Summary:
King Tut, George Washington, Cleopatra, Marie Curie--what do all of these great historical figures have in common?  They all croaked, kicked the bucket, met their maker...they died.  Not only did they die, but they died in some of the most strange, gruesome, and mysterious ways.  This collection of biographies of the famous chronicles the lives of its subjects--often debunking or proving myths--and provides a scientific analysis of each of their deaths.  

APA Reference:
Bragg, G (2011). How they croaked. New York, NY:  Scholastic.

Impressions:
This title details the gruesome deaths of several famous figures including Queen Elizabeth, Pocahontas, Napoleon, Einstein, and many more. This title is a social science/ biography nonfiction book presented in chapters, one for each figure. The margins are wide and text is often accompanied with black and white drawings and figures that correlate with the subject matter. 

Other than just being very informative, How They Croaked is a riot! The writing style incorporates colloquialisms and humor while providing the details and sometimes hilarious facts surrounding each death (King Henry VIII's body exploded in his tomb because of the amount of infection and gasses that had built up in the layers of fat!)

At the end of each chapter the author provides little tid-bits and related facts such as all the different things that were named after Caesar (calendar, cesarean section, czar, Kaiser, etc.)

As an example of an excellent informational text, How They Croaked engages students through it's relatable language, humorous tone, and related sketches. The brief chapters make for excellent read-alouds for students of all ages. Even our HOSA (Health Science Occupations) teacher came in and bought one for her class because of the direct tie-in with her curriculum.


Professional Review:

Section:

The Book Review

BRAGG, Georgia. How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous. illus. by Kevin O'Malley. 178p. charts. bibliog. further reading. index. Web sites. CIP. Walker. 2011. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-8027-9817-6; RTE $18.89. ISBN 978-0-8027-9818-3. LC 2010008659.

Gr 5-9--King Tut died of malaria; Edgar Allan Poe is suspected to have had rabies. Beethoven and Galileo both met their ends due to lead poisoning. Fifteen other historical figures, including world leaders, writers, and scientists, were felled by things as mundane as pneumonia and as unpredictable as angry mobs. Each entry provides the circumstances of the person's death and gives context to those circumstances, from discussions of the political climate to medical practices of the time. Chapters are separated by a spread of brief facts related to the individual, the demise, or the era. Lively, full-page caricatures set in decorative frames appear throughout, along with spot illustrations. Back matter includes a lengthy list of sources. The sometimes-snarky writing gives the material a casual, conversational tone that will appeal to many readers. The title alone provides an easy booktalk; expect this one to be passed around and pored over.

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By Brandy Danner, Wilmington Memorial Library, MA

Danner, B. (2011). How they croaked: the awful ends of the awfully famous [Review of the book How they croaked:  the awful ends of the awfully famous].School Library Journal, 57(4), 189-190.

Library Uses:
This book would be a very entertaining opening title for a book talk featuring biographies for young adults.  A trailer could cleverly preview a few of the famous and their deaths.