Poetry in a Pot...
May. 1st, 2009 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deltamissWhat a week!
For the Poetry in a Pot project the students have to write a haiku. It is a difficult form of poetry, at best, but for some reason the kids enjoy them. I use the traditional model of three lines, five-seven-five syllables, about nature and with a contrast. By the time I've read two or three dozen, they all begin to sound alike. Next year, the poem comes first...then the pot. It is exhausting trying to guide seventy/eighty kids in writing poetry of any kind, but perhaps if they complete the difficult part first, they'll be more likely to create some fair images.
I have discovered that haiku is an exercise in:
1. Futility if a teacher fully expects to get a top-quality poem. :/
2. Discipline for the student when I am the teacher and he has to edit time and time again.
3. Patience for the teacher when she is working diligently to guide the student to a decent first line.
3. Revelation for the teacher when she discovers a kid who just won't give up no matter how many edits are required.
Only a few of the students have finished their poems, but all have finished the pots. I think they turned out better than last year's group. I really like the use of different textures and colors together. Even the all-leaf pots turned out great. :D
We began a little later this year so the students had more greenery and flowers to choose from. They brought in many, many more blooms than last year's students.
For the Poetry in a Pot project the students have to write a haiku. It is a difficult form of poetry, at best, but for some reason the kids enjoy them. I use the traditional model of three lines, five-seven-five syllables, about nature and with a contrast. By the time I've read two or three dozen, they all begin to sound alike. Next year, the poem comes first...then the pot. It is exhausting trying to guide seventy/eighty kids in writing poetry of any kind, but perhaps if they complete the difficult part first, they'll be more likely to create some fair images.
I have discovered that haiku is an exercise in:
1. Futility if a teacher fully expects to get a top-quality poem. :/
2. Discipline for the student when I am the teacher and he has to edit time and time again.
3. Patience for the teacher when she is working diligently to guide the student to a decent first line.
3. Revelation for the teacher when she discovers a kid who just won't give up no matter how many edits are required.
Only a few of the students have finished their poems, but all have finished the pots. I think they turned out better than last year's group. I really like the use of different textures and colors together. Even the all-leaf pots turned out great. :D
We began a little later this year so the students had more greenery and flowers to choose from. They brought in many, many more blooms than last year's students.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-02 11:13 am (UTC)We wrote limericks back in the winter. I had good luck with them last year and the year before, but this year...oh, my! For some reason they can't 'hear' the anapestic rhythm. :/
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-02 06:06 pm (UTC)I have even done rocking motions to show rhythm. For example, with Frost's "Stopping by Woods. . ."
"My LIT-tle HORSE must THINK it's QUEER
To STOP withOUT a FARMhouse NEAR..."
I would read the whole poem accenting the all cap syllables while rocking as if I were moving to the rhythm of a horse just slowly plodding along. Of course, some kids caught on more easily than others, but by the time I finished reading almost all of them were "riding" along with me.