by Christopher Lehman (@iChrisLehman), The Educator Collaborative Founding Director
Hi TeacherPoets!
I loved workshopping Suzana and Leanne’s poems last week! The conversation was lively, thoughtful and full of great feedback. Thank to those of you on twitter joining along with us, your input was awesome! If you missed our second session you can view the archive here.
Our third and final session of the season is this Saturday (4/25) from 11:00-noon EST… during #TheEdCollabGathering (woo-hoo!). #TheEdCollabGathering is our free, virtual conference day. Tons of awesome sessions and you’re all invited. Visit Gathering.TheEducatorCollaborative.com for the agenda.
Tune in to any of #TheEdCollabGathering sessions, and you can join us live-streaming in the “Session 1” spot and tweet along with us using #TeacherPoets.
Assignment for Week 3: Tell Us to Turn
During our second live-streaming session we talked about searching for inventive and fresh metaphors and descriptions. Both trying to be clear and true, but then doing a writing exercise to move beyond the obvious comparisons.
Here are your writing assignments for this week!
A Writing Invitation: Tell It Like It Is Not
- Use the “Tell It Like It Is Not” strategy from last week to write a draft (or drafts) of an original poem. Then share your work on our TeacherPoets Google+ page.
Mentor poems to read:
All three take us on surprising turns:
- Space Heater by Sharon Olds
- Daddy Dozens by Jamila Woods
- Hurry by Marie Howe
- You’re invited to post on our TeacherPoets Google+ page links to other poems that come right out and tell you what they are about, but then play with language
Workshopping This Week:
Yay! The best part! We will be workshopping drafts of two original poems by our TeacherPoets!
- Please follow the link and print out these two poems (or download a mark-up-able copy to your device):
- Deadline by Jancey Clark
- (currently untitled) by Jenn Wood
- Read and write all over them, prepare comments as if you were talking to this poet:
- Compliments: Which parts were particularly strong to you? Why? How did it effect you as a reader? Where were you delighted? Happily surprised? Moved? And so on.
- Questions: Where did you find yourself confused? Lost? Where did your reading become choppy or confused? Which points did you want a little bit more? A little less?
- Considerations: We can’t write the poem, that is the poet’s task, however we can raise considerations: I wonder if there are actually two poems here… I wonder if we could hear more from… I wonder if the second stanza could… I wonder…
- On Saturday we will then practice “workshopping” this poem, so bring your written-all-over copy. Use #TeacherPoets during our session to share your reflections!
If you would like to read an example of responding to a poem through “workshopping,” then read (or listen to) Workshop by Billy Collins (in which he workshops his own poem as he’s writing/reading it… it’s pretty funny stuff.).
Happy reading! Happy writing! See you Saturday!
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