There Are Some Things I Miss More About K-12 Teaching, and the Poetry Units are What I Miss the Most

As we unwind and get to the end of the semester - one where one of my courses, Extending Literacy 3-5, has been enjoying service learning with 4th graders at Cesar Batalla - I am thinking about the joys of coaching a room full of writers to bring their hard work to presentation and publication. Since we were reading Becoming Muhammad Ali with the kids, and the last time we met I did the magic box poem, I pulled Kwame Alexander's The Write Thing: Kwame Alexander Engages Students in Writing Workshop and You Can Too! to see what I might draw upon as the semester comes to a close.

My undergraduates, soon entering a fifth year in elementary education, were given blank Bare Books to craft a story of their own. I think they're petrified of this task, as it is not the norm of their academic careers to be asked to create, to be original, or to share. 

Hence, I'm drawing on the Rooster.

In Kentucky, I loved the school's culminating projects, senior boards, and requirement to showcase writing and thinking on numerous occasions. I've found, since leaving, that such expectations are rare, and youth rarely have an opportunity to showcase what they know, think, do, and feel.

I loved my poetry units the most. Whereas my undergraduate professors had us create poetry anthologies of our semester's work, I always required the same in my high school room. Each year, 9-12, I wanted them to create a book of 10 original poems and 10 borrowed ones from others they've read. In later years, I wanted them to think about their anthologies to gift another human being. We also established coffee house readings, slams, and later the 10-minute play festival where some poets performed. The skinny of it was there were outlets for books, publication, student-led performances, and presentations.

That is exactly what Kwame details in his last three chapters (which I've shared with my undergrad students). We don't have the authority to ask our 4th graders to display what they've gained this semester, but I'm requiring my students to write a book, a BARE BOOK, to share with their partners. The best way to teach writing, after all, is to know one's personal processes for themselves. 

This will be my Monday morning, followed by a day's worth of meetings.

In the meantime, windows are open but so are blooms and my allergies are amok. Yesterday's #verselove challenge from EthicalELA was to write an Ode to a Day. It was suggested to pick a date and to find a National Day of....description. It was National Siblings Day on Saturday, but I set out to look for a National Day on Allergies. I found a week: April 20th to April 25th. So, in my first ever ode, I wrote to the day...well, all of April actually.

Lord, it's Monday again (palm to head). Here we go!