Found Poetry & Blackout Poetry

Found Poetry 
Found poetry is created by selecting words from an original source and arranging them...well, poetically. Its approach is less daunting than 'writing poetry,' and can produce some amazing (and very fun) poems. Indeed, "Pulling some words from their context and calling them Poetry is about as logical as putting a frame around a landscape and calling it Art… and just as effective." Given the words, students play with syntax and form - making poetry a game and words the pieces.

It's as easy as 1-2-3..

1. Choose a text

2. Choose words

3. Rearrange them to make a poem!

You can make found poems as a class or individually. When reading Brave New World, a novel full of challenging vocabulary, I asked my students to open up to page 6 & 7 and to start yelling out words they find. I compiled a list on the whiteboard, set the rules (in this case that we had to use word in its original form (so 'civil' couldn't become 'civility') - you can also make rules about adding 'little' words, and even about shapes of the poem). As I worked mine out on the white board, students could watch or create their own. I started playing a song, and by the time the track was finished, I had adjusted, added, erased, and re-arranged the words into a poem. To wrap up, we talked about how (and if) my final poem connected to the original text, and their homework was to make one of their own.

Blackout Poetry
A simple (and strangely satisfying) alternative to plucking out words is to cross them out. Take a black marker or pen, a newspaper or a photocopy or a printout, and get to work. This style, called 'blackout poetry,' has been made famous by Austin Kleon, a computer programmer and writer in Austin, TX.

Before

After

Food for Thought
What's the point? 
- write to enjoy words (if that's not standard enough, see below)
- create a mood (creepy, thoughtful, angry)
- play with tone (joking, whimsical, satirical)
- condense to a main idea / theme
- cross subject areas (try it with a math textbook page, or a social studies primary source)

How could you approach writing a found/blackout poem? 
- scan through and note words that stick out at you
- find a specific word and then skim for words that flow from it
- read through passage/article/paragraphs well and intentionally go back for words
- cross out words at random and see what's left
- make a shape, or use white space to connect paths of words

Common Core Standards
Writing
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
- (9-10) Use a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they build on one another to create a coherent whole.
- (6-12) Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.

References
Buck, Pearl S. "On Discovering America." Portrait of America: Survey Graphic in the Thirties. American Studies @ The University of Virginia. Web. 26 July 2011. .
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Collins, 1998. Print.

Hand in hand?: The relationship between feedback and score

I have found that the most effective feedback does not always include a score with explanation of student progress. Here is a story from an undergraduate Philosophy course I took.

Writing in Philosophy, as a freshman in college, was a daunting task. Not only wrapping our heads around the ideas themselves, our class struggled with how to frame them in the format of the discipline. Our teacher, Professor Woody, was in his last of many many years of teaching and had teaching philosophical writing down to a psychological science. We would submit a paper, and start waiting.

When we received our papers back, they came with an attached form of sorts. Typed on what appeared to be an old school word processor, there were two columns of common comments, which he would check accordingly, and a paragraph of feedback. So on mine he would check ‘passive voice’ and ‘comma splices’ and then write a paragraph addressing the ideas of the paper. There was no grade. We would trade comments with each other, guessing at what the grade would be, repeatedly analyzing the comments and feedback. Then, at the same time he gave the next writing assignment, he would give our grades, ensuring that we had the score and explanation fresh in our minds.

While agonizing over the feedback was bad for my stress level, it was the first time I paid such minute attention to what a teacher said instead of how they graded me. Now, as a teacher, I cannot stand it when a student flips past all my pages of comments to see what the grade is, then immediately puts away the paper.

I’m seriously considering a Professor Woody staggered system of feedback and score... any name suggestions?

Six Degrees of Searching

Oh, the Research Paper. An essential requirement, but often I find the purpose - finding, evaluating and synthesizing of sources - to be lost in the process and even product itself. Too often, I assume students can (and will) search effectively among the universe of information available to them. Therefore, I wanted to construct a research paper that mimicked and enhanced search skills while broadening content. Ideally, students focus on what Renzulli (2009) calls "technological skills of inquiry" in order to make effective use of what they find. There are many good reasons to move beyond 'I'll just Google it'... hopefully this project will both necessitate and scaffold that shift.


Paper or Project? Depending on the topic, purpose, and student skill level, the iSearch-style narrative could take the form of a paper, PowerPoint, Voicethread, or other similar form. As long as students can tell a story of their research, the medium is up to you. In addition, consider using a collaborative medium, like Diggo, to create a crowdsourced base of knowledge (and use the annotations as evidence of student writing).

Students should start with a list of proposed search terms and phrases and keep running track of what they actually use as their research progresses. Regardless of the final project medium, the following six ‘degrees’ must be represented in any order (using the listed, or similar, vehicles for information):

1) Filtering Google: Twurdy for reading level
2) Audio: iTunesU, podcasts, NPR ‘Heard on Air’  
3) Visual: Flikr (captioned photos often lead to new sources)
4) Video: YouTube, Vimeo, TeacherTube
5) Crowd-Sourced: Wikipedia, Twitter 
6) Authorities: .gov/.edu/.org/journal (sometimes I will be more specific here)

In a three-part iSearch-style product:

Students... 

1) relate their purpose of their research and the highlights of what they learned 

2) narrate the process and evaluate the sources using the CARS Checklist [Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness, Support]

3) write a metacognitive on the overall process 

Harris, R. (2007, June 15). Evaluating Internet research sources. VirtualSalt.  http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm 

Take Away Students increase their awareness of how and why they search through diverse tools, then narrate and analyze the story of their research. This process leads to more critical awareness of their process and an increased quality in their product.

For variations and more formalized versions of the iSearch paper, see Holt, Rinehart and Winston.





Renzulli, J.S. (2007). The empire strikes back: Redefining the role of gifted education in the 21st century." Investing in Gifted and Talented Learners: An International Perspective, Selected Papers from the 18th Biennial World Conference, The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children. Vancouver: August 3-7, 2009.

Nature Spots

Starting in mid-spring, I asked the students in one of my sophomore classes to choose a spot in nature where they could go to on a fairly regular basis. The first week, the assignment was to take a picture, and ensure that their spot had few if any human structures. The general requirements were that we had to stay at least 10 minutes, and we couldn't use any forms of technology (cell phones or ipods) during that time.

So started a new routine for Monday mornings. This first Monday we shared why we chose our spots, and then made personal goals for how long we wanted to sit there without technology (they ranged from 10 minutes to 3 hours). Then, we taped our pictures along a row on a blank classroom wall. As spring progressed, the columns started to grow.


Our next week? To write while we were at our nature spots (we cut paper into quarter sheets, or they could write on any paper they liked). Ally drew while she was at hers as well, and her lovely sketches were put up with everyone's writing at the beginning of the next week.

Pretty soon April vacation came, and our goal was to visit our nature spots twice, 12 hours apart (preferably on the same day) so we could see how it changed. As creatures of habit, most of us went at the same time and on the same day, so this was an interesting way to mix it up. We saw different animals, heard different sounds, saw a different sky, and sometimes (at least in Sydney's case) got a completely different dose of weather.


Warning: make sure you go at comfortable times, Merry scared herself silly walking down the path at night, and Sydney ran into dubious police at dusk! Though, if I remember correctly, Dom enjoyed exploring the woods in the middle of the night.

Next, six-word memoirs while at our nature spots. These were inspired by a writing lesson on six-word memoirs we had done that week, and I was delighted with what everyone had to share. It was an authentic extension of a writing activity - I wish I could remember Robbie's (Robbie, if you read this, add it as a comment).

And thankfully, by this time, things were starting to grow! What beautiful flowers started appearing on our classroom wall (This classroom doesn't have any windows, so it was doubly nice to have fresh, colorful pictures appearing each week).

Wrapping up each Monday, students suggested what we do for the next week. Sometimes I would ask them to write or to draw, but sometimes their suggestions were much more fun than mine. Note: if you do nature spots in your class, some of us liked having a task each week while others liked the freedom to bring in what they wanted.

A definite favorite was the week we chose 'interaction with animals in nature' - thanks Serena! The rules were that you couldn't touch native animals, and that you couldn't disturb nature in general.

For all the joy in living and springtime, we did have one quite morbid week. When we were merging Macbeth and poetry back in January, I had brought in an anthology of Japanese Death Poems - haikus written by Zen monks and haiku poets on the verge of death. We had written haikus from Lady Macbeth's point of view, and someone suggested we write death poems as if we were dying at our nature spots. Someone else suggested bringing in an object to memorialize their nature spots, and I said that was fine as long as it was not alive or previously alive (unless it was a leaf). The next Monday we dimmed the lights and stood in a circle and read our death poetry...

Honestly, it was one of the best ongoing units I have ever had the pleasure to teach. Not every student had something each week, but they owned up to it, or just shared their story (Tim was scratched by some vicious thorns one week, Kelsey convinced her brothers to hang out with her (or at least sit still while she took a picture) during 'bring a friend to your nature spot' week), and it was simply a nice way to begin second period every Monday.

If I had to justify it in teacher language, I would say it built writing, poetry, photography, and social skills, connected thematically to Fahrenheit 451, and provided a low-risk weekly public speaking opportunity.

If I were to recommend it in real language, I would say it was one of the most fun and authentic ways my students connected to me, each other, language, and nature, all in 15 minutes a week. 

How v. Why: A Question of Audience

In my classroom, the most motivating factor for students to gain information has been, hands down, audience. If students are working towards a project that will be presented for an audience they care about, it gives them a purpose beyond performing a task for my eyes alone. In addition, the traditional audience of one does not reflect our digital 21st century. Our students can and should publish to a wider audience. This can be done through individual and class blogs, collaborations via google docs, you tube videos, skype calls with other classrooms, voicethread essays, podcasts, letters to the editor, comments on news articles, book review sites, publishing a class book, online contests - the list is endless.

To be honest though, I find that I can think of many ways to answer ‘how can students apply information?’, but always return to ‘why should they?’ If the purpose is merely to ‘gain information’ then students could just as easily read summaries of our books instead of the books themselves - in this case, information becomes a commodity to ingest and produce, no matter the audience. A paper summary is a Twitter summary is a blog summary. However, if the teacher’s purpose is to prioritize critical thinking, facilitate connections across texts and ideas, and solve problems through collaboration, then teachers need to construct the form of their curriculum to be a catalyst for these goals. The audience then becomes a meaningful context for information, where ‘how can’ is enabled by the teacher, but ‘why’ is motivated by the student.

The Reading 'Workout'

I consider myself a struggling exerciser. It’s hard to get myself going, I want to see immediate results, I feel better after but not enough to maintain a routine, and sometimes I simply don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It’s not even that I don’t like to exercise, I just have so many excuses for why I don’t. In these ways, I feel the passive frustration of my ‘non’-readers. How can I as a teacher, knowing the multitude of benefits for reading, also cultivate the more sophisticated pleasure that comes from discipline that will help my students become lifelong readers?

By the time many of my students reach 10th and 12th grade, they have established non-reading patterns that I have to work to re-negotiate. Especially with my struggling students, the attitude ‘I don’t like to read’ becomes ‘I’ll just go on Sparknotes’ or simply ‘I don’t read.’ My goal becomes to embed motivation in what they do with the reading, with the intention that ultimately my “instruction builds the skill and desire to read increasingly complex materials” (Ivey & Fisher, 2006). For me, the ELA classroom provides a theoretical space for lifelong literacy but needs attentive construction to effectively build a culture of reading within and beyond its walls.

In the classroom, I have the opportunity to construct reading routines, especially ones focusing on the persistence, self-reflection, and pleasure in reading necessary for independently motivated readers. This year, my ‘aha!’ moment came when reading Kelly Gallagher's text ‘Deeper Reading’ as he contrasts how much scaffolding and in-class support middle and high school ELA teachers devote to writing instruction, with the homework ‘to read.’ Gallagher presents different ways to chart understanding, self-monitor comprehension, and then ‘second draft’ read to not only understand but to revel in thinking more deeply. This approach assembles a multi-layered reading process (paralleling the writing process - it seems so obvious now!), and I’m better able to work with my students to engage, encourage, and maintain their reading and critical thinking habits. And, if all goes well, everything culminates in the satisfaction we’ve all felt after a good reading workout.