I'm going to make an embarrassing confession: I'm a bit overwhelmed at the thought of poetry. As a librarian, as a former English teacher, as a lover of words, I know I'm supposed to love it. But...I just didn't. It may be a product of how I experienced it in the classroom --scanning lines, counting meter, uncovering deeper meanings in each word...in other words, analyzing each poem to DEATH. As a first (and even second...and maybe third...) year English teacher, I would go to great lengths to avoid the poetry unit, bargaining with myself that poetry didn't show up on the Virginia Standards of Learning test all that much or that our time would be better spent on the next novel unit.
I know that's not how I SHOULD have felt, but I did, for the first several years of my teaching career. It wasn't until I got more comfortable in the classroom that I realized that I could lighten up a bit, that poetry could in fact be fun if I put students into the role of creator instead of consumer. This year, I put that creator idea into motion in my library and ended up with some amazing results. Students were playing with poetry before school, during lunch, and even taking some home with them in the afternoon. Teachers were bringing their classes in to take a break from the heavy standardized test prep because this poetry work was a break instead of a punishment. I feel like I, the poetry novice, stumbled on something here, and I'm actually pretty sad that April is coming to an end and that many of these stations will need to be put away!
Here are the stations I set up:
Out of all of the stations, this is the one that got the most play as passive programming (i.e. when a class wasn't here specifically to do poetry stations).
I have been undergoing a pretty major weeding project in my library over the course of the past two years (it's the first time it has EVER been weeded, and my school dates back to the 70s!). This means that I have PLENTY of weeded books available, many of which made perfect fodder for pages to be sliced out for this station. I pulled out a few examples from my creative writing club, laid out some markers, and covered the table in blue paper to avoid the marker bleed-through, and suddenly I had a bunch of amazing poets on my hands!
This idea came straight from Pinterest. I had my student aides look through discarded magazines and cut out a bunch of larger words and stick them in a bowl. I added a bunch of glue bottles and some computer paper, and voila! This one wasn't super popular as passive programming, but once a few students in class made one, it became a bit of a competition to see who could create the "deepest" poem. I have to admit, they did a pretty good job!
As a tip for this one, I would try to include words from magazines with a variety of topics. It was cool to see what students could make when given words from Time, People, and even Four-Wheeler magazines. I would also suggest setting out some scissors and magazines for those students who would like to take on finding their own words.
All this station needed was a bunch of books with titles written "sideways" (as opposed to up and down) and a couple of examples. Students piled their books on top of one another with each title serving as a line of a poem. Some classes were obsessed with making the tallest poem that still made sense, and others were super into creating "deep" poems, which they then read to me in deep, dramatic voices. Our students are not supposed to have their cell phones on during the day, so several students even ran over to me and asked if they could grab their phones to snap a picture of their poems (rule-breaker that I am, I said yes immediately and asked them to share their photos with me on Instagram). I included a picture of one of my favorites--doesn't it just sum up how we all feel at the end of August when school is starting up again?
Using the list of poetry from poets.org (as well as some old favorites from past years), I put lots of poems on small pieces of colored paper, dumped them in a bowl, and let students have free choice. To liven the station up a bit, I covered the table in butcher paper and let students create sketch notes about why their pocket poem "spoke" to them. To stretch out the fun, I offered students candy for coming by and showing me their poem on the actual Poem in Your Pocket Day.
So there you have it! Each of the stations stayed up throughout the month of April as passive programming, but I also had classes come in specifically to work with the stations. I was immensely pleased with out these stations turned out, and now that I've got the "bones" of them created--the signs, directions, etc.--I think they'll be pretty easy to tweak and recycle each year! And, even though we've moved into May (how did that happen so fast?), I have classes scheduled into next week who want to come complete the poetry stations.
As a final note, I also created all of the signage using the free version of Canva. Ah, how I love that site!
I hope this gave you some ideas of what to do next April (only a year away!) or just some fun ideas to help students play with language and destress as they sludge through testing season.
Until next time!
Love,
Your Library
I know that's not how I SHOULD have felt, but I did, for the first several years of my teaching career. It wasn't until I got more comfortable in the classroom that I realized that I could lighten up a bit, that poetry could in fact be fun if I put students into the role of creator instead of consumer. This year, I put that creator idea into motion in my library and ended up with some amazing results. Students were playing with poetry before school, during lunch, and even taking some home with them in the afternoon. Teachers were bringing their classes in to take a break from the heavy standardized test prep because this poetry work was a break instead of a punishment. I feel like I, the poetry novice, stumbled on something here, and I'm actually pretty sad that April is coming to an end and that many of these stations will need to be put away!
Here are the stations I set up:
Blackout Poetry
Out of all of the stations, this is the one that got the most play as passive programming (i.e. when a class wasn't here specifically to do poetry stations). I have been undergoing a pretty major weeding project in my library over the course of the past two years (it's the first time it has EVER been weeded, and my school dates back to the 70s!). This means that I have PLENTY of weeded books available, many of which made perfect fodder for pages to be sliced out for this station. I pulled out a few examples from my creative writing club, laid out some markers, and covered the table in blue paper to avoid the marker bleed-through, and suddenly I had a bunch of amazing poets on my hands!
Poetry Creation Station
This idea came straight from Pinterest. I had my student aides look through discarded magazines and cut out a bunch of larger words and stick them in a bowl. I added a bunch of glue bottles and some computer paper, and voila! This one wasn't super popular as passive programming, but once a few students in class made one, it became a bit of a competition to see who could create the "deepest" poem. I have to admit, they did a pretty good job!
As a tip for this one, I would try to include words from magazines with a variety of topics. It was cool to see what students could make when given words from Time, People, and even Four-Wheeler magazines. I would also suggest setting out some scissors and magazines for those students who would like to take on finding their own words.
Book Spine Poetry
All this station needed was a bunch of books with titles written "sideways" (as opposed to up and down) and a couple of examples. Students piled their books on top of one another with each title serving as a line of a poem. Some classes were obsessed with making the tallest poem that still made sense, and others were super into creating "deep" poems, which they then read to me in deep, dramatic voices. Our students are not supposed to have their cell phones on during the day, so several students even ran over to me and asked if they could grab their phones to snap a picture of their poems (rule-breaker that I am, I said yes immediately and asked them to share their photos with me on Instagram). I included a picture of one of my favorites--doesn't it just sum up how we all feel at the end of August when school is starting up again?Digital Magnetic Poetry
This was one of the most popular stations! I made a copy of the awesome Springtime Magnetic Poetry from the amazing Eric Curts, assigned it through Google Classroom, and let them sit at the cafe tables and create. My original thought was to have this station completed on the Promethean board by teams of students, but when I pulled up the Google Drawings template on the board, it wasn't allowing me to see the words on the side of the screen. Since I didn't have tons of time before my first class came in, I made a last-minute change and assigned through Classroom, but now that I'm reflecting, I'm glad I did. This was one of the more personal stations, where students could create poetry without others seeing what they made, and I think that appealed to some students in a different way than the other stations. There were a few students who barely moved from this station, so intent were they upon creating the best magnetic poem, so I think I'll keep it a "private" station from here on out.Poem in Your Pocket Choice
Using the list of poetry from poets.org (as well as some old favorites from past years), I put lots of poems on small pieces of colored paper, dumped them in a bowl, and let students have free choice. To liven the station up a bit, I covered the table in butcher paper and let students create sketch notes about why their pocket poem "spoke" to them. To stretch out the fun, I offered students candy for coming by and showing me their poem on the actual Poem in Your Pocket Day.Visiting the 800s
I just finished a major weeding project of the 800s, so I wanted to showcase some of the poetry collections that I uncovered during that process. I set lots of comfy chairs by the shelves, set a few collections on book stands, and pointed out the "poetry" genre sticker that made the other easy to find. While students admittedly stayed at this station for a much shorter time than some of the more interactive spots, they at least saw what we had to offer, and I had a couple of girls get SUPER excited when they discovered our copies of Where the Sidewalk Ends. In fact, I would guess that my poetry circulation quadrupled on days when classes were in completing the poetry stations.
So there you have it! Each of the stations stayed up throughout the month of April as passive programming, but I also had classes come in specifically to work with the stations. I was immensely pleased with out these stations turned out, and now that I've got the "bones" of them created--the signs, directions, etc.--I think they'll be pretty easy to tweak and recycle each year! And, even though we've moved into May (how did that happen so fast?), I have classes scheduled into next week who want to come complete the poetry stations.
As a final note, I also created all of the signage using the free version of Canva. Ah, how I love that site!
I hope this gave you some ideas of what to do next April (only a year away!) or just some fun ideas to help students play with language and destress as they sludge through testing season.
Until next time!
Love,
Your Library
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