New intentions

I got some grumbles today, for sure. I don't really like poetry, she said. I asked her to open her mind to it. To try it out. Practice.

We read a poem that I wrote on the easel and took shots at interpreting. It was a poem I wrote over the break, but I didn't tell them that. One kid saw a person lying under a pile of leaves, looking up at two black birds sitting in a tree against the blue sky. I pointed gently to the color thread that weaves the poem together and explained the story behind it.

Then we each wrote a line on an index card. Make sure to include a color. One student, sitting off in the back I asked to write the ending. She was honored and really tied the whole thing together. Her smile beamed from the back when a student pointed this out. I asked if the lines can work together to give one picture, and after some exploration, we decided they could. I offered up my own interpretive story and my excited words were able to lower their distracted voices for a minute. I was excited by the story we had created together and they could tell. Then we turned loose and practiced writing for a while. What they shared contained such beautiful and surprising language. First day of this new poetic experience: success!