February 23, 2009

Today we meet our Tibbetts students that we will be working with for the remainder of the semester.  My group was for the most part cooperative.  I did see one student who will be a challenge.  It was a little depressing to know that these students, only seventh graders, feel like they are nobodys.  The first thing I did was give my students their poetry journals courtesy of the Bisti Writing Project.  Next we all introduced ourselves.  The assignment was for them to bring in a song lyric and an "I Am" poem.  Most of the students did have an "I Am" poem and a song to share.  That is basically what we did for the time we were there.  It was a short time because we had to meet at the library for a tour.  The students were willing to share the poems they wrote.  Others wanted someone else to read their poems out loud for them.  I felt that was alright because I was happy that they wrote a poem.  I asked the students to bring their writing journals for next time and to bring a book of poetry.

March 2, 2009

Today I asked the students to pull out their journals and their book of poetry.  Well they all had their journals except for one student and no one brought any books.  Luckily I had gone to the library to gather some books of poetry.  I brought a variety of books from deep and dark (Edgar Allen Poe) to funny (Shel Silverstein).  I didn't quite have enough books for everyone as a had a larger group today.  We made due with what we had and everyone shared at least one poem they liked.  I also had the students do an acrostic poem in their jounals.  This is a peom in which they wrote their name down the left side for the page and wrote words that described who they were or what they liked.  I have to admitt I got stuck on a few of the letters in my name.  Nonetheless, everyone completed the task.  I can see myself struggling with fun, meaningful lessons.  This is not going to be easy, but I will figure it out eventually. 

March 9, 2009

Today Sarah, Roderick, and myself demonstrated how to do a poetry circle (with Frances' guidance).  The topic was bananas and it was fun.  The students participated in giving us words to use to describe bananas.  When we finished our word writing we all had to write a poem about bananas.  We read our poems to the class and some of the students read theirs.  After our demostration we split into our groups and did our own poetry circle.  My group chose the topic "Homies" a.k.a friends.  Again most of my students participated and enjoyed coming up with fun words.  We did struggle with coming up with unusual words for friends.  We ended up breaking out the Thesaurus, which really helped.  Overall, it was a good class.  I need to come up with some interesting activities because I don't want to lose their interest. 

March 16, 2009

Today we talked about friends and how much they mean to us.  It was very aparent that these students rely heavily on thier friends.  This is a difficult age for them and it is easier for them to talk to their friends.  A couple of students did say they consider their mom as one of their good friends.  I read a few poems that I found on the internet.  I then invited them to write a poem about their best friend in their journal.  If they wanted they could share them with the group.  Most of the students did share. 

March 23, 2009

Today we continued our talk on friends.  We broke up into two separate groups.  The assignment was for each person to come up with two sentences about their friends.  Next, as a group they had to put those sentences into a friendship poem.  Both teams came up with some good poems and they all worked well as a team.

March 30, 2009

Well today I thought I would take my group on a different route.  I found some really great concrete poems on the internet.  I first read them a poem about shoes.  Then I showed them the picture of the poem and how it was shaped like a shoe.  I also showed them some other poems in other shapes like an airplane and fish.  The students were excited to begin their poems.  We did have issues with the shape of our poems.  I think it would have been better to trace the shape first and them fill it in.  The next time I work with concrete poems I will give that option.  When they finished their poems we had a little time left so I introduced the Diamonte Poetry to them.  We then worked on one collaboratively.  They all contributed nicely to the poem. 

April 6, 2009

Today we didn't have a whole lot of time to work with our students.  I thought the students might be a little wiped out from the testing so I wanted to do something fun.  We worked on tongue twisters to help capture alliteration.  We did this as a group and I wrote each sentence on the board.  At first the students were hesitant, but once they caught on they were coming up with some funny twisters.  I wanted to try to combine them into a poem, but we ran out of time. 

April 13, 2009

Today I had the students brainstorm some ideas for a good poem to present on poetry night.  Some students finished early and I worked with those students to get them to write more.  For those students that didn't want to write I kept encouraging them and asking questions about their poem to spark some ideas.

April 20, 2009

Not all the students brought their poems to class.  Some of them said they left them at home.  So I had to have them write new poems.  I again tried to get those students who did not want to finish their poems to keep writing.  It was a tough day for them I guess.

April 27, 2009

Today we brought our students rootbeer floats and we took them outside.  They all loved the break and were very appreciative for the free time.