Three Writing Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan One
"Twenty Lines"

Objective: Introduce poetry to students
Students will practice editing and changing their poems to make the best product

Students will practice writing a 20 line poem with very specific directions. Each line has to be a specific thing. Students must use the first and last lines (write a metaphor) but otherwise students can switch lines as they wish.

Students will practice changing up lines in order to practice editing skills and become better poets.

Students will then share with classmates.



Lesson Plan Two:
Visual Poetry

Materials needed:
IMovie
A collection of images
a poem students have written

Objectives
Students will be able to communicate ideas, concepts and themes through the use of spoken words and images

Students will write a poem that suits a visual poem. It should include a good deal of imagery and a definitive theme. Students will spend some time finding images that pair well with that poem and will combine the two in Imovie.

Students will then share their final project.


Lesson plan three
"Working with Voice"

Objectives:
Students will understand voice

Students will be asked to choose a character in one of their stories that needs a stronger voice. They will be asked to tell the story of a regular day through that character. They will write about just an ordinary day in their character's lives to see how they speak, how they view their world, and how they like their coffee.

They will then write from their characters point of view on a day when everything goes wrong. That way the students can recognize how their character differs in times of stress.

April 20th

Exercise 35
The Need to Know: The Solace of Imagination

He must have skipped school. After he dropped me off he headed toward the high school but instead of turning into the parking lot of the huge brick building he kept driving. He chose not to park in its oppressive shadow, chose not to spend even one more day in that burdensome place where no one knew what Johnny thought and more importantly no one cared. Instead he just kept driving. His hand would reach out to turn the volume up on The Cure album he kept in the cd slot at all times. His head would lean back onto the leather seats letting the wind from the open windows whip across his face. He would have driven fast so that the sounds of the world were drowned out by “why can’t I be you?” and the sound of the wind blowing past his eardrums. He would no longer hear the snickering of his female classmates or the not –so –whispered “faggot” from the boys. He wouldn’t hear our mother’s concerned tone or our father’s disapproving one. He would drive until the fuel was nearly empty and then stop at a gas station miles away from home where he’d pick up a bottle of water and a phone number from the cute boy at the counter. I can just see their hands brushing against each other as this boy pushed his number across the glass covered lottery tickets. Johnny would return home triumphant. His last day on earth better than the rest of his life put together as he slowly sipped our father’s sixty year old bourbon and felt the soft silk of our mother’s negligee against his skin. As he put the revolver to his temple he was happy – his last memories content. I am sure that is how Johnny spent his final day.




Exercise 40
From Situation to Plot

“A Waitress who likes her menus to rhyme”

Jennifer was going to be late. The hands of her Mickey Mouse watch told her it was five after. Jennifer cursed under her breath as she searched beneath the refrigerator for her car keys. She stood, brushing the dust from the front of her pink uniform she opened the fridge to see if she had put them in there again. When they weren’t in the egg holder she decided to check in her purse again, though she had checked there three times already and she was sure they wouldn’t be there. Her hands ruffled past a half eaten snicker’s bar and an Altoid’s tin when she heard them jingle. Damn, she was sure that she had looked there.

Mickey’s diner, located at the intersection of 10 and 152 in Sherman Arkansas was the kind of place that no one talked about but everyone was aware of. It had a kind of comfort and charm in its simplistic décor and unassuming nature. The floors were black and white checker and the seats were a shiny red leather, well not leather exactly, but Jennifer wasn’t exactly sure what it was called. The walls were decked in black and white photos – a tribute to the Sherman’s many triumphs. Jennifer’s favorite was there on the wall above the register, a black and white photo of Jennifer and her grandfather, Mickey. It was at their shared birthday party; his cake, chocolate with white frosting, held sixty candles, her cake, chocolate with more chocolate frosting, held six. His arms were wrapped around her as she sat on his lap ready to blow out the candles. There on his wrist was a Mickey Mouse watch.
Jennifer had inherited a lot from her grandfather. She had his large green eyes, his infectious laughter, his watch as well as his corny jokes and quick fuse. Her favorite thing that she got from him though, was no question, Mickey’s Diner. Jennifer had worked there since before she could see over the counters. She would sit in Mickey’s kitchen banging on the pots and pans playing “music.” Despite the complaints of the patrons, Mickey would just smile and tell them, “That’s my only granddaughter and if she wants to play then she will play.”
When she was a little older she discovered skates and would spend hours zooming in and out of the kitchen dipping below the counter. It was Jennifer who, much to the chagrin of the other waitresses, convinced her grandfather that it was charming and fun to have all the waitresses on skates. It only took two months, one hundred and seventy-eight broken glasses and one very angry tyraid from Louis, Mickey’s oldest waitress, before Mickey rethought the skates.
When she was twelve Jennifer starting writing the menus. She was in a poetry kick and all of the entrée’s descriptions needed to rhyme. Despite another tyraid from Louis the menus have remained in ab ab rhyme scheme for nearly eighteen years. At Mickey’s you can order Mac’ and Cheese with a side of peas if you please. (Though Jennifer has grown up and become more sophisticated her rhymes have not.)

Exercise 52
Practice Writing Good, Clean Prose

Sex. It was all she could think of. His hands made her think of it. She tried to push it from her mind but his hands were still there. His huge, tough yet soft hands were there in her mind. She would sit and think about his hands. They would push up her skirt. They would pick her up and set her on top of his desk. They would pull her hair with a soft touch.
“Jean, hi, Jean. Earth to Jean.” Mark, Jean’s best friend said. His face had a huge smile on it. “A good one?”
“yes.” Jean sighed
“hands?” he said, though he knew the answer.
“Yes, hands.” She could not help the blush as it came to her cheeks.
Mark’s face still held the smile as he set the pile of cards on her desk. Her eyes went with him as he left – that way she could drink in Jack’s hands, his arms, his face in a casual, not sad, way. She only thought of him. His hands were the new thing but before that it was his name, Jack, it just sounds nice. It was his face, and his blue eyes. It was his walk, the way he would sway with each step. She could not help it. She tried to do work things. She turned her view to the cards on her desk but the first card was a pair of clasped hands. Damn you Mark, she thought as her mind was filled with his hands again, this time holding her waist.

A little behind but here they are!

Exercise One
1. She couldn’t quite get over the feeling that today would be the day that she would die.
2. As my mother rolled out the buttery dough for her famous cherry pies I heard he mutter under her breath, “those fucking commies.”
3. There in front of half of my fourth grade classmates I felt the warmth of urine spread down the length of my leg.
4. Since my mother died I have been unable to enter my living room.
5. It seemed like any normal night as Caroline walked home from the graveyard shift at the hospital; that is until she heard the footsteps behind her.
6. Johnny slipped into his mother’s negligee and raised the barrel of his father’s 48 to his temple, pulling the trigger with surprising ease.
7. I stood transfixed as the wind whipped at her white cotton dress, and I knew that I would do anything for that woman.
8. My mamma always told me to be careful who you marry, I wish I had listened.
9. I am allergic to incompetence.
10. In my country we believe that the greatest asset a man has is his character.
Exercise Seven
Words: sidewalk, popcorn, grout
When someone close to you dies you expect the whole world to change. You expect the colors to shift, the weather to darken, and the world to take a momentary pause from its hectic progress and feel the weight of your loss, but it doesn’t. I approached our house after school just like I had any other day. The concrete sidewalk still had chalk drawings of butterflies and flowers from Sunday when my little sister Jamie had the neighbor girl over. The mailbox still contained the usual junk, bills and postcards from dad – this week was from Madrid where he brokered international business takeovers. I entered the house, grabbing my usual bag of popcorn from the pantry, and I sat down flipping through the channels. It didn’t occur to me that Johnny hadn’t gotten back from school, nothing about our house suggested that one floor above me my older brother had taken my father’s loaded pistol and pulled the trigger. I nibbled on kettle corn and watched as Oprah told me how to get the best bra for my bust while Johnny’s blood stained the white grout in our parents bathroom.
Exercise Ten
Jacqueline Baynes
She is the type of person who keeps her mouth shut as her parents passive-agressively comment on her clothing, her hair or her grades.
She is the type of person who fiercely defends her big brother and baby sister when her parents do the same thing to them.
She is the type of person who cries when she is angry.
She is the type of person that given a choice would eat chocolate cake and peanut butter cookies for breakfast lunch and dinner.
She is the type of person that isn’t really noticed by her peers, is adored by her teachers and loved by her brother.

Exercise Eleven
Character’s Name: Jacqueline Baynes
Character’s Nickname: Jack, Jackie, Jacks
Sex: Female
Age: fifteen
Looks: Average, brown hair, brown eyes, bangs that hide most of her face, average build. She wears clothing that is neither trendy nor odd. She has a beautiful smile with two dimples, one on each side.
Right or left handed: Right
Education: Currently Attending Silver Springs High School
Vocation/occupation: Student and fro-yo expert
Salary: 7.50/hr
Status and Money: Lives with her parents, her older brother Johnny and her little sister Jaimie
Marital Status: single – has a crush on a Neil Housetand a junior on the baseball team
Family, ethnicity: white
Diction, accent etc: typical teenager.
Relationships: She has a one best friend, Ashley. She spends a lot of time with her brother and his best friend Ally. She doesn’t have boyfriends, she doesn’t really hang out etc.
Places: Home, backyard, school, froyo shop
Primary mode of Transportation: Bicycle, brothers car
Halloween costumes: She hasn’t been done anything for haloween in years, the last time she went as a ninja
Tricks: She wiggle her ears, she knows how to make the perfect lasagna
Email Adress, blog and/or website: J.A.Baynes@gmail.com, she doesn’t blog, she wouldn’t know anything about making a website.
Passwords: password
Posessions: she is a simple girl, she does have a necklace that her brother got her for her golden birthday. She wears it every day. It is a simple gold chain with a small Garnett her birthday.
Recreation, hobbies: She is really good at scrabble, she plays word games whenever she can
Obsessions: chocolate, the new yorker
Additctions: Chocolate, sweet things
Beliefs: equality, tolerance, love, non traditional gender roles
Attitudes :
Superstitions: Doesn’t really have any
Prejudices:
Politics: Liberal
Sexual History: Got kissed by Freddie Joyce in third grade. Matt LeBlae tried to get to second base in eighth grade then spread a rumor that she was easy.
Medical History: had her appendix removed when she was seven
Ambitions: she wants to be a writer or a journalist
Religion: uhm, well that’s complicated
Fears: Her brother’s death
Character flaws: She gets stepped on a lot. She is gluttunous and sees things in black and white
Character strengths : she is loyal, dependable, and good
Secrets: Her brother is transgender
Pets : a fish named lucille
Tastes in books, music etc Whatever her brother likes and musicals
Journal entries: That is none of your business
Correspondence: she doesn’t have a lot of friends, she’s old school – likes passing notes
Food preferences Anything sweet, anything savory and anything that is deep fried
Handwriting – poor
Astrological sign – Aquarius
Talents – she is a fantastic writer, she is smart, articulate and very likable if you can get her talking.
Friends – Ashley
Relatives - Mom, Cheryl, Father James, Brother Johnny, sister Jamie, Fish Lucille
Enemies- Mitchell Hobbs – neighbor boy
As seen by others - she isn’t seen at all
As seen by self – she doesn’t seem to see this either
Scars – Cresent shaped scar on her elbow. Appedix scar -
Tattoos, piercings etc.? none


Excersize 19
Third to first

She plunged her hands into the steaming dishwater. Before conscious thought entered her mind she pulled them away cursing her own carelessness. “shit,” she mumbled under her breath. She hadn’t been paying attention as the dish water filled the tiny kitchen sink in her one bedroom apartment. As the near-boiling water nearly reached the rim she was thinking about Jim. She had glanced across the kitchen to the small dining table where her cell phone sat, its silence a constant reminder of the fight they had had the night before. She’d be damned if she called him first. Some of the things he said, just thinking about it made her want to push his head into her kitchen sink. Flipping the cold facet on she started nibbling on her thumb nail. Jim hated it when she did that, “gross,” he’d say. She took a great deal of satisfaction biting her small hangnail imagining his face as she did so.

Owe, shit. Dammit, stupid water. I should have been paying attention. I swear to god if he doesn’t call me soon. This really will be the last time. How could he accuse me of those things – like he is absolutely perfect. I really should just end it, it isn’t like I don’t have other prospects. Jim would do well remembering that I am a catch. What an asshole. I wonder if my phone is on silent. It could be, I did have it off for the movie last night. Maybe he has called and I just didn’t notice. I flip open the small blue phone, a gift from Jim, to see if I had been beating him up in my head for no good reason. Nope. No missed calls, no text messages. I had plenty of reasons. I throw down the phone with more force than necessary. I don’t even like blue, if Jim knew me at all he would have picked the little red phone, even the generic grey phone would have fit me better. Jim likes blue. I start biting on my nails, he absolutely hates it when I do this. I smile to myself as my nibbling draws the tiniest droplet of blood.

I don’t believe in fate. I don’t think destiny exsists and I do not believe in a god. I tell you this because every time I tell this story some idiot feels the need to comment on good luck, or fate or, “God looking out for me.” It makes me want to scream. There is no such thing! The only reason I didn’t die a terrible and horrific death in front of Trump Tower was because of science. It was my reaction time and force that allowed me to spin around avoiding the yellow taxi that was rampaging down the street. I don’t care if there are too many coincidences. So what if that was the taxi driver I rode with yesterday. So what if I my shoe was caught in a stupid hole on the crappy New York sidewalk. Perhaps if the city crews took better care of the sidewalks my shoe would also have survived the incident. There is nothing but sheer chance and science. Seriously.
She was not the type to believe in chance or fate, luck or destiny. She was also a very firm and very loud atheist. She openly scoffed at people who put their faith in an invisible, “myth,” as she would call it. If asked about religion she would say it was a nice morality story to tell children and as an adult it served only to numb the masses from their crappy dejected lives. An opiate that one doesn’t smoke,sniff or shoot but one that you have to get down on your knees to receive. Nothing more than superstition and simplemindedness. She absolutely didn’t believe that it was God or Allah, or St. Whatsawhosit from Bumfuck . Nope, it was sc ience she would say. Science is the reson the hurling yellow taxi missed her bent and exposed body by only a few centimeters. It is because she has excellent hearing and that the synapsis in her brain firing and the adrenalin shooting through her system allowed her to move away. That is what she would say.

Exercise 22
I don’t understand why my mom won’t let me in the big room. I hate it here. I am bored with the toys I have and it smells funny. The smell of this place is old and hurts my nose. It is like a mixture between grandma’s house and when mommy makes sauerkraut. I keep playing with the long green threads in the carpet. I can tell everyone is really sad, but I don’t know why. My grandpa’s face looks dark and his eyes are all red and puffy. I just want to go into the room. I decide that I should just sneak in behind someone. A man in a black suit with a tie goes in and he holds the door for me. There is a big box made of fancy wood with lots of flowers. I don’t think anyone notices me as I walk toward it. I have to step up on a set of stairs that lead up to it in order to see in. At first I don’t recognize the cold, waxy face looking up from inside the case. Then I realize that it is grandma. I am confused and curious so I gently poke her skin. It feels cold and squishy like she is filled with jello. I notice that she is wearing her glasses. My grandma hated her glasses. She and grandpa fight all the time because she is suppose to wear them when she drives, but she thinks they make her look old. “I may be elderly Robert,” that’s what she calls grandpa Bob, “but I am not old. I will not wear those frumpy looking glasses out in public people will think that I am an ancient old bat.” I agreed with grandma, she did look silly in them. She was a really beautiful lady and they covered up her big eyes and her nice nose. I reach down into the case to take them off. Grandma shouldn’t be wearing them. She hated them. As I reached down my mom quickly grabbed my wrist pulling my hands away. She scares me and I think she is mad at me for trying to get rid of those glasses so I start crying.

Exersize 23
I was three years old when my grandmother passed away. She was a beautiful woman of remarkable character. My family likes to tell stories about her around Christmas time. When my father was a young man, a boy in Catholic school, he was a bit of a handful. He and his friend Billy Sustano from school were joking around during a geography lesson. Billy had grabbed some chalk from the ledge of the chalkboard before Sister Claire had gotten to the classroom that day. As she lectured, her face to the chalkboard, Billy began chucking small pieces of the chalk at other students and at the sister. This is my father’s retelling, so bare in mind that he is probably not as innocent as he makes himself out to be. Billy is ruthlessly throwing these tiny pieces of white chalk for probable five minutes. He winds up, throws a piece directly at the back of the nun’s head. He then dropped off the remaining pieces into my completely innocent father’s desk. Sister Claire sees this and beats my father’s knuckles until they are so black and blue that he is unable to hold a pencil. When my grandmother found about this she went to the nunnery and held the nun up by her throat decalaring in a voice full of a mother’s righteous anger that , “If you ever touch my son again I swear to God Almighty that I will end you.” She was the kind of woman who went to church every Sunday, who worked doubles to help pay for medical bills and new clothes. She was a child of the great depression and a mother to six. She worked hard and prayed harder. She loved her husband for forty five years, and helped his stay sober for thirty five of those. She helped her neighbors, her family and her friends. She was a remarkably beautiful woman inside and out. I wish now that I had known her, that I could see more of her in me. I don’t remember her strength, her courage or her hard work. I remember how soft her hands were and how she would read me my favorite stories over and over and over again without ever complaining. Even after she worked for ten hours, cooked and cleaned she would cuddle up next to me, pull me into her arms and read my favorite books again and again and again. I didn’t understand why everyone was sad. When my mother told me that grandma had died I didn’t understand what that meant. I know now that they were sad because they had lost a remarkable person in their lives. I know now how devastated they all must have been. I didn’t understand, in my mind I didn’t connect this jelly skinned woman to my nanna. I didn’t understand why she was laying there a wax statue. I really didn’t understand why those glasses were there. She hated those glasses, and if heaven exsists she is there probably still pissed that her husband and children sent off into eternity with those ugly old glasses.
Exercise 26
1. “Ma whatever you are makin’ smells sweeter than candied yams at Christmas time.”
2. “Don’t you think that there are other people to think about now? Well don’cha?’
3. “If you would pardon me for just one moment I have to kip inside to use the loo.”
4. “I need to ax you a question. Hey hey, I says I need to ax you a question.”
5. “You head straight down that there hallway and you take a right at the bubbler.”

For me the best poetry is written about important moments. I am not talking about graduation or prom or wedding days, I am talking about moments that are important to me personally. The ones that are important to me are the ones that are deeply personal, that bring back the strongest sense of emotions and memories. I like to talk about my family. The second two poems are about my grandfather, a man that was both beautiful and terrible. A lifelong alcoholic and cigarette smoker he was a man prone to violent mood swings. (Please note my childhood memory poem) Yet when I knew him we was old, and gentle. He was endlessly patient with me – teaching me chess and marbles, he waited as I learned to change a tire and change my oil. I wanted to capture a moment with him, one that is warm and beautiful – one that captures the man I knew and I wanted to contrast that to my last memories of him –dying and weak. I could have talked about the tubes, and machines, and maybe I will in a different poem, but what stuck out was how his beautiful, deep voice, changed into something ugly and scary. The next one was written in the prose poem form. It is pretty self explanatory, but I wanted to convey the loss of love that happened between my parents without being too explicit about it. The final poem, Yes. Yes. Yes. was based on the poem God Says Yes to Me by Kaylin Haught. This poem is not about something deep or personal. It is not about something that is deeply emotional. I liked the original and I felt like being irreverent and a little blasphemous.



Yes. Yes. Yes.
-Thanks to Kaylin Haught

I asked Madonna if it’s okay to be strong
and she said yes
So I asked if it was alright to be bold
And she said yep
I asked her if I can act like a virgin
Even though I’m not
And she said darling
In her British accent
She said darling
I do.
You can too.
Thank god I said,
And is it okay if I don’t match my socks
Or wash my dishes for days
Or if I’m selfish
Or if I finish the entire box of cookies
Or…
Baby, she interrupts me
(she does that sometimes)
Baby (she thinks its okay because she is Madonna and she is some sort of international super pop star who revolutionized the music, video and entertainment industry forever… whatever)
What I am telling you is
Yes. Yes. Yes.






Checkmate

He picked up the ivory rook
Gently holding it between his large,
Calloused fingers

Worn rough from heating homes,
Soldering guns
and ratchet handles

He moved the pieces deftly
And with one swift move he toppled my careful defense
Laying waste to my kingdom

I would lay on our old wooden floor
Listening to his voice
Warm like fresh laundry

It is hard to imagine that voice
That voice that wrapped around me
Destroyed by throat cancer

Gruff
Barely audible
Destroyed in one swift move

Checkmate.





“You Hold my Whole World in your Hands”

My mother wore the same necklace every day, a thin, gold chain from which hung a small glass globe. It took a week’s worth of overtime but my father finally bought it. He carefully wrapped the tiny bauble in a cotton handkerchief and put it in a simple black box. With it he wrote a note, “you hold my whole world in your hands.” As a child I thought that it must have been magic, the embodiment of my father’s love. When I cried my mother would nestle my against her collar bone and I would gently finger the simple chain. Whenever my mother was worried, or scared she would run the tiny globe between her fingers until the paint began to fade beneath her apprehensive fingertips. She would stand at the kitchen window rubbing at ten, eleven, midnight, one, two , three in the morning. She would wait and rub until my father fell in, singing loudly, smelling like Christmas trees. As the years went by I noticed that she didn’t wear it as often. First she took it off for a couple of days. Then she would only wear it on anniversaries or birthdays. Finally she never wore it, and my whole word would sit in a velvet covered coffin, collecting dusts.

I stole it once in seventh grade. I had a big presentation and I wanted to look nice. Somewhere between the bus stop and home the thin clasp broke and my world crashed to the ground. I didn’t notice until I got home, my mother never noticed.

Lesson Plan 3

Lesson Plan

Rationale:

Poetry can be used as a powerful tool for social justice. It allows authors and audiences to discuss, explore and think about major issues facing our world including racism, sexism, war, poverty. Spoken word poetry is a powerful way of expressing these issues.

Students will discuss example of spoken word poetry and then asked to write and perform their own versions.

In class we will discuss what makes a successful spoken word poem, what hinders poetry etc.

Students will then be given video cameras and asked to record their poem.

Spoken Word Poem

* Audio File to Come Soon *

Owe Him, Right?

"Please baby," he begs me.
His breath hot and wet against my throat.
His chin unshaven,
rough, leaving my skin red and screaming.
His hand insistent at my hip,
the other groping at my tits.
and I let me.

Because I owe him, right?
I owe him for his heart, kindness and might.
His mind and sensitivity
owe him for his help and generosity.

So I lay back, shutting my eyes and closing my lips.
His fingertips probe beneath my belt
cold, fast and impersonal
like getting me off is just a step to skip
another box to check off his to do list.

His lips smother mine, bottling up any protest that lay dormant there.
and I let him.
Because I owe him, right?

I owe him for dinner last night.
Because thirty dollars at the Olive Garden is enough for my silent subservience
Owe him for the dishes and the laundry
for his inconvenience.

So I let me.

He climbs on top of me and his once sweat
sweat fills my nostrils like vinegar
burning my nose and tongue.
His beautiful brown eyes closed tight against me
and I bite my lip until the taste of copper and salt fill my mouth.
Because I owe him, right?

I owe him for loving me.
Because a girl like me doesn't deserve a man like him.
Smart, sexy and successful.
I'm so lucky.
So I let my body sink into the mattress, forgetting about the twelve hours I put in that day
the books to read, the papers to grade
I forget about being tired or sad
or the shitty day that I had.

I ignore that I hate my ears, my arms and my ass –
because it is my job to let him smack at that.
I owe him, right?
So I silence my mind and its desperate pleas
and I turn around and get down on my knees
and pray to the God that he is and
be happy that I get to fuck him.

I owe him for never raising a hand or clenching a fist
like my father so often did
Yet I can't help thinking with every kiss of his lips
or stroke of his dick
he is leaving scars deeper than my father ever did
For he is crueler that dad ever was
shutting me up with a kiss and a plea
because I owe him for loving me.

This piece of spoken word poetry has a lot going for it. The young woman chose an appropriate subject matter for this genre of poetry - powerful, personal and meaningful. She has a very strong beginning, her word choice, rhythm, and language are all very strong. I particularly like her use of 15, "fifteen years it took me to learn a little about myself fifteen seconds it took you to look me up and down and judge me." She uses some very powerful images as well, specific and evocative. SOme of her more powerful images include, for me, brother dead in his bed and her mother's drug addiction. The strongest line in this poetry, in my opinion, is, "these scars on my arms are from their bladed tongues." I think that it is a beautiful use of figurative language - I think it is powerful and evocative. Most importantly I think that it is unique. Sh also uses repetition in a powerful way.

This poem is a bit scattered. I understand the desire to put everything on paper but I think the poem may have been more powerful if she had focused on only a few incidents and expanded on those. I think that her delivery was very strong at the beginning but seemed to become more and more rushed. Some of her lines could have been stronger if she had used pausing more effectively. I think that her rhyme scheme is a bit predictable, and a little pedestrian. I also think that she relied a bit too much on cliched phrases - "one minute in my shoes" "pain bottled up" "cry yourself to sleep" "shadow of fear."

Overall this young woman has a beautiful voice, and I admire her courageousness.

Lesson Plan II

Materials:

Several selections of poetry that display rigid meter
Bongos


This lesson is aimed at teaching students how to recognize meter in poetry. It gives students a concrete way of hearing the beat – and allows those that are kinetically/musically intelligent to practice those abilities.
Students will be asked to identify the meter in a selection of poetry. They will be asked to draw it out with the typical stressed/unstressed symbols. They will then be given a set of bongos to play it out to ensure they have gotten it correct.

A lesson in Haikus and Hike-Us

Children’s chalk red, blue
Rain falls down fast washing the
Colors, shapes away

***********************************************
Between two sidewalks
green sprouts up strong, alive in
the concrete waste land

***********************************************
His lips, velvet covered granite, silence my weak excuses quickly.

The soft clean scent of him remains even after long days have gone by.

His copper fleck’d gaze burns as I sit across the bar missing his kiss.

************************************************

His breath smelled sour, sweet, like pine, like childhood camps and Christmas fires.

*************************************************

I snap her scratching pencil, ahh, now I can finally read in peace.

*************************************************

License and registration please the handsome officer asks me now.

Lesson Plan

Sense Poetry Unit

Rationale:
Good writing begins with good observations. This lesson focuses on challenging students to observe something extraordinary in the everyday.


Activities:
In this lesson I will challenge students to not only see something but to smell, feel, taste and hear it. I will bring in a variety of everyday items such as tennis balls, snow globes, milk etc. and ask students to write what they observe.

Students will asked to write everything they can for each of their five senses.

They will then do a free write to think about childhood memories that involved that item.

They will then practice writing the childhood memory poem.

Prose Poem

I really should call more, but when the phone rings and the caller i.d. reads, “mom” I silence its shrill voice and return to the dishes. The water leaves my hands an angry red but I don’t remove them, instead I turn the hot water back on rising the temperature further. I’ll call her back tomorrow, I tell myself.

Childhood Memory Poem

Her paper hands brushed her silver streaked hair

curls whisper against her bare shoulder.

I held my breath. Stretching to the tips of my toes,

a streak of yellow light peaks through the bathroom door

she has carelessly left ajar.

In her hand she holds a mirror

the raised roses press into her pink palm

its edges dark from age, though not enough

to hide the soft, elegant line of her cheeks.

Nor blur the deep lines surrounding her mossy eyes.

Carved by laughter and worry.

From silly songs and first kisses.

From drunken husbands, passed out on the bathroom floor,

bloody fists beat against the door, “Let me in, dammit!”

From lost children, dead before they could speak.

She is so beautiful, even then.

It still smells like lilac and baby powder as I quietly

creep in.

I stretch to reach Grandma’s mirror,

It is still warm from her skin.

I need to use both hands, its heft too much for my tiny fists.

I stare. My plain face, the broad cheeks covered in freckles.

And I wish I was beautiful too.