December 2, 2010

Bell-Ringer: Write a "Thirteen Ways Poem."  You need only six or more ways.

Thirteen Ways Poem

Computer Lab to work on our Children's books

Parent-Teacher Conference tonight 4:00 to 7:30 pm

November 30, 2010

Today students wrote Tritinas. These are free verse poems, each with a particular format.
Tritina comes from the Latin word for three. The poet selects three words that can hold much meaning. Those most important words are placed at the ends of lines in a specified pattern.
There are three stanzas and an envoy.
Find instructions for writing a tritina at http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/tritina.htm

Example:   from http://awrungsponge.blogspot.com/2007/06/beach-tritina.html

Beach Tritina

Rain, Sea, Sand

Mist rises up the beach at the edge of rain.
Surf fingers draw long scrolls of foam from the sea.
Three friends come from the city to walk across the sand.

It’s no mystery why they want to bury their toes in the sand,
Why they will drive for hours in the rain,
Why they are drawn to the sea.

Eyes fixed on the curling edge of a bottle green sea,
These three walk toward the surf over the shell-strewn sand,
Believing the sky will lighten, believing the end of rain.

They stand on the sand in the rain, staring longingly at the sea.

-Andromeda Jazmon
June 2007
 _______________________________________________

A Tritina  for Mom
You've always made time to check on me at bedtime
and to be there whenever I worry.
And I knew I could definitely count on a great dinner.

All right, so maybe I didn't always love the dinner.
And it's possible that you weren't there for every bedtime,
and there were plenty of times I made you worry.

But then, isn't it part of a mother's job to worry?
To alwayscome through, breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
And then, at the end of a long day, to be rewarded with a hug at bedtime?

I'm sorry I made you worry and haunted your dreams at bedtime, but I love you (and dinner, too).
-- by Marica Conley Carter -- from Nancy Atwell  -- Lessons That Change Writers



Another site for tritinas.

November 30, 2010

We read/listened to more poetry and students had time to discuss their children's books.

November 23, 2010

We wrote odes, read/listened to more poetry, and discussed the children's books.
Write an ode to a common thing.
http://tipdeck.com/how-to-write-an-ode

Ode to Fried Potatoes

by Pablo Neruda

Translated from the Spanish by Maria Jacketti

The world's joy
is spluttering,
sizzling in olive oil.
Potatoes
to be fried
enter the skillet,
snowy wings
of a morning swan –
and they leave
half-braised in gold,
gift of the crackling amber
of olives.
Garlic
embellishes the potato
with its earthy perfume,
and the pepper
is pollen that has traveled
beyond the reefs,
and so,
freshly
dressed
in a marbled suit,
plates are filled
with the echoes of potatoey abundance:
delicious simplicity of the earth.


Read more at Suite101: Pablo Neruda's Ode to Fried Potatoes http://www.suite101.com/content/pablo-nerudas-ode-to-fried-potatoes-a247885#ixzz16oJLXANp

Thirteen Ways Poem

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Wallace Stevens

---

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Document URL: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html

November 19, 2010

Found at http://johnjudyc.blogspot.com/2010/09/fractured-nursery-rhymes.html

Bell Ringer:  "Inspired By" Nursery Rhymes 

Today we are in Computer Lab 223.  This is your chance to finish typing your story for the child from Legacy. 
Also, I have added the photos I took that day to our wiki as images.  See the front page of our wiki for how to access them.

November 17, 2010

I just found a very cool site -- an online rhyming dictionary -- free!
http://www.rhymer.com/

Walter Dean Myers: http://www.adlit.org/second_chances#podcasts 

1. Bell-Ringer: Write an acrostic poem (or more) on your choice of subjects.  Each line begins with one letter of the word.

professional example:

EDITING THE CHRYSALIS
"At last, cried Butterfly,


Poised 
Over its
Empty chrysalis,
"My final draft!"
        by Avis Harley


2. Finish Love That Dog and write "inspired by" poems.


Children's books due December 2.

November 15, 2010

Bell-Ringer:


Computer Lab to work on  child's book

_______________________

extra credit:  Be the first to tell me what a "devil's strip" is -- after reading this:

The grassy area between the street and the sidewalk. This term is unique to the Akron, Ohio area.

The city can plant trees, or come and dig up the devil's strip without the permission of the resident that pays tax on this land. The "devil" in this case is a vague reference to the Tax collector/government in general.  

 

from -- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Devil%27s%20Strip

 

It is also called these names: 
verge, sidewalk buffer, verge, nature strip, tree belt, utility strip, planting strip, devil's strip, city grass, parkway, terrace --  depending on where you live