Poetry Slam Performances; End of Marking Period/Semester

Today we will go to the Ensemble Theater and continue rehearsing the slam poems. When called upon, please perform your slam poem; use the rubric to evaluate your peer's performances.

After we view the performances, please return to the lab in room 239 and complete your portfolio if you did not do so yesterday in Ms. Gamzon's class.

If you have completed all your work, you may chat or go online for whatever purpose you see fit today.

This ends the first semester of our course. Next week, we will begin Writing for Publication.

HOMEWORK: None. 

Slam Poem Performance Rehearsal

Please turn in your journals. These are due today.

After I check your journals in and return them to you, we will go to the Ensemble Theater and continue rehearsing the slam poems. While you're waiting for this to happen, rehearse your poems OUT LOUD with your partner!

If you will be absent Friday, please rehearse and perform your group poem today. Otherwise, we will perform our poems Friday in class on stage.

HOMEWORK: Prepare for your poetry slam performance. 

Slam Poem Project Rehearsal

Please use the rubric provided to assess and rehearse your poem slam project.

A Bird Made of Birds, Sarah Kay

Tips on Stage Performance, Sarah Kay

How to Memorize Spoken Word Poems (advice)

• Read the poem over, slowly. Read it to yourself, aloud. Read it to each other, aloud.
• Try to understand the mystery of why it works for you using the same words that pass by unremarkably every day.
• Try to understand the poem by understanding the poem inside the poem; to understand the mystery by letting the mystery retain its mystery.
• Read and say the poem over, slowly and aloud.
• Read and say the poem out loud together.
• Understand the poem by knowing every word’s meaning: etymological investigation.
• Dive off the line breaks themselves, into the abyss, cutting the shape of the page around the poem. The poem contains its opposite.
• Read and say the poem over, slowly, aloud. Feel its shape in your lungs, your heart, your throat.
• With an index card, cover everything but the first line of the poem. Read it. Look away, see the line in the air, and say it. Look back. Repeat until you’ve got it.
• Uncover the second line. Learn it as you did the first line, but also add the second line to first, until you’ve got the two.
• Then it’s on to three. Always repeat the first line on down, till the whole poem sings.
• With the poem now internalized, you are free to perform it

With your group, please use the time given to you in class today to work on and rehearse your slam poem for its performance next class, 4th period.

HOMEWORK: Work on preparing your Slam Poem draft. Also, tomorrow you will begin to revise, reflect, and work on your 1st semester Portfolio in Ms. Gamzon's class.

Journals are due Wednesday as well. The end of the marking period is Friday.

Slam Project: Preparation

Slam Poem Examples:

• "Lost Voices"
• "Simon Says"
• "When Love Arrives"

Slam Project.

Find a single partner to work with on this assignment. Please complete the following tasks:

#1: Learn some poetry terms*. Check the link and together, with your partner, divide up the definition for the following poetry terms (equally, that's 10 terms each). Write these definitions in your journal--and then plan to use some of them in your writing for this project. The list of poetic devices includes:

• Alliteration
• Allusion
• Anthropomorphism
• Assonance
• Chiasmus
• Connotation
• Epistrophe
• Euphemism
• Hyperbole
• Imagery
• Juxtaposition
• Litote
• Malapropism
• Metonymy
• Onomatopoeia
• Oxymoron
• Rhyme Scheme
• Synecdoche
• Synonym
• Verisimilitude

These 3 terms you don't need to write a definition for, but you should plan to use them in your poetry draft:

• Simile, metaphor, repetition

*There may be a test on these terms when you return from Regents testing week. 

#2: Look through the following pages on the action pages for this site. There are 3 pages. Pick a topic with your partner and learn how to write a slam poem of that type. See the models each topic gives you when you click the linked page for further details. Or choose your own topic after viewing some of these examples.

#3: Read the handout tips for poetry. Take this advice as you draft your slam poem.

#4: Together with your partner, write a draft of your slam poem. Your poem should be at least 10 lines in length and may be more.

• Make sure you share your file together. 
• Type your poem in Google docs and SHARE your file with your partner. 
• Make sure you both have lines and that you share the performance of your poem. Consider what gestures or repeated lines you might include to help you remember your lines.

Check the rubric for this project. Your goal today is to learn some poetry terms, choose a topic to write about, and write your draft. For homework, please memorize your poem. We will rehearse this poem when we return to school after mid-terms.

• "Shots Fired"
• "Rape Joke"
• "No Child Left Behind"
• "What Gender Are You?"
• "Cat Poem"

HOMEWORK: Memorize your slam poem that you wrote today in class.

Poetry: Day 3; Slam Poetry Collaborative Project

Please submit your poetry draft for writing credit in our Google classroom.

Let's start by writing today. Here are two prompts:

• Watch the following video performance Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou (write a poem draft for 5 minutes about something phenomenal, or write an ode praising women (or yourself). Or pick something that isn't often praised or celebrated and write an ode celebrating/praising it.
• Watch the following video performance What a Teacher Makes by Taylor Mali; write a poem about What a ______ makes (choose an occupation that doesn't get the credit or attention it should, or write about a favorite teacher you once had)--write a draft relatively quickly (about 5 minutes).

Poetry Reading/Performance: Please select 1 poem from the collection you are reading (your favorite poem from the collection) and we will read these out loud to the rest of our class. Take 5-10 minutes to select and prepare your chosen poem. When called, please come to the front of class and read the poem you selected out loud to the rest of us. Remember that effective performances include volume, eye-contact, gestures (if possible), and energy! Match the TONE of your voice with the TONE of the poem.

Period 4:

Slam Project.

Find a single partner to work with on this assignment. Please complete the following tasks:

#1: Learn some poetry terms*. Check the link and together, with your partner, divide up the definition for the following poetry terms (equally, that's 10 terms each). Write these definitions in your journal--and then plan to use some of them in your writing for this project. The list of poetic devices includes:

• Alliteration
• Allusion
• Anthropomorphism
• Assonance
• Chiasmus
• Connotation
• Epistrophe
• Euphemism
• Hyperbole
• Imagery
• Juxtaposition
• Litote
• Malapropism
• Metonymy
• Onomatopoeia
• Oxymoron
• Rhyme Scheme
• Synecdoche
• Synonym
• Verisimilitude

These 3 terms you don't need to write a definition for, but you should plan to use them in your poetry draft:

• Simile, metaphor, repetition

*There may be a test on these terms when you return from Regents testing week. 

#2: Look through the following pages on the action pages for this site. There are 3 pages. Pick a topic with your partner and learn how to write a slam poem of that type. See the models each topic gives you when you click the linked page for further details. Or choose your own topic after viewing some of these examples.

#3: Read the handout tips for poetry. Take this advice as you draft your slam poem.

#4: Together with your partner, write a draft of your slam poem. 

We will discuss the rubric for this project next class. Your goal today is to learn some poetry terms, choose a topic to write about, and begin writing your draft.

HOMEWORK: Finish reading your poetry collection. Write your slam poetry draft. Refer to any of these linked sources you did not get a chance to view during class. The more you learn, the easier it will be to write your poem draft. 

EXTRA CREDIT: If you have poem drafts that you completed today in class (or ones you have not submitted), you may submit these to our Google Classroom for your writing portfolio. 

Poetry Exercises: Day 2

Poetry exercises:

• Gather ye Rosebuds...er...words: flip through your poetry collection and stop 10 times and choose 1 or more words on that page that catch your eye. Write these words in your journal. Then continue to flip and stop and choose. Once you have at least 10 words, use the word bank you created to create a poem. Your poem should be at least 10 lines (if possible)
• Phrase spill. Choose a poem in your collection and write a word or phrase on the sticky notes given to you. Then, follow my instructions.  
• Shared poem. Select 2-6 peers in your area. Gather as a group. Each of you will select a line from one of the poems in your collection. Write it down on the paper provided. Hand your paper to the peer sitting next to you. That peer should do the same. The peer should read the line you just wrote, then select a line that continues the poem from THEIR collection. Then pass their poem draft to the next person/peer in line. Continue this until at least everyone has contributed to the poem. [You may add or change the tense of a word to make the line make sense if you need to]
• Watch the following video performance Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou (write a poem for 5 minutes about something phenomenal, or write an ode praising women (or yourself). 
• Watch the following video performance What a Teacher Makes by Taylor Mali; write a poem about What a ______ makes (choose an occupation that doesn't get the credit or attention it should, or write about a favorite teacher you once had)--write a draft.

One of your poem drafts should be completed today by the end of class. Please submit this poem draft to our Google Classroom for participation. Make sure you type up your poem draft--you won't get full credit if you don't type up your poem draft.

• Keep reading your chosen poetry book. Bring your poetry book back with you to our next class. Choose 1 poem from the collection you would like to read out loud to the rest of the class.

HOMEWORK: Submit your poem draft. You may, if you'd like, submit more than one poem draft from the poem drafts you wrote today in class.

Poetry Activities & Listening: Day 1

Let's start with some advice from poet John Lyons...John Lyons - Advice to Young Poets & here's some more unsolicited (unasked for) advice: Jeanann Verlee - Unsolicited Advice.

Poetry, above all, should be heard. It is like a song that buzzes in the air. Its power is in the hearing. Many poets are also performers because that is the original way we learned to love poetry--spoken word. Today and the next few classes we will be examining and listening to poets read their work and then we will also write and read our work to each other in hopes that we might make something we might call art.

Today you're going to read and listen to some professionals read their poetry out loud. Then after reading these models, you are going to write a bunch of crappy poem drafts of your own--some may even be good or even excellent!--and then, for homework, you are going to type up 1 of these poem drafts and turn it in for participation/writing credit. That's what's going to happen today.

Let's warm up with some poem examples/models. After our listening/reading, we will play around with some poem ideas and draft poems.

Let's read the following poems:

• Perhaps the World Ends Here - Joy Harjo
• Still I Rise - Maya Angelou
• Cinderella's Diary - Ron Koertge
• Vampire's Serenade - Dana Gioia
• In the Fifth-Grade Locker Room - Rebecca Lauren
• Bra Shopping - Parneshia Jones
• Blood Charm - Annie Finch
• Pause - Nikki Grimes
• One Art - Elizabeth Bishop
• Here - Arthur Sze
• haiku - Sonia Sanchez
• Good Girl - Molly Peacock
• Won't You Celebrate With Me - Lucille Clifton
• What I'm Telling You - Elizabeth Alexander

Inspired by these poems, take 15 minutes to write your own poem in a similar style. Choose one. Examine the poem's structure. Think about how it was read out loud or performed. Consider a similar or associated subject and write a draft. Write relatively quickly, without editing yourself. Aim for fluency.

If you finish writing early, you can try writing another poem, or you can read your chosen poetry book. Try to avoid bothering your neighbor who should also be writing or reading...

You may write in your journal if you'd like, but the draft you turn in for a grade should be typed. See below for more details.

Poetry exercises:

• Gather ye Rosebuds...er...words: flip through your poetry collection and stop 10 times and choose 1 or more words on that page that catch your eye. Write these words in your journal. Then continue to flip and stop and choose. Once you have at least 10 words, use the word bank you created to create a poem. Your poem should be at least 10 lines (if possible)
• Phrase spill. Choose a poem in your collection and write a word or phrase on the sticky notes given to you. Then, follow my instructions.  
• Shared poem. Select 2-6 peers in your area. Gather as a group. Each of you will select a line from one of the poems in your collection. Write it down on the paper provided. Hand your paper to the peer sitting next to you. That peer should do the same. The peer should read the line you just wrote, then select a line that continues the poem from THEIR collection. Then pass their poem draft to the next person/peer in line. Continue this until at least everyone has contributed to the poem. [You may add or change the tense of a word to make the line make sense if you need to]
• Watch the following video performance Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou (write a poem for 5 minutes about something phenomenal, or write an ode praising women (or yourself). 
• Watch the following video performance What a Teacher Makes by Taylor Mali; write a poem about What a ______ makes (choose an occupation that doesn't get the credit or attention it should, or write about a favorite teacher you once had)--write a draft.

HOMEWORK: Write at least 1 poem draft from the brainstorming exercises we did today in class. You can choose which draft or brainstorming activity worked the best for you. You do NOT have to turn in a poem draft you think is not good or doesn't show your work. Instead, choose a poem draft that you think turned out okay (or at least passable). Make sure you type up your poem draft--you won't get full credit if you don't type up your poem draft. Submit your poem draft on Friday to our Google Classroom. You may, if you'd like, submit more than one poem draft from the poem drafts you wrote today in class.

Keep reading your chosen poetry book. Bring your poetry book back with you to our next class.

Reading Circles; A Return to Poetry

Period 3: Welcome back!

This morning please gather in your small groups and share/read your humorous essays to each other. Finish the period (or until time is called) to discuss your best writing practices: answer/discuss:

• What do you do when given a writing assignment that helps you get started?
• What do you do when you hit a wall or stop writing and need to continue?
• What advice or tricks can you share with your peers about how to complete assignments?
• Discuss successes you have made this year so far in writing (pieces you liked or that worked for you, pieces you felt proud of, pieces you think you wrote well)
• As you share, take notes of these best practices from your peers in your journal.

Finally, as we gather again together make a New Year's resolution about your writing: what changes will you make to be successful this year? Write these ideas/goals in your journal.

Period 4ish:

Poems

If you think of poems as very short stories that usually focus on one or two strong images, you might come closer to understanding their power to evoke feelings. Other times, poems play with words. Like this one: 

It's all so complicated anyway... 

The problem with young poets 

is that you are too attached 

to your pain to see anything 

but the pain, as if you are 

wearing sunglasses inside

in a dark room filled with self

inflicted dark, dark thoughts. Sad. 

Sad.

Sad.

Growing up 

can suck. Yes. Or no.

Like a bent straw

that doesn't draw air. You are 

depressed. Empty like 

a glass jar. You are 

sad or mad or disappointed in 

people who, so far, let you 

down or leave you behind. You 

blame Your mother. Your father. 

Your friends. Your teachers.

God. Society. Your life. In which 

you have just been introduced, like

the new kid at school who 

wants to fit in, but doesn't

know which clique to trust. Or

If there's any reason to click on

or click off, to be or not to exist.

But you know it's only you. 

It's always been only you.

Which is why the words 

don't come when you call, 

like a cat that you want to pet

but can't. He won't come. 

Nothing comes when 

called. No muse. No use. 

Of course,

you feel dumb. Numb. It's 

safer to feel nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing. 

You feel

unsure and unsafe and unloved 

in your own awkward skin, partly 

because you cannot love yourself.

Like a snake who hates shedding

her skin, only to find more 

of the same skin underneath that

skin and 

nothing 

changes fast enough, but all is 

changing fast enough. The same old 

same old

nothing.

• Deer Hit by Jon Loomis. Note the use of stanzas in this poem. Why is the poem structured in couplet stanzas? The clues are subtly suggested in the story and conflict of the poem.
• Mother Doesn't Want a Dog by Judith Viorst. Poetry doesn't have to use fancy and difficult words. It's not supposed to be obscure. It's about human life. It can be simple and straightforward, but it should surprise us by the end. It should say things we've all seen but in a way that we never thought of saying before. Rhyme is completely unnecessary but sounds nice.
• Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market by Pablo Neruda. Of course, poetry can also use metaphor and symbolism to talk about what we love, what we lose, what dies, what lives. Subject matter for most poems is taken directly from everyday and ordinary life. It doesn't have to be about grand or cosmic things. It is grand and cosmic because it sees the ordinary in a new and extraordinary way.

Now it's your turn to try.

When asked, please go to the LIBRARY. Complete this activity with the time remaining in class:

A. Choose a book of poetry from the selections to read and study. Sign out the book and indicate on the list what book you chose (and the author).

B. Find a seat or corner in the library. Read your poetry collection selection. As you read, list themes, settings, ideas, etc. and capture cool or effective lines in your journal. If you like a line, write it down in your journal for later. Then keep reading.

HOMEWORK: Please continue reading your poetry book on your own. If you didn't complete part B of the assignment above, do that. Bring your poetry book to our next class. We will be using it.