So Theresa Boyar and I did a little poetry workshop at our kids' school today, with two groups of kids, one grades 1-2 and the other 4-5. What I didn't know going in was that attendance was voluntary, so of course when I found that out, I immediately thought nobody was going to come.
We filled the tables in both sessions. Theresa sparked the kids with a great exercise. She was really open and warm with the kids and they responded with some fun/amazing/unselfconscious poetry.
I had so much fun I would do it every day of the week if they would let me. Thank you thank you thank you to the school librarian for inviting us! Librarians are now and have always been (except the one at Central School in the 70's -- sound the sturm und drung) some of my favorite people.
One kid said we should publish our books with Harper Collins because her dad works there and she could get them for free. In my dreams!
2 comments:
Hi Anne! I tried to leave a comment earlier, so if I end up leaving two, please forgive me.
What lucky kids! I would love to see something like that in my daughter's school, but I suspect it won't happen unless I make it. What kinds of exercises did you use?
I just discovered this past week that Scholastic has a poetry writing 'workshop' on their website, complete with a poetry machine that allows kids to jump quickly into wordplay and create their own poems. My daughter (she's 5 and in the 1st grade) has become addicted to it. There are mini lectures and exercises from published kids' poets as well.
Hi Sharon! There are a lot of good exercises out there, but given our time constraints (20 minutes!) we opted to get the kids' ideas rolling about what writing can be used for (learn, teach, tell, share, etc.) and then did the real simple "I remember" exercise. We answered questions, read some examples and then let them go, circulating around the room to help the ones with whom the muse flirted but did not speak. ;)
The kids will have the opportunity to complete and/or redraft their work, and we will print them all in a booklet and on a large poster to be displayed in the main hall.
Thanks for the tip on the website, I'm going to go check that out!
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