Poetry Friday: Heather McHugh's "U-District Incident Report"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brucerobertson/268063523/in/set-72157600024188903/

Today we are going to read a satisfyingly dystopian poem by Heather McHugh.

The poem really embodies much of what we've been discussing while we read, in particular the abuse of technology, and the latest issue we will raise: the absence of individual freedom. We are going to keep these connections in mind while we each work on our own versions of this poem, which we will narrate from the perspective of someone from The Hunger Games.

One more day until winter break, everyone! 

Let's finish strong!

-Mr. Thomas

Lost in Translation: A Poem in Nepali

 In Patricia McCormick's Sold, the main character, Lakshmi, learns to speak and understand a few key phrases in English.  It is this knowledge that helps her to escape from her life as a sex slave in India. For today's poem, we are going to incorporate some phrases in Lakshmi's native Nepali with those in English.

Basically, the vision of this poem is that it could serve as a little message from Lakshmi to someone who could help her. Using basic Nepali language, write an 11 line poem where Lakshmi tells the reader that she's in danger and that she needs help.

Format:

Line #1: Nepali phrase
Line #2: English translation of the Nepali phrase

Line #3: Nepali phrase
Line #4: English translation of the Nepali phrase

Line #5: Nepali phrase
Line #6: English translation of the Nepali phrase

Line #7: Nepali phrase
Line #8: English translation of the Nepali phrase

Line #9: Nepali phrase
Line #10: English translation of the Nepali phrase

Line #11: Line in English (What she really wants to say but can't with her limited understanding of English)

Please type your poem in a Pages document and send it to me this period. I will be conferencing with you over your Words, Words, Words common assessment papers during this time.

"The Message" by Grandmaster Flash: Connections to Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone

Today's Poetry Friday lesson takes us two places in time. One is the inner city of the early 1980's with Grandmaster Flash's famous song "The Message". The other is the civil war of the 1990's in Sierra Leone. Obviously, there are some serious differences between these two environments but there are also some elements that tie them together. War, chaos, unpredictable environments, loss of life and family, and governments who do not take care of their citizens.

Here is the video for this song:

After listening to this song and reading the lyrics, you all are going to locate quotations in the lyrics that relate to Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone. Then you'll create a blog post where you explain the relationship between the song and the book. Please include a picture that relates to the subject of this post.

Here is a student sample post for this assignment:

Student Sample

Star-Crossed Lovers Across Time

As we were reading Catching Fire last week, I kept noticing how often Katniss referred to herself and Peeta as "star-crossed lovers". This got me thinking about the characters Romeo and Juliet and their relationship as compared to that of Katniss and Peeta. And, the use of those words "star-crossed lovers" made me think of one specific part of Romeo and Juliet: The prologue.

For this Poetry Friday, you all are going to take the prologue from Romeo and Juliet and rewrite it to tell the story of Katniss and Peeta. Certainly, Katniss and Peeta are not the same as Romeo and Juliet. In fact, I think that they're much more interesting! Here is the original text of the prologue:

And here is a student sample from today's re-visioning exercise:

Two tributes, both alike in skills

In District 12, where they each have family.

From ancient traditions, new murders.

Where the blood of young tributes make Capitol hands dirty. 

From the start, the ill-fated lives of twenty-two other tributes

Are destined to be taken by these star-crossed lovers. 

Whose plans are overthrown by President Snow

And sent to face a second round of the Hunger Games

To face the former victors and the ghosts of their last game.

But this new game will cause the districts to rise,

Though lives may end before truly beginning,

A second time through pure Hell,

Watched by thousands of eyes across Panem

What these citizens miss may be a secret plot lost forever.

Hunger Games: Resume Poems

It's Poetry Friday. And, for Poetry Friday, I usually try to connect the poem we read or write back to whatever book we're reading and what we're doing in class. Well, in class we're reading Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins and we're learning about and writing our own resumes. Hm.

I had a brainstorm driving into work the other day. Wouldn't it be cool to write a creative resume for a character from the Hunger Games series? And, to take away the stiff resume form and use a more fluid, poetic one. I thought it would be interesting.

And it was. You all chose your character from this pool:

Katniss Everdeen

Peeta Mellark

Gale Hawthorne

Haymitch Abernathy

Then, you had to come up with an adress and a fake telephone or email address. Some of you were every creative in your email addressess.  Like i_heart_hunting@hotmail.com for Gale, bakecake@hotmail.com for Peeta, or shoot2kill@yahoo for Katniss. Uber creative!

Then, you went and created education, work history, skills, and references for your characters. These turned out to be great poems and great practice for resume writing!

Poetry Friday: Advice from Authors

Included through out Into the Wild are quotations from famous writers. Here are some inspirational words from men who loved nature and words as much as Chris McCandless. Today, you are all going to find some inspirational words from authors quoted in Into the Wild, select a quote from this author, and then turn the quote into a poem using some of the original words combined with yours. This way, your words will melt in with words from an inspirational author.

Here are two quotations from writers whom I admire:

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."
--Henry David Thoreau

After you've constructed your poem, create a blog post with an image that relates to it in some way. Go to this site for your image.

Here is a student sample poem.

Poetry Friday: Izumi Shikibu

During my National Poetry Month online travels, I was delighted to stumble across a poem from a Japanese poet named Izumi Shikibu. I conducted a little background check and found that she has a fascinating biography.

Her story reminded me of Romeo and Juliet in that Shikibu had a bit of a love triangle going on in her life. She was married to a provincial official and fell in love with the stepson of the empress, Prince Atsumichi. Much of Shikibu's poetry revolves around the passionate love affair with this Prince.

I can picture Juliet writing to Romeo with a similar passion. I'm pretty sure that Juliet would not be able to limit her poems to a mere five lines, as she does not show the restraint that Shikibu using in creating her poems.

Today, we read four of Shikibu's poems, discussed them, and then you all wrote two of your own using Shikibu's structure and flavor. I asked that you write one that relates to Romeo and Juliet and one free choice. Some of you chose to write another R & J poem, while others chose to write many more than two poems. Here are some pictures of your poems on sticky notes. We'll use these later for a blog post.

Poetry Friday: Love/ Hate Songs, Reconstructed

This week, you all worked to choose songs that would represent your predictions for Romeo and Juliet if they had stayed alive. Where would their relationship have been if they had lived into their twenties? Would they still be madly in love, would they resent each other, or would they have completely forgotten about each other and moved on to someone else?

Today, you all worked with the lyrics from your poems. I split you all up into groups of three and you worked to take the words and phrases of your songs and thread together to create a found poem. You were grouped based on your predictions and your opinions of which songs would work best together. The results were outstanding!

Here is one student sample (re-created by three talented 9th grade ladies) that I thought embodied the true essence of this lesson:


This song was created using "found" lines and words from the following songs: "Love Story" by Taylor Swift, "Check Yes Juliet" by We Three Kings, and "Today Was a Fairy Tale" by Taylor Swift. Good work!

Poetry Friday: Naomi Shihab Nye

When I decided to have install Poetry Friday as a weekly event, I knew that I was going to need some serious poetry resources. I needed a ton of poems to choose from because I had decided to now just offer up any old poem every week, but to choose one that related to whatever text we're reading. This may sound easier than it actually is. It's tough. But, I've expanded my knowledge of poets and poems tremendously in the past four or five months that we've been doing this.

One poetess that I knew about but did not yet completely love is Naomi Shihab Nye. I had read some of her poems before, but had not spent the time and thought on them that they certainly require. Last week, I was looking for some candidates for this week's Poetry Friday. I needed to find something that would relate to Ishmael's current situation in A Long Way Gone. Right now aid workers are attempting to rehabilitate Ishmael and his fellow (and enemy) soldiers. This is their first attempt at working with these child soldiers and it's not going super well. I wanted to find a poem that would capture the essence of what Ishmael must be feeling right now and what it will take to make him acknowledge the fact that his soldiering life is over and that he needs to become a child again, while he still can.

I found the perfect poem in a volume of poetry entitled 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. I had read this collection a couple of years ago and had not had the need or opportunity to return to it since. Luckily, I thought of it in time to find a fitting poem for this Poetry Friday. The one I chose is called "A Single Slice Reveals Them" and it's simple and beautiful.

Here are some links to student blogs, where students type out Shihab Nye's poem and explain its relationship to A Long Way Gone:

Student Blog #1

Student Blog #2

Student Blog #3

All three of these entries demonstrate an understanding of the connection between these two pieces of literature. Thanks for all of your deep thought! Such a wonderful way to end a week.