Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the category “Teachers”

30 Apr 2013
6 Comments

Fare thee Well, and so it ’tis…


English: Daguerreotype of the poet Emily Dicki...

English: Daguerreotype of the poet Emily Dickinson, taken circa 1848. (Original is scratched.) From the Todd-Bingham Picture Collection and Family Papers, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

we part with such sweet sorrow,
the course is spent,
Come again Aprile as would t’morrow.

 

True–it’s over. Every day the Cricket has Mused her way through National Poetry Month.  Thanks for joining and I look forward to next year.  Thanks for the stop bys, comments, and new followers.

 

My favorite poems?  Certainly.  Glad you asked. Here a a couple I never tire of:

 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

 

254

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

English: Billy Collins at D.G. Wills Books, La...

English: Billy Collins at D.G. Wills Books, La Jolla, San Diego Deutsch: Billy Collins bei D.G. Wills Books, La Jolla, San Diego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Introduction To Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

 

Emily rocks. Hands down, she is ThE Poet who has changed the landscape of verse, that is except for The Bard.  Now, as for Billy.  He’s cool.  He is such a poet pro he’s even been named Poet Laureate (high honors, that). His “Teaching Poetry” always reminds me to NOT beat the snot out of a poem when teaching poetry.

What are your absolute all time favorite poems?

 

 

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Posted in Poetry, Teachers, Uncategorized, writers and tagged , , , ,
20 Apr 2013
11 Comments

Shaping Up Poetry: Found Poems


Found Poetry is another one of those amazing forms that tweak our known ideas of what poetry should look like or what it should be. So, today let’s look at finding poetry in unexpected places.

What is Found Poetry? (thanks Wikianswers)

A found poem is one in which words and phrases are taken from various sources and then strung together to make sense.

It is named because the elements which compose the poem are “found”. The words or phrases “found”, although they were written in totally different contexts and not meant to be used together, all have some kind of common theme. When placed together, they make a poem that makes sense.

Directions:

1. Grab any prose source (newspaper or magazine articles, ad flyers, instructions, directions, even textbook passages) and select a passage of 100 words or less.

2. Go through and find words and short phrases that have a “poetical” sound or are unusual or simply seem unique or interesting.

3.  If possible cut these out from the source, and if this is not feasible (some schools and libraries are picky about cutting up their books and magazines) write them down.

4.  Collect about 50 words and set them aside (roughly “find” about half of the original count 100=50).

5. Begin moving them around until the poem finds its way on the page.  One idea is to create the basic idea of the original piece. Found Poems can be typed out or formed into a collage.

Of course, these are basic guidelines and there is lots of flexibility to finding your own poem.  Here are a few examples demonstrating the creativity of this form:

First of all, go to Poets.orgto read a “legit” Found Poem.

Now, for some collage styles:

 

This is an example of  blocking out the words in the source (be source it’s okay to do so!):

One other example is taking prose, in this case an excerpt of a short story,  and finding a poem within it: (my rendered interpretation)

From “the Osage Orange Tree” by William Stafford
On that first day of high school in the prairie town where the tree was, I stood in the sun by the flagpole and watched, but pretended not watch, the others.  They stood in groups and talked and knew each other, and standing near the corner looking everywhere but at the crowd.

First Day
She stood lonely
as the tree
in the school courtyard.
Everyone busily
moving
and
greeting
one another
bridging summer into fall.

She stood alone,
like the tree.
I saw her.
She didn’t see me.
As you can read I didn’t follow my own directions of cutting the words down to half.  That’s the loveliest aspect of poetry–it’s aching to have its own rules broken.

Hoping you will find your own poetry in whatever prose you come across.  Finding a poem hiding within the everyday stuff words are made up of is a bonus.

Happy Poetry Month!

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Posted in creativity, Libraries, Literature, Poetry, Reflections, Teachers, Uncategorized, writers, Writing and tagged , , , ,
15 Apr 2013
3 Comments

Spoken Poetry


Poetry is an...

Poetry is an… (Photo credit: liber(the poet);)

Have you ever attended a Poetry Slam?  This  is where poetry gets to break out of its stuffy stereotypical silently read and reflected mode.  A Poetry Slam is where poets perform their poetry.  Recitation is accompanied by dramatics and the audience gets in on the action through rating the performance.  It’s amazing.  It will forever change your opinion that poetry can only be recited in dull monotones from a podium in front of barely stirring, half-asleep listeners.

One of my favorite Spoken Poetry artists is Taylor Mali. Not only was he formerly a teacher, he is one of the few poets who is actually making a living as a poet.  Go to his website or type in his name on YouTube for any number of his videos.  Much of his poetry deals with his experiences, opinions, and outlook as a teacher.  I can definitely relate to the subject matter–yet, his words reach to a wider audience as well.

His most repeated poem is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuBmSbiVXo0

We held a poetry slam at our local library a few years ago.  One of my students performed her work and left the audience, mainly middle-schoolers with a smattering of high schoolers, cheering and clapping.  She was supposed to go on the regionals and couldn’t due to her age (16). Who would have thought talent could be hemmed in by being too young?

Check out Poetry Slams and next time someone says poetry is boring you can plug in a Taylor Mali and then ask for their revised opinion.

Happy Poetry Month!

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10 Apr 2013

The Epicness of Poetry


Beowulf, The Iliad, and The Odyssey.  How could you get through public education and not have to study at least one of these? (Actually, I did–but that’s a different post). In our hurry-up world t’s not often we sit down and commit to reading 3,000 plus lines.  Welcome to Epic Poetry 101.

We tend to think of these triads of classic adventures as stories or myths.  Actually they are all poems.  Really long poems.  This is what makes them epic.

A brief pause…

Understanding Epic.

Today’s meaning:

image: suilynn.wordpress.com

Actual Meaning: (thanks Dictionary.com)

ep·ic

/ˈepik/

Noun
A long poem, typically derived from oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of…
Adjective
Of, relating to, or characteristic of an epic or epics.
Synonyms
noun. epos – epopee
adjective. heroic – epical

Back to our blog post…

Now that epic real definition versus epic contemporary understanding is out of the way, moving on to epic poetry will make much more sense. Epic poetry is epic because it is BIG. It’s big in scope, deed, theme, length–it’s just, well, epic (dude). Plus, it’s so big that it is italicized (or underlined or bolded) instead of the usually “quotes around poems” bit of mechanics.  Yup, this poetry is so big that it gets to change the punctuation rules.

Although technically I should address Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey first, I’m going with Beowulf, not so much because it’s considered the foundation of English literature and it introduces the dragon slayer archetype as well as mix pagan and Christian thematic elements–I choose it first because of Gerard Butler made Beowulf come to life for me.

image: tumblr.com

If you’ve never studied Beowulf, you should–don’t believe the Angelina Jolie version is Beowulf.  Nope. T’snt at all. Gerard Butler’s version isn’t either. So heads up Hollywood, we need a REAL version of this monumentally important epic poem.  Here’s to get you started…

Beowulf Key Facts ala Sparknotes:

full title  ·  Beowulf

author  · Unknown

type of work  · Poem

genre  · Alliterative verse; elegy; resembles heroic epic, though smaller in scope than most classical epics

language  · Anglo-Saxon (also called Old English)

time and place written  · Estimates of the date of composition range between 700 and 1000 a.d.; written in England

date of first publication  · The only manuscript in which Beowulf is preserved is thought to have been written around 1000 a.d.

publisher  · The original poem exists only in manuscript form.

narrator  · A Christian narrator telling a story of pagan times

point of view  · The narrator recounts the story in the third person, from a generally objective standpoint—detailing the action that occurs. The narrator does, however, have access to every character’s depths. We see into the minds of most of the characters (even Grendel) at one point or another, and the narrative also moves forward and backward in time with considerable freedom.

tone  · The poet is generally enthusiastic about Beowulf’s feats, but he often surrounds the events he narrates with a sense of doom.

tense  · Past, but with digressions into the distant past and predictions of the future

setting (time)  · The main action of the story is set around 500 a.d.; the narrative also recounts historical events that happened much earlier.

setting (place)  · Denmark and Geatland (a region in what is now southern Sweden)

protagonist  · Beowulf

major conflict  · The poem essentially consists of three parts. There are three central conflicts: Grendel’s domination of Heorot Hall; the vengeance of Grendel’s mother after Grendel is slain; and the rage of the dragon after a thief steals a treasure that it has been guarding. The poem’s overarching conflict is between close-knit warrior societies and the various menaces that threaten their boundaries.

rising action  · Grendel’s attack on Heorot, Beowulf’s defeat of Grendel, and Grendel’s mother’s vengeful killing of Aeschere lead to the climactic encounter between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother.

climax  · Beowulf’s encounter with Grendel’s mother constitutes the moment at which good and evil are in greatest tension.

falling action  · Beowulf’s glorious victory over Grendel’s mother leads King Hrothgar to praise him as a worthy hero and to advise him about becoming king. It also helps Beowulf to transform from a brazen warrior into a reliable king.

themes  · The importance of establishing identity; tensions between the heroic code and other value systems; the difference between a good warrior and a good king

motifs  · Monsters; the oral tradition; the mead-hall

symbols  · The golden torque; the banquet

foreshadowing  · The funeral of Shield Sheafson, with which the poem opens, foreshadows Beowulf’s funeral at the poem’s end; the story of Sigemund told by the scop, or bard, foreshadows Beowulf’s fight with the dragon; the story of King Heremod foreshadows Beowulf’s eventual ascendancy to kingship.

If you are up for reading the poem:

Gutenberg Project

If you want an entertaining analysis:

Shmoop

If you want to skip Beowulf and go to The Iliad and The Odyssey

New Post

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02 Apr 2013
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Frost Covered Spring


Robert Frost. My first meaningful encounter with poetry occurred in fifth grade when Mr. C (still my favorite teacher) had us memorize “Stopping By Woods” and then we chalked our impressions of the poem onto dark blue construction paper. These were then pinned all around the classroom as the border above the chalkboard. As I teach this poem to my students I learn more and more from it. Frost does that with his poetry. It appears so deceptively simple at first and then there is a realization of its depth. It can be almost embarrassing at times once the analytical epiphany hits.

But I can’t imagine Frost laughing at my denseness–no, he would probably only chuckle. I imagine he might even be amused at the fuss we make analyzing his commentaries on birches, walls, and the snowy woods.

Frost is one of my faves and thought it very appropriate to feature him first among the many poets I hope to spotlight this month.

Here are a smattering of favorite poems:
“Mending Walls”
“Acquainted With The Night”
“The Road Not Taken”
“Fire and Ice”
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

What are your favorite Frost verses? For some reason whenever spring arrives I tend to think of Robert Frost. Maybe this is fitting–a bit of Frost helps us appreciate the warmth of spring. I think he realized that as well.

Happy Poetry Month!

20130401-215741.jpg

Posted in creativity, Poetry, Reading, Reflections, Teachers, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged , , ,
01 Mar 2013

Reading Between the Lines


image: Walmart.com

I had no idea how wrong I was really reading until I read Thomas Foster’s book.  Okay, not so much as wrong, but unenlightened.  The catchy title hook of “a lively and entertaining guide to reading between the lines” is truly that.

Professor of English at the University of Michigan, Foster showcases his deep and wide literary knowledge through his delightful instructive on how to really read literature.  His style is as if you are sitting in on lecture due to its friendly, conversant tone. And yes–it is quite entertaining. If there were more literature professors like Foster we might have an overrun of English teachers in the population, then again, maybe the population would become more knowledgable about literature after taking his class.  However, if traveling to Michigan  is inconvenient, I suggest picking up this book.

Reading like a professor simply means gaining an understanding of  all those hidden nuances of that suddenly pop out in 3D once you know they are there.  Kind of like finding the Waldos in the picture once you know what he looks like.

Here is a smattering of chapters:

  • Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)
  • Nice To Eat With You: Acts of Communion
  • If It’s Square, It’s a Sonnet
  • When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare…
  • ….Or from the Bible
  • It’s Greek to Me

Foster provides the literary basics (themes and motifs; models; and narrative devices)and utilizes a tremendous variety of examples of genres ranging from Homer to Shakespeare to Toni Morrison (Foster has an absolute thing for Beloved). Succinctly stated, Foster literally reduces the intimidation of reading literature.

You can even test your newly acquired knowledge on the included short story “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield.

For those of you who prefer novels to literature you can check out his companion book:

This is one of those books I wished had been available when I was struggling with Melville and the like in college.  Future AP students be forewarned: expect Foster’s book on the summer reading list. A much better choice than Moby Dick (which you will be able to read once having read Foster).

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11 Feb 2013
2 Comments

The Little Write Lies We Tell


I think the best writing advice I have taken to heart lately comes from one of my latest reads, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  Francie, the protagonist, is a girl of poverty and determination. She begins writing stories that please her teacher, ones that are about butterflies and happiness, receiving praise and the coveted “A” grade mark.  She then switches to tell life how it really is, the heartache of tenement living, and this alienates her teacher.  Fortunately, her teacher sees the struggle Francie is faced with: the write truth does not mean the right truth.

Here is the advice she gives Francie:

“You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you’re making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth.  In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won’t get mixed up.”

 

Another author who swerves  from truthtelling into storytelling is Tim O’Brien, well known for his The Things They Carried.  I found a fascinating article from the United States Naval Academy, of all places, in which there is discussion concerning future military leaders and their discernment of what is truth.  The article relates this need of truth in leaders with a literary course with O’Brien’s novel as the text: (highlights are mine)

Fiction proves the golden means between absolute truth and absolute dream. It is impossible to ascertain the absolute truth of an experience, but it is nevertheless critical that one try to ascertain the multiple truths, to be “in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason,” and this challenge marks the human condition. Fiction is neither counter to nor identical with the truth, though given the exigencies of war, fiction often provides the best approximation of reality; as O’Brien writes in “How to Tell a True War Story,” “In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and therefore it’s safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true” (TTTC, 82). O’Brien claims that “My role is not to solve mysteries, but to expand them… To ultimately make readers think of their lives in terms of ambiguity. It’s the human condition and we’re uncertain about almost everything” (Hicks, 89-90). The storyteller takes the facts of experience and embellishes or even alters them in order to get at a closer experience of truth; O’Brien finds in fiction the possibility of expressing “that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (TTTC, 71). Thus, the capacity to tell a story, to make a factual account that leaves out the subjective experience into a fictional but seemingly more truthful account, is essential to understanding the experience of war for all involved and to beginning the long process of recovering from its damages and of correcting its failures.

A US Serviceman reading an Armed Services Edit...

A US Serviceman reading an Armed Services Edition of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Tell the truth. Write the story.

Anyone know if a poster of this ideal exists out there?  It would go well on my office wall.

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04 Jan 2013

The Ruing of Breaking


rue 1 (r)

v. rued, ru·ing, rues
v.tr.

To feel regret, remorse, or sorrow for.
v.intr.

To feel regret, remorse, or sorrow.
n.
It never fails.  About the time I begin to feel *normal* I go back to work.  For those of you who are not teachers I may not get much sympathy–after all, most of the world does not get large chunks of time off scattered throughout the year like educator types do.  Skip this post then.  I really don’t want to read comments about whatever am I complaining about getting almost two weeks off for Christmas Break.  This post is more about coping with the deprogramming I go through while on break.  I definitely feel regret, remorse, and/or sorrow; I rue.
Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t rue my choice of career.  I love teaching.  Some days I even like it (old joke).  What I rue is how intensely I view my career.  I don’t stop thinking school during my break and I am constantly forming  lesson plans, looking up new sites, checking mail (answering questions from students–yes, I will write you a reference letter), and refining old units as I create new ones. That creative energy, that inertia of teaching doesn’t just quietly wait for me in the classroom; it follows me home and won’t let me enjoy reading a book without marking a passage to share with students, I can’t read the newspaper without clipping out an article that underscores a lesson recently covered, and I’m unable to work on my writing because of all those teacherly cobwebs covering up my creativity.
Until today.  Today I woke up and felt like teaching is a distant memory, a fond reminiscence, something I once did.  Today I really got the urge to write, write, write.  New ideas, a resurgence of purpose, a desire to edit and revise and investigate new publishing opportunities.  Aah, then there is the crashing reality of it being Friday and knowing I return to the classroom on Monday, meaning writing will once again take a nestled backseat to my day, that is f I have time and energy after grading papers and configuring another day’s set of lessons.
Today is today.  Monday is Monday.  I shall not rue my break, only embrace the fact it gives me glimmer of what retirement might be like.
P.S. I found this documentary at the library: American Teacher. Wow! What an eye-opener.
To all teachers out there: January is that much closer to June. Hang in there!
Posted in Blogging, creativity, education, Teachers, time management, Writing and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
20 Dec 2012
3 Comments

Fully and Truly


christmas paint

christmas paint (Photo credit: cassie_bedfordgolf)

 

It has been a full week and there is one more day to go.  Monday a snow day (yay!), vocab tests, To Kill a Mockingbird completions, giddy (if not rowdy) teens waiting for Christmas Break to begin, Professional Learning Communities, paperwork, grading, parent meetings, and I would say I am fully and truly ready for Friday to arrive.

 

And so it is ever so nice to click on the notification link and see an award nom.  Ironically, my energy being at its lowest and feeling fairly blah around the edges as I countdown minutes to Christmas Break, Mary Meddlemore nominated me for

 

 

Thanks Mary!!

 

I’m supposed to nominate 15 other inspiring blogs and provide 7 facts about myself…and now that you know how my week has been I know you will let me off the hook.  At least until the weekend?  Great.  Thanks.

 

Until I rally more energy and time I send hugs and luvs to all out there because I know I am not the only one who feels a bit bruised around the edges this week.

 

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Posted in Awards, creativity, Teachers, time management, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged , , , ,
14 Dec 2012
4 Comments

Getting Lively with Dead Poets


Poetry

Poetry (Photo credit: Kimli)

Tuesday marked the start of our AP Poetry Unit.  I am so excited we are finally onto poetry!! Poetry is the curry of prose.  It’s the sprinkles found in exposition.  It’s the center of the Tootsie Pop because it’s that delightful surprise unexpectedly found in the middle of the everyday. 

Poetry is not just rhyme.  It’s not just meter.  It’s not slavering on about metaphor and simile.  It’s bounce, giggles, shock, and awe.  Poetry is the dance of words.  Poetry is that note of praise found nestled in the staunch flow of sentences, paragraphs, and text.

It’s sing.

It’s song.

It’s the azure found in the sky.

It’s the You before I.

It’s older than the page before you.

It’s Homer before he became a Simpson.

And the Dead Poets are the best because their words formed the path for the rest.

Oh, hello Emily, Robert, William, Byron, Coleridge, Sylvia, Langston, Gwendolyn–I’d like you to meet my students.  I’ve been telling them about you.  I can’t wait for them to know you like I’ve gotten to know you.  And I can’t wait to learn more about you as I learn from my students.

Poetry. Word colors of our world.

when I said "I ate all your tootsie pops&...

when I said “I ate all your tootsie pops” (Photo credit: hmmlargeart)

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