|
|
This Lesson's Title:
Quest Item Poems
a three-part poem about
standing on the road of life
This lesson was created by Northern Nevada teacher Corbett Harrison. Click here to see all of Corbett's lessons. |
This writing prompt inspired by
Jim Croce's song "I've Got a Name."
Click here to do a Google search for the lyrics.
|
Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :
Step one (sharing the song): Use the script below to share the stories of Theseus and Orpheus with your students. The fourth page of the script is a handout that you should Xerox for each student and, as prompted by the script, have your students sketch scenes from the story. The scenes your students will sketch are scenes from the early "life journeys" of two of the greatest mythological heroes.
After their fourth sketch, students will listen to the song "I've Got a Name," sung by Jim Croce, and they will discuss how the song could be about Orpheus, whose journey they have included among their sketches. Use the link in the green box at the top of this webpage to open and print a copy of the song's lyrics that students can look at as they listen to the music. After listening, students will create a fifth and final sketch that shows them standing on the road to life, about to embark on their first independent journey. Like Theseus and Orpheus, they will equip themselves in their sketches with two or three "quest items" to help them be successful on their imagined journeys.
|
Step two (introducing models of writing): Let students know that, based on Croce's song, they will be writing an original poem that has three parts. The entire poem will be about them standing at the beginning of the road to life, and each part of the poem will examine and discuss one of three quest items they will take with them.
To inspire them further, share with your students one or all of the original poems written by the students below:
|
Step three (thinking and pre-writing): The graphic organizer below should be passed out, and students should be allowed to talk to one other as each quest item they have selected is unpacked poetically on the handout. You might consider having a copy of the graphic organizer on the overhead, and as you go through each row, show how you'd think about answering the questions, which are not the easiest questions to answer.
After students have completed their graphic organizers, ask them to create a rough draft of their poems. Refer to Croce's song and to the student examples as they compose. Encourage poetic thinking to be included in their drafts. Students don't need to use every item from the graphic organizer when they write their rough drafts, but the graphic organizer--if completed--should inspire them to think poetically about their ideas before crafting a poem.
|
Step four (revising with specific trait language): To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts. Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5." Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings. For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.
|
Step five (editing for conventions): After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor. If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers. With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it. The "Community of Editors" idea is just one of dozens and dozens of inspiring ideas that is talked about in detail in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Workbook for Teachers.
|
Step six (publishing for the portfolio): When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block. Their stories might become a longer story, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the story they started here. Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this story as they get ready to publish it for their portfolios.
Interested in publishing student work on-line? We invite student writers to post final drafts of their original at WritingFix's Community of Student Writers. This is a safe-to-use blog for students and teachers. No writing is posted until it is approved by the moderator. Contact us at publish@writingfix.com if you have questions about getting your students published.
|
Learn more about singer Jim Croce
by clicking here!
|
|
