using repetitive lines to organize poems about family members
This lesson was presented at the 2007 Pinon Poetry Festival by Northern Nevada Writing Project Teacher Consultant Kim Polson.
The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: A Collection of Family Poems by Mary Ann Hoberman. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.
Washoe County teachers, click here to search for this book at the county library.
Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources:
Step one (sharing the published model):The poems in Mary Ann Hoberman's Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: A Collection of Family Poems, are all excellent, and any of them would inspire your students to write their own poems about family members. For this assignment, you can focus on the following poems, because they have interesting uses of lines that repeat:
The untitled poem on the very first page that starts with What is a family?
"My Uncle"
"Cousins are Cozy"
"My Father"
"Shy"
Have students talk about whether the repeated lines were used as introductions, conclusions, and/or throughout the poem.
Then, talk about the interesting details that are shared between the repeated lines. Call students' attention to the fact that the details between the repeated lines are not just ordinary details...they are extraordinary details, which is what your students should shoot for when they write their own poems
Step two (introducing models of writing): In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson. The groups will certainly talk about the idea development, since that's the focus of this lesson, but you might prompt your students to talk about each model's organization as well.
We're looking for more student samples for all grade levels for this prompt! Help us get some, and we'll send you free books for your classroom! Contact us at publish@writingfix.com for details.
Step three (thinking and pre-writing):The interactive button choices on the Student Instructions Page will certainly inspire your students to begin generating ideas for this assignment, but you can certainly create a class brainstorm that accomplishes the same without being on the computer.
To help students create more memorable lines in between their repeated lines, encourage them to brainstorm very unique details about their poems' subjects. The attachment below is designed to help students think of unique details.
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 poet Mary Ann Hoberman
by clicking here!
