Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Gibberish or Beautiful Truth?

After our day, yesterday, of sharing our own slam poems and watching a poem from high school students in the Slam Poetry Competition, we moved into the study of poet e.e. cummings. IN class, we read his poems aloud as a full group and in pairs, and it certainly seemed to us as though he had forgotten the rubric when he wrote his work!!

Yet, by breaking the rules of grammar and socials norms, did he actually convey a deeper meaning--a more powerful truth?

Here are the poems we explored by him (the first three poems in this linked document). 

Also, remember that we discussed how understanding poetry is like a child playing in a sand box. We need to grab a shovel and build with the words in the poems--see what they make and move them around and play with them! We want to be careful not to kill a poem by over-analyzing it. We want to play with the poem, read it and let it sit with us and talk about it with each other.

And today, we each have the chance to step into the shoes of e.e. cummings as we craft of our poems of 16 lines in the same style as e.e. cummings. Re-read the first three poems in the link above, and then try to make your own e.e. cummings-esque poem. Tonight, for homework, finish your poem and come to class ready to either share OR hand it in.

I am loving hearing your poems, and the best way to learn is to do--so we'll be writing all kinds and genres of poetry this week!

our word of the day yesterday was JAUNTY, which means excited, lively. And our word of the day today is ACRIMONY, which means bitterness (and the adjective form is ACRIMONIOUS, which means bitter).

Peace!

Mr. R

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