Poetry Friday--Student Poems

photo via Unsplash

Helping My Mom Cook

I let my hands go on an adventure with cooking,

chopping away the evil monsters.
My cooking is like an adventure,
Turning the stove on,
and seeing the boiling water,
like lava.

When it boils,
the lava
is letting out all the smoke.
Turning the stove off,
and seeing the boiling water stop,
like the lava
stopped letting out smoke.

Then grabbing the plate,
like finding a map for the loot.
Finally eating the food,
like finding the loot.

by Sarkees K.

photo via unsplash

Snow

The white clouds
the frosty air the dazzling
snowflakes that fall from the skies

You can do all kinds of things
in the dazzling snow

You can make a snowman a snowball
you can also watch it snow

Don’t you feel the frosty air
don’t you feel how cold it is
don’t you feel how cold the snow is

It’s all because of the axis pointed
away from the sun, the indirect
sunlight.

by Shadman M.

In our pacing guide for 5th grade writing instruction, we've come back around to narrative writing. When I looked at what I'm expected to teach ("Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences precisely; use a variety of transitional words, phrases, and clauses to manage the sequence of events") it seemed like this work could definitely be done using the story telling medium of poetry. 

We began by brainstorming ordinary daily events. Even though video games are likely the most ordinary thing most of my students do on a daily basis, we didn't use those examples for our writing topics. We've also begun doing 5 minute quick writes at the beginning of most writing workshop times. This has seeded their writer's notebooks with lots of good material for their poems.

I was thrilled with Sarkees' poem about cooking with his mom. Without ever being taught about extended metaphors, he brought his adventure metaphor all the way through his poem. Sarkees wants more than anything to be a chef when he grows up. It is fun to see students' passions coming through in their writing.

Shadman's poem is so like him. He worked hard to be very poetic in his first stanzas, even including some repetition. But the logical, scientific side of him gets the last word in the conclusion, an echo of what he learned about the seasons in science earlier in the year.

Thank you, Sarkees and Shadman for sharing your poems!

Robyn has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Life on the Deckle Edge.

The Poetry Friday Anthology

The Poetry Friday Anthology: Poems for the School Year with Connections to the Common Core
compiled by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong
Pomelo Books, 2012 -- official release date September 1

The PFA by the numbers:

218 previously-unpublished poems by
75 poets.
36 poems for each grade level K-5 -- one for each week of the school year.
5 quick tips for each poem: bringing the poem to life, ways to read the poem with your students, open ended discussion prompts, a specific language arts or poetry skill that fits the poem, and a connection to another poem in the anthology or a different poetry book.
6 grade levels, all sharing poetry on the same theme every week throughout the year. The Week 1 poem in each grade level is related to the theme of "School." Week 8, where you will find my poem (squee!!!) "Bluejay Sings Two Different Songs," has the theme "In the Air." Week 26, K-5, is "Nonsense" week. Let's plan ahead for that one!
PLUS lots of poetry resources, and a special nod to Poetry Friday in the Kidlitosphere.

Teachers, you will want this book. You will need this book. You will USE this book.



Three cheers for Poetry Friday -- on the blogs, in the book, and coming soon to classrooms across the country!!

As for the roundup...I'll put together an informal one HERE. Don't worry about sending me links. I'll do a Google blog search and find you!