Thoughts on Teaching and Learning: May 1

Over the past several weeks, I have found myself doing a lot of reflection trying to get this online teaching right.  I keep meaning to get my thoughts on paper but then get caught up in the day-to-day work of teaching in this pandemic era.  I know if I can catch my breath, there is a lot to learn and reflect on during this time. So, I decided that every day in May, I will share my thoughts on Teaching and Learning.  This is Day 1.

Today I am feeling thankful. Thankful for the community of educators who are working so hard to make these months right for our students and to support each other.  I have always relied on thinking with others and I've always believed strongly that none of us can do this work alone. I noticed right off--after saying goodbye to my students not knowing when we'd be back in our classroom--how much I relied on colleagues.  When I found myself planning and teaching alone in my house, I missed thinking with others almost immediately.  I realized how often a 2 minute conversation in the hallway helped me make sense of something and helped me know what to do next in the classroom. I realized quickly that I would need to figure out how to make collaboration happen during this time when all of every educator I knew was busy just trying to keep up and figure this out.  I have relied on so many people to figure out how to do this online teaching and to keep up my energy and hopefulness during these days stuck at home.

I am in awe of all of the sharing and support we are giving to each other and I am so thankful for it. It is truly amazing what we have accomplished together.

I am thankful for Antero Garcia, Detra Price-Dennis and the entire NCTE staff for hosting Member Gatherings each week. When I've been able to attend these gatherings, they have been nourishing and inspiring.

I am thankful for NCTE Ambassadors, Christina Nosek (@ChristinaNosek) and Michelle Rankins (@MichelleRankins), for hosting an NCTE Social Hour that was an hour of self-care that was truly needed.

I am thankful for my Zoom Book Club. After weeks of not being able to read (even though I had plenty of time), I have gotten my reading life back:-)

I am thankful to Mary Lee for her month of poetry. Each one of Mary Lee's poems has helped me make sense of these days and all I have been feeling.  Especially this one.

I am thankful for the authors who have shared lessons, read aloud and been so generous with their time.   And I'm thankful for all of the publishers who have revised policies so that teachers can share books with kids online. And a big thank you to Kate Messner for curating all of this for us, so that we could find everything we need in one place.

I am thankful for Julie Johnson, Mary Lee, Ann Marie Corgill (@acorgill)  and Clare Landrigan who spent more time than I think they probably wanted to helping me think through choice and agency in these early days of distance learning.  Having colleagues who helped me figure out how to stay grounded in the things that are most important--how can we do this work without that?

Thank goodness for group texts --I can't imagine doing this work without being able to text my 5th grade team and local colleagues to get ideas on resources, think through a lesson, figure out a tech tool, etc.

And thank you to the all of the teachers who are writing and sharing their journeys so that we can do better-- Kristin Ziemke and Katie Muhtaris, Stella Villalba, Aeriale Johnson, BernNadette Best-Green, Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle.

I am so thankful to have rediscovered our National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman. If you have not watched and rewatched "The Miracle of Morning", you must. I have watched it several times over these last couple of weeks.

And I am so thankful for this new gift from Katharine Hsu--LemmeTryThat--reminding me about balance and to make time for joy and hobbies and fun. Her weekly newsletters and social media post are fabulous.

As I said early in this post, I noticed during those first few days at home--after we said goodbye to our students not knowing if we'd be back to school--that I have never taught alone. That it is the thinking together that helps us do the best job we can for our students. I worried so much about how that would happen during those first few days planning alone at my kitchen table. But I shouldn't have worried. Our educator community is one I've always been proud and grateful to be part of. I can say that now more than ever.

Poetry Friday -- Highlights of The Flipside

I had a lot of fun with this year's National Poetry Month poems. Early in the month I started writing etherees, inspired by Liz Garton Scanlon's video lesson.


Gratitude
I
give thanks
for the clouds.
Yes, the same ones
that spoiled your picnic,
that rained on your parade,
that flooded the soccer field.
I am thankful for clouds because
without them there'd be no rainbows, and
behind them there will always be blue skies.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Now, More Than Ever
Breathe
in hope,
then exhale
your gratitude.
Remember these truths:
students over standards,
patience over procedures,
compassion over compliance,
care over content, and grace over
gimmicks. We must humanize our teaching.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Fifth Grade Lessons
You're
only
eleven
and you're learning
life requires you to
(first and foremost) show up.
Read directions, do your best,
ask for help, give help when you can.
Put one foot in front of the other.
Never take "ordinary" for granted.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020



I wrote lots of haiku (sometimes that's all the brain space I had after a day of online teaching). Inspired by Jarrett Lerner, I kept a haiku diary for a day:

Haiku Diary for April 15

I wake up whiney

the sameness of every day

I'm on my last nerve

exercise, shower

a mug of hot tea, breakfast

sun peeks through the trees

my heart pumps, blood flows

lungs reliably inflate

some sameness is good

going to work means

down the hall into office

alone/together

Google Meet is fine

but like all the rest of life

you have to show up

food delivery

a small thing for us to do

makes a big difference

lunchtime luxury

listen to a podcast

nurture my spirit

hours and hours of screens

my brain is totally fried

the cure is ice cream

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Here are two of the stories I told. The first one is 100% true, but the second one is mostly fiction. In the first stanza, I am the Grandma, the second stanza is me, the third stanza is fiction (after the first line, anyway!), and the fourth stanza is where I was and what I was doing when I wrote the poem.

I Have a New Friend
I have a new friend.
We've never met.
She chalks art and exercise challenges on the sidewalk.
She leaves the chalk out.
I write and draw my thanks.
Her chalk sticks became a pile of chalk pebbles.
I left a package on her porch --
Highlights magazines and gently used sidewalk chalk.
She left a package on my porch --
coloring pages, crayons and markers, four Cra-Z-Loom bracelets.
And a note.
I have a new friend named Annie.
We've never met.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Lunch

When Grandma was a girl
she sometimes walked home from school for lunch.
She remembers grilled cheese and tomato soup,
kidney beans and cheese on toast,
peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

Now that school is in my house,
I eat lunch at home every day.
I like to eat the same thing I did at school --
pretzels and a cheese stick, veggies and a fruit.
Keeping lunch the same helps me remember the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was loud and messy.
I traded pretzels for bites of sushi or mini Oreos.
After lunch was recess. I miss recess --
the swings, the big toy, even the muddy soccer field.
I even miss indoor recess.

Sitting on my porch
eating my not-a-school-lunch
at home-is-now-school,
I close my eyes in the sun, listen to the birds,
and remember everything I miss about school.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Liz has the Poetry Friday Roundup for today at her blog Elizabeth Steinglass. Happy May!

Nothing Gold -- After Robert Frost

Nothing Gold
after Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold
or, in the case of that bush
with its six inches of new growth,
red.

Or, in the case of that forsythia
on the south-facing side of the house,
an unbelievable shade of bright
yellow.

Or, in the case of those new shoots
knifing up from exposed iris bulbs,
a simultaneously fragile but violent
green.

All these early hues
in leaf, in flower
hard to hold as the earth moves
along its path
hour by hour
by day by day
by season by season,

not so much subsiding
as being subsumed
in the golden Eden
of Life.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019


The first draft of this poem happened in one of our five-minute quick-writes in writing workshop this week. Another reminder that these small rituals are powerful not just for our student writers, but for our own writing lives.

I have a love-hate relationship with Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. I landed in the honors program at the University of Denver based on good grades in a sub-standard rural high school. I was over my head in so many ways. There was so much I didn't even know I didn't know. A professor attempted to teach me how to craft a critical essay by humiliating me -- by showing me the work of a classmate who was already clearly on the path to his fame as a writer. Then he asked me if this poem by Robert Frost was hopeful or hopeless. My humiliation had turned to stubborn anger, and I argued that the poem was hopeful. And then I figured out on my own how to be the kind of writer I wanted to be.

It was that experience more than any other that taught me how to teach the writer, not the writing. Every writer can move to the next level, but you can only begin from where they are the moment they show you their own work.


Rebecca has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Sloth Reads, and how perfect is that? Tomorrow is National Goof Off Day, when our spring break begins!

Celebrating Amy Ludwig VanDerwater!

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Will Clayton

Even though our blog birthday was on January 1, we are celebrating it all year! On our 8th Birthday, we decided to celebrate 2014 by celebrating others who inspire us every day. Each month, on the 1st (or so) of the month, we will celebrate a fellow blogger whose work has inspired us. We feel so lucky to be part of the blog world that we want to celebrate all that everyone gives us each day.

This month, we are celebrating teacher and poet, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater! Her blog, The Poem Farm, is an amazing poetry and writing instruction resource for teachers. On the "Find a Poem" page, Amy has all the poems on her blog indexed by topic and technique. There is also a link to her amazing A-Z Poem Dictionary Hike, her 2012 National Poetry Month poem-a-day project.

Amy shines a spotlight on teachers and students and the poetry work they are doing in the classroom. On her "Poetry Peek" page, you can visit the classrooms she has featured.

If you and/or your students keep writer's notebooks, you will want to check out Amy's other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks. In the introduction, Amy writes,

"Hello, nosy friends! This blog is written by many different notebook-keepers, highlighting pages from a variety of notebooks: paper, digital, napkin, any kind! Read here, and learn how students, authors, artists, teachers, and people of all types use notebooks to strengthen their thinking. After reading, you might wish to try something new in your own writing, drawing, thinking..."

Amy is the co-author of one of Lucy Calkins' Units of Study writing guides, and is in the midst of a beautiful swan dive into the crystal blue water of children's book authoring, with one published (Forest Has a Song) and FIVE more forthcoming.

If you read Amy's blog or follow her on FaceBook, you know that besides being a poet, writer, and teacher, she is mother of three, wife of a science teacher, and very much the farm girl of her blog's Poem FARM name. And you know that one of her (and her family's) passions is rescuing and placing orphaned cats and kittens. Although it veers a bit from our typical donation to a literacy or child-based organization, it just feels right to donate this month, in Amy's honor, to Colony Cats, a local organization that rescues cats as well as practicing TNR (trap, neuter, release) to support the feral cat colonies in the Columbus area. The cat who generously lets AJ and me share his house is a former Colony Cats rescue cat. He gave a twitch of his tail as the sign of his approval of this donation.

Our Wonderful World.30

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

30. People

Carol Wilcox at the Denver Botanic Gardens

Our Wonderful World

When
and
where
and
how
and
what
are absolute and true.

But none of it would matter much
without the likes of you.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

WHEW! We made it! A month of wandering the world, wondering about wonders, and writing poetry. 

Awards for collaboration, commitment, camaraderie and creativity go to Carol Wilcox and Kevin Hodgson. We stayed together through thick and thin, through narrative and haiku, through rhyme and free verse. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on this journey with me! 

There are wonders to be found everywhere we look in our world. The ordinary variety can be found close to home. Scattered throughout the world are ancient, modern, engineering, and natural wonders amazing enough to make "The Lists." 

But none of the wonders experienced on their own are nearly as wonderful as they are when you can ooh and ahh with a fellow wonderer. It's this realization I tried to capture in my Hallmarkian poem today.

Thank you Carol and Kevin for writing with me EVERY single day (and also to Carol V., Catherine, Collette, Margaret, and Jone for joining in occasionally).

Kevin has a sound poem, "The Wonder of People," with which to end our month.

Carol has two poems today, one for the Poetry Club, and one for ME! Thanks, Carol!!

Happy National Poetry Month 2014!

A Melissa Stewart Week

One of my goals this year was to find more nonfiction authors and series that I knew and loved.  I realized that there were so many fiction series and authors I knew and loved, but that was not true of nonfiction. I tend to talk to my students about nonfiction differently than I talk about fiction. I tend to talk topic and rarely know the author. I also hadn't realized how important nonfiction series books could be for upper elementary readers.  So I knew I needed to find more of those.

This week, I realized just how much I love Melissa Stewart.  I knew that I liked her and her name was one I knew as a nonfiction writer, but until this week I had no idea just how many amazing nonfiction books she has written for upper elementary students.

Here is how it happened.  I have a student who loves sharks, dolphins and ocean creatures. I am always looking for new books for him and I happened upon Shark or Dolphin?: How Do You Know? (Which Animal Is Which?) I am trying to add books that are meant to be read cover to cover and this one looked perfect.  I noticed that it was by Melissa Stewart so I figured it must be good. I ordered the book and noticed there were lots of other books in the series. I decided I'd check it out before I ordered the others. Well, the book arrived and it is amazing.  Each page compares a feature of sharks and dolphins and tells how they are different. The text is accessible and the book is packed with information. Even for readers who know lots about sharks and dolphins, my bet is that there is something new in this book! This is definitely a series that belongs in elementary classrooms so I ordered a few more.

A few days later, the book Feathers: Not Just for Flying arrived from Amazon. I forgot that I had preordered it when I read a review for it online.  (I don't often preorder books but this one sounded too good to miss and I was afraid I would forget about it.)  WOW! What an amazing read. Again, Melissa Stewart organizes the information in a way that is accessible, yet packed with information. The book goes through the many uses for feathers--who knew? She gives specific examples for each way feathers are used and the illustrations by Sarah S. Brannen are a perfect match.   I hadn't paid attention to the author when I preordered the book, so when I saw that it was Melissa Stewart, I noticed a little pattern.

The next day, my Scholastic Book Club order arrived. My students didn't order this month but there were a few things I wanted for the classroom. One item I purchased was a set National Geographic Readers set with books like National Geographic Readers: Dolphins. They seemed like a good addition in terms of topic and accessibility and I've been so impressed with everything National Geographic lately that I added them to my order.  What a surprise that every book in the pack was by Melissa Stewart? (and that I noticed!)

Finally, my kids have been reading lots of books in our "Birds" basket.  We have a bird watching area at our school that we are starting to help out with so they've been very interested in anything birds. I have a decent collection of books in this category as it goes well with our science too.  As I was straightening up the basket, I noticed A Place for Birds, a newer book in the basket and noticed that it was again by Melissa Stewart!  Browsing online this week, I realized that this too is part of a series--the A Place For series.  I will definitely have to check more of these books out.

And today, as I was writing, I popped online to see if there were possibly any more great titles I was missing by Melissa Stewart and it seems there is a Good Question Series (How Does a Seed Sprout?: And Other Questions About Plants (Good Question!) that looks like another perfect series for this age.

Finally, I visited Melissa Stewart's website today so that I could link it for this post and again I was floored. Not only does she have a great website with great information. But she has videos that share her revision timeline, video minilesson and more. Her website is a treat in itself. I am trying so hard to do a better job of nonfiction craft minilessons in writing and I am so happy to have discovered these videos!

Really, Melissa Stewart's work is amazing and even though I knew it before, I didn't realize how many things she had that are incredible. Because she has different illustrators and because some of her books use photos while others use illustrations, it isn't obvious to a reader like me that she is the author. I am so glad that these Melissa Stewart events happened so I could finally see her entire body of work and make the connections. This experience made me realize again how little attention I've paid to nonfiction authors' names as I read and share nonfiction with my students.  So glad to see that is changing. Melissa Stewart is definitely one of my favorite authors for nonfiction in elementary classrooms!

Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations.26

Creative Commons photo by Brocken Inaglory. The image was edited by user:Alvesgaspar
From Wikimedia Commons Featured Images: Natural Phenomena

BUBBLE

thin 

skin:

just

water 

and 

soap

clear sphere:

a vessel 

of hope

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

From Kevin (Kevin's Meandering Mind):

Hold me gently:

fingertips touching tender skin;

for inside,

I remain invisible

and vulnerable to the way things have been.

I float above this world,

in a cloak of color

but my rainbow drains easily,

so be gentle.

©Kevin Hodgson, 2013

The podcast for this poem is here. 

From Carol (Carol's Corner):

"Soap Bubble"

A gentle puff
rainbow carriage
appears
dancing
shimmering
glimmering
inviting me
to journey
to a magical
far away
fairy world.

(c) Carol Wilcox, 2013

From Margaret (Reflections on the Teche):

To see life
in a bubble
like a looking glass
transparent
spherical
silky
slide across
slip inside
pop
fly!

©Margaret Simon, 2013

From Lisa (steps and staircases):

Chalk bubbles offer an invitation to draw.

and a haiku:

Bubble reflecting
my home, my world, me; this day
an island in time

©Lisa

From Cathy (Merely Day by Day):

Bubbles

Bubble, Bubble,
blow, blow.

Bubble, bubble,
grow, grow.

Bubble, bubble,
soar, soar.

Bubble, bubble,
more, more.

Bubble, bubble,
fly, fly,

Bubble, bubble,
high, high,

Bubble, bubble,
drop, drop,

Bubble, bubble,
Pop!

Pop!

©Cathy Mere, 2013

Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Writing the World for Kids.

Here is the other media I've featured this week (and, of course, the poems the media inspired--poems by me, and by the three or four other people who have been playing along with me this month):

Thursday: Photo of Broadway Tower

Wednesday: Video of a Sushi Train 

Tuesday: Sound of Birdsong

Monday: "Irises" by Vincent VanGogh

Sunday: Animation of a Rubik's Cube (edited to add a video made by one of my students of him solving the cube in under 20 seconds)

Saturday: Old Map of San Antonio, TX

The theme of my 2013 National Poetry Month Project is 

"Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations." 

Each day in April, I will feature media from the Wikimedia Commons ("a database of 16,565,065 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute") along with bits and pieces of my brainstorming and both unfinished and finished poems.

I will be using the media to inspire my poetry, but I am going to invite my students to use my daily media picks to inspire any original creation: poems, stories, comics, music, videos, sculptures, drawings...anything!

You are invited to join the fun, too! Leave a link to your creation in the comments and I'll add it to that day's post. I'll add pictures of my students' work throughout the month as well.

Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations.20

Map of San Antonio, Texas
(Image is in the Public Domain, from Wikimedia Commons)

For the third Saturday in a row, I am not at home, enjoying the leisure and luxury that is sometimes known as Saturday. 

I am in San Antonio, Texas at the International Reading Association conference. As I'm out and about today, I'll be thinking about San Antonio's past, the river that runs through it, and maybe those flat, dry plains that spread to the horizon from its edges. Maybe today's image is about the known and the unknown. So many possible directions to go with your writing, when you've got a map in mind.

winding ribbon of water

fed by natural springs

lined by hundred year-old cypress trees

polka-dotted by restaurant umbrellas

serenaded by mariachi bands

cruised by tour boats

beloved heart of San Antonio

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

From Linda (TeacherDance):

In My Mind’s Eye
This older map
of straight lines
hides the crooked stories
of the past:
in the houses
down the street,
next door,
across the way,
in the alley,
catty-cornered,
in the park,
third floor,
a street away,
at the second stop sign,
along the river,
just out of town.

I just need to look
and imagine.

© Linda Baie, 2013

From Kevin (Kevin's Meandering Mind):

Heading left,
I turn right;
North then south,
then easterly towards the wildest west,
until the present fades from view
into the past,
sepia-toned and yellowed with age.
The color drains
out of experience
as I dig deep into the stories
sunk down deep into the grids
of time.

©Kevin Hodgson, 2013


From Cathy (Merely Day by Day):

the river
ever moving
meanders
surrounded by trees
watching
listening to the stories
that envelop it
for centuries
it babbles
gurgles
yet keeps many secrets
the river
ever moving
yet eternally entrapped
within this bed

©Cathy Mere, 2013

From Carol (Carol's Corner):

"Travelling"

long before the sun
climbs over the horizon

we travel eastward
across the plains of Colorado
past the cornfields of
Nebraska and Iowa
over the wide brown Mississippi
into Illinois.

The map,
once a precisely
fractioned pamphlet
becomes an unwieldy mass
as it is recreased
refolded
then reopened

my stubby seven-year-old finger
wonderingly
traces our route
amazed that
I have journeyed this
so far into this
big wide world.

(C) Carol Wilcox, 2013

The theme of my 2013 National Poetry Month Project is 

"Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations." 

Each day in April, I will feature media from the Wikimedia Commons ("a database of 16,565,065 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute") along with bits and pieces of my brainstorming and both unfinished and finished poems.

I will be using the media to inspire my poetry, but I am going to invite my students to use my daily media picks to inspire any original creation: poems, stories, comics, music, videos, sculptures, drawings...anything!

You are invited to join the fun, too! Leave a link to your creation in the comments and I'll add it to that day's post. I'll add pictures of my students' work throughout the month as well.

Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations.15

By ESO/Yuri Beletsky via Wikimedia Commons

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK

My laser is non-violent --

it does the stars 

no harm.

It 's not a blast, 

just helps us watch

the far galactic core.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

From Carol (Carol's Corner):

"Quantifiable?"

Let there by light

the astronomer proclaims

and a laser beam

shoots from earth

to measure 

heaven's vastness.

Creator God

chuckles

as He watches

miniscule humans

attempt to quantify

the work of His

mighty hands.

(C) Carol Wilcox, 2013

From Kevin (Kevin's Meandering Mind)

Riding lights;

writing nights;

The sky falls down

in a gentle rain of heavenly sights.

We gather hands and dance

amidst the possibilities

of chance that somewhere,

perhaps unaware,

someone else is looking out as we look in,

our eyes both extended into the stars

even as our words get scribbled out,

near and far, letter by letter, 

line by line,

in this data-strewn world of virtual space.

©Kevin Hodgson, 2013

The podcast of Kevin's poem is here.

Protest

Scientists announced at audio lab
a connection leaving today.
They are using a laser beam to nab
electricity from the Milky Way.

They haven’t said, but I’m wondering why
we can’t use the power at home.
I hope that our stars stay bright in the sky
And the scientists stop laser roam.

© Linda Baie, 2013

The explanation of this photo, which was the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year in 2010: "In mid-August 2010 ESO Photo Ambassador Yuri Beletsky snapped this photo at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, Chile. A group of astronomers were observing the centre of the Milky Way using the laser guide star facility at Yepun, one of the four Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT).

Yepun’s laser beam crosses the southern sky and creates an artificial star at an altitude of 90 km high in the Earth's mesosphere. The Laser Guide Star (LGS) is part of the VLT’s adaptive optics system and is used as a reference to correct the blurring effect of the atmosphere on images. The colour of the laser is precisely tuned to energise a layer of sodium atoms found in one of the upper layers of the atmosphere — one can recognise the familiar colour of sodium street lamps in the colour of the laser. This layer of sodium atoms is thought to be a leftover from meteorites entering the Earth’s atmosphere. When excited by the light from the laser, the atoms start glowing, forming a small bright spot that can be used as an artificial reference star for the adaptive optics. Using this technique, astronomers can obtain sharper observations. For example, when looking towards the centre of our Milky Way, researchers can better monitor the galactic core, where a central supermassive black hole, surrounded by closely orbiting stars, is swallowing gas and dust."

We'll follow the same pattern of media this week as the last two: Monday: Picture of the Year, Tuesday: Featured Picture (new category), Wednesday: Video, Thursday: Famous Art, Friday: Audio, Saturday: Potluck, Sunday: Animation.

The theme of my 2013 National Poetry Month Project is 

"Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations." 

Each day in April, I will feature media from the Wikimedia Commons ("a database of 16,565,065 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute") along with bits and pieces of my brainstorming and both unfinished and finished poems.

I will be using the media to inspire my poetry, but I am going to invite my students to use my daily media picks to inspire any original creation: poems, stories, comics, music, videos, sculptures, drawings...anything!

You are invited to join the fun, too! Leave a link to your creation in the comments and I'll add it to that day's post. I'll add pictures of my students' work throughout the month as well.

Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations.12

This "Short Composition for Two Harps" by Tudor Tulok is 1 minute, 53 seconds long. In my mind, I saw daffodils blowing in the wind. But this is what I wound up writing:

THE GLORY OF SPRING

Flowers aren't the only ones
who bloom in spring.

In classrooms everywhere
children are opening
as suddenly as tulips,
waving their hands in eager confidence
like daffodils in the breeze.
Stubborn and tenacious as dandelions,
they have mastered
subtraction or sentences or similes.

They have arrived
and they know it.

Teachers witness this glorious blooming
each spring
and it never ceases to amaze.

We know they will leave us soon,
so give us a minute
to appreciate the glory of spring.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013


Yesterday, I let my students listen to this music so they could share some of their writing here.

that sound calms

me down every

time I hear

it going past

nice and fast

just the

way I

dream 

it

--B

SOUND OF BEAUTY

The brush of a harp.

The melody.

The sound.

The feeling.

The beauty.

--No

ANGELS

It feels like

angels are flying

over me,

playing their soothing harps,

sounds relaxing.

--Na

FLOWERS AND HARPS

When I think of flowers

    I remember the

sound of harps. They are

    both peaceful and

relaxing. They make me feel

              safe.

--Jo

peace    harmony

freedom

happiness

Litmus

Lozenge

vengeance    sorrow

pain              agony

honor    courage

respect

--Re

TWOs

Two harps

play

two beautiful

sounds

like two flowers

twirling around and

around

like two friends

caring for

each other

like two blue jays

singing

sister and brother

like two people

giving gifts on special days

like two children

wanting 

to play

like two angels

watching 

for us

like two harps 

playing

two

beautiful 

sounds.

--Ra

Had to remember

A loved one.

Running my fingers on the strings making 

Peaceful music.

--M

NICE SOUNDS

That sound, what is that

it's so...peaceful.

It makes me calm down,

overjoyed, I went to where

it came from.

It was at a church

it was a girl playing 

her harp.

I walk in and 

she stops, she looks

at me then looks away

and starts playing

again.

--G

HARPS

The music from heaven

letting us know the right way

like a rainbow in the clear sky

it is quiet music that

makes us feel safe.

--Y

HARP

The music is peaceful

like crickets making music.

All the sounds come together

like every feather of a bird.

This piece had harmony

like a two instrument symphony.

Playing my harp

making beautiful music.

Plucking the strings,

playing something inspirational.

Inspiration,

that made this poem.

--J

no stopping

back and forth, forth and back.

no stopping; for there is no

time in this new world.

back and forth, forth and back.

as i lean against ellis,

i try to remember those days.

back and forth, forth and back.

one year more until

this war is out of my head.

back and forth, forth and back.

my life is full of melodies,

and i need them to live.

--S

Diane has the Poetry Friday Roundup today at Random Noodling.

If you'd like to look back on the week, you can find Seurat on Thursday, Sioux Ghost Dancers on Wednesday, a surfer on Tuesday, and the Wikimedia Picture of the Year for 2011 on Monday.

The theme of my 2013 National Poetry Month Project is 

"Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations." 

Each day in April, I will feature media from the Wikimedia Commons ("a database of 16,565,065 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute") along with bits and pieces of my brainstorming and both unfinished and finished poems.

I will be using the media to inspire my poetry, but I am going to invite my students to use my daily media picks to inspire any original creation: poems, stories, comics, music, videos, sculptures, drawings...anything!

You are invited to join the fun, too! Leave a link to your creation in the comments and I'll add it to that day's post. I'll add pictures of my students' work throughout the month as well.

Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations.8

Wikimedia Commons photo by Alchemist-hp

This is the Wikimedia Commons photo of the year for 2011. It is "a view of the lake Bondhus in Norway. In the background a view of the Bondhus Glacier as a part of the Folgefonna Glacier."


ROWBOAT'S LAMENT

I'm moored
both fore
and aft,

tethered
to prevent
my escape across the lake.

Or is it to protect me from
the coming
storm?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013


From Kevin (Meandering Minds)


I hunger for the clouds
heavy with rain
hovering over the lake
where we used to swim under the full moon.

If I could,
I would reach up and grab us both a handful
so that we could once again chew on the past,
letting memories dribble down our chins
as raindrops falling in spring
before flowers bloom ...

instead, we worry about the rumble of thunder
in the distance
and find ourselves fretting
about what the clouds might bring.

©Kevin Hodgson, 2013

The podcast of his poem is here.

And this: "I took some lines from the poems I have been writing here, and over with Bud the Teacher, and created this found poem: ReDiscovered Lines." (A bit of his process for creating this video is here.)


From Linda (TeacherDance):

The reflections
soon to be muddied
in his mind.
Storm coming!

I look for answers
in the rhyme;
there is no time.
The storm is coming.

Mirror in the water-
clear, now churning.
Still, in this moment
I am yearning.

Storm is here.

From Carol (Carol's Corner):

"Closer"

skymeetswatermeetssky

in bluegraygreenwhiteworld

wherecliffmeetslakemeetscliff

andlightmeetsshadowmeets

darkmeetslightmeetsdark

thelinesbetween

heavenandearth

areblurred

andperhaps

wearecloser

toheaven

thanwewillever

know.

(c) Carol Wilcox, 2013

This week, I think I'll follow the same pattern of media I choose as last week -- Monday: Picture of the Year, Tuesday: Featured Picture (new category), Wednesday: Video, Thursday: Famous Art, Friday: Audio, Saturday: Potluck, Sunday: Animation.

The theme of my 2013 National Poetry Month Project is 

"Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations." 

Each day in April, I will feature media from the Wikimedia Commons ("a database of 16,565,065 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute") along with bits and pieces of my brainstorming and both unfinished and finished poems.

I will be using the media to inspire my poetry, but I am going to invite my students to use my daily media picks to inspire any original creation: poems, stories, comics, music, videos, sculptures, drawings...anything!

You are invited to join the fun, too! Leave a link to your creation in the comments and I'll add it to that day's post. I'll add pictures of my students' work throughout the month as well.

Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations.5

Wikimedia Commons Photo by The National Park Service

Along with pictures, there are sound files on Wikimedia Commons. I can't figure out how to download and embed them here, so you 'll have to click on this link to listen to wolves howling.

The photo above is of an eleven-member wolf pack in winter, in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, taken by the National Park Service.

I won't share my process for this poem. It was wordy and officious and moralistic. At some point, I told myself to live up to my reputation for writing sparsely.

US AND THEM

divide

plow

whack

pave

build 

mine

pollute

wild

howl

pack

brave

single

file

commute

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

Kevin (Kevin's Meandering Mind) left this beauty in the comments:

I ride the back of the pack -
my paws wobbly along the edge of the path,
as I raise up my voice
to harmonize and synchronize
and synthesize the tones of the leaders,
our echoing songs shifting among the hills
as winter arrives, and I vow, once again,
to survive.

©Kevin Hodgson, 2013

Listen to Kevin read his poem with the sound of the wolves in the background on Vocaroo.

Carol (Carol's Corner) takes the idea of the wolf pack to the playground at recess:

"Middle School Recess Duty"

Full-coated
eighth grade
he wolves
point noses skyward
and howl passion
at shapely
she wolf
beauties
preening themselves
in the sun
by the jungle gym

while sixth and seventh grade wolves
crawl on their bellies
whimpering
acquiescence.

(c) Carol Wilcox

If you have a minute, go back to yesterday's post and check out the poems Carol and Kevin wrote based on the image of the sculpture "Le Silence."

All of the posts so far can be found here. At some point I'm going to have to write a post or an article for Choice Literacy about how this project has already impacted my classroom.

The theme of my 2013 National Poetry Month Project is 

"Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations." 

Each day in April, I will feature media from the Wikimedia Commons ("a database of 16,565,065 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute") along with bits and pieces of my brainstorming and both unfinished and finished poems.

I will be using the media to inspire my poetry, but I am going to invite my students to use my daily media picks to inspire any original creation: poems, stories, comics, music, videos, sculptures, drawings...anything!

You are invited to join the fun, too! Leave a link to your creation in the comments and I'll add it to that day's post. I'll add pictures of my students' work throughout the month as well.



Robyn has the Poetry Friday Roundup today at Life on the Deckle Edge.

Poetry Friday Roundup is Here!

Hyacinth Pulls the Covers Over Her Head 
and Goes Back to Sleep

The cues of light are right:

half day, half night.

But it's too cold to be bold:

to open, unfold.

Spring delights?

I withhold.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

Charles Ghinga at The Father Goose Blog shares the poem "Pet Names" from his book Animal Tracks: Wild Poems to Read Aloud.

Bridget at wee words for wee ones chronicles her children's spring break with "Spring Break -- Day by Day."

Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup has a (self-proclaimed, but I agree) Good Friday Feast. Come ready to drool. Over the French Toast, too!

Buffy Silverman, of Buffy's Blog, shares her process and final poem in the MM2013 Tournament. I was rooting for you, Buffy!

Renee, haven't you been a little busy writing poems these last few weeks? When did you have time for another installment at No Water River in the "Poetry Is..." series (...with guest poster Elizabeth Stevens Omlor and a little Emerson)?

Joyce Ray at Musings shares some really cool ideas for writing poetry with children from her Build a Poem workshop. Cupcake poems anyone? Heidi? Jama?

Tamara Will Wissinger shares her (big) plans for Poetry Month.

Heidi at my juicy little universe has come up with a fun Poetry Month project -- 30words30days: a poem for busy people.

Robyn Hood Black is urging spring along with some e.e. cummings and Poetry Month news.

Laura Purdie Salas is focusing on colors today in another of her excellent Poem Starter videos.

Laura Shovan, at Author Amok, has a fabulous interview with Christy Hale, author of DREAMING UP.

Diane Mayr has a trio of offerings: At Random Noodling, an Easter senryu (like a haiku, but about human nature instead of Nature). Kurious Kitty shares William Blake's "Spring." KK's Kwotes has a quote by Jane Hirshfield.

Linda at TeacherDance has found the perfect William Stafford poem for two online communities -- Poetry Friday regulars and Slice of Life participants.

Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme has an original crocus poem for this last Friday of March. (His fight with snow, mine just had to contend with oak leaves the year I snapped this shot!)

Lori Ann Grover has "Plumeria" at On Point, and World Rat Day at readertotz.

At NC Teacher Stuff, Matt Barger shares "Just Before April Came" by Carl Sandburg. (The first line is not true where I live!)

Donna, at Mainely Write, shares a poem that grew out of a GoogleChat with her daughter.

Tabatha Yeatts, at The Opposite of Indifference, shines a spotlight on the Little Patuxent Review and poet Elizabeth Dahl.

J. Patrick Lewis is making a rock-and-roll appearance at Greg Pincus' GottaBook.

I'm so glad that Catherine, at Reading to the Core, found Mary Ann Hoberman's THE TREE THAT TIME BUILT! She shares "You and I" from this excellent collection.

Three from Sylvia Vardell: at the Poetry Friday Anthology blog, a loose tooth poem by Carole Boston Weatherford; an announcement about upcoming "poem movies" at the Poetry Friday Anthology/Middle School blog; and at Poetry for Children, her own blog, an example of a "poem movie" made by 6th graders at an international school in the Netherlands.

Tara @ A Teaching Life has some Walt Whitman to help us think about the week's current events.

Margaret, at Reflections on the Teche, has ambitious form-a-day plans for herself and her students for National Poetry Month.

Ruth has a Good Friday poem-hymn for us at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.

Spring is coming to Steve's valley. His original poem is posted at inside the dog... .

Travis has a book spine poem (and an invitation to submit yours) at 100 Scope Notes. (Can't wait for the review of the book of book spine poems!!)

I love pomegranates and I love the story of Persephone. I hope Katie, at the blog a time for such a word, doesn't mind being rounded up via a Poetry Friday Google search. Maybe she'll join us every week!

MotherReader has a new installment in her "songs as poetry" series. Do you recognize it?

At Following Pullitzer, Gerard Manley Hopkins' "As kingfishers catch fire" for Good Friday.

Through the Looking Glass Book Review wraps up Women's History Month with VHERSES by J. Patrick Lewis.

Orange Marmalade shares "These Three" by X.J. Kennedy for Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Andi has a "text message found poem" at a wrung sponge. If you haven't cleared out your texts, you probably have one there, too, waiting to be found!

I'm pretty sure that in real life, Amy LV is still floating after the release this week of her first book, FOREST HAS A SONG. But for today, she's got her feet on the ground with a red boots poem at The Poem Farm.

At Douglas Florian's Florian Cafe this week, [in Just-] by e.e. cummings.

Anastasia Suen has a snippet of SPRING BLOSSOMS by Carole Gerber at her blog Booktalking, and she's started a new Poetry Blog for National Poetry Month (and beyond)!!

Cactus are blooming at Joy's blog, Poetry For Kids Joy!

Janet at All About the Books With Janet Squires is featuring KEEPERS: TREASURE-HUNT POEMS by John Frank.

Violet writes from an interesting point of view in her Good Friday poem today. "Betrayer" is at Violet Nesdoly / Poems.

At The Drift Record, Julie Larios spotlights the line-up for the 2013 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem.

Samuel Kent posts 5 new poems every week at I Drew It. His favorite this week was inspired by #MM2013: "Banking on the Tooth Fairy."

Betsy at Teaching Young Writers found the seed for this week's poem in her writer's notebook.

Cathy wrote a rhyming poem to honor her card-playing mom. I hope there's a little bit of hyperbole in her poem, too! You can find it at Merely Day By Day.

Keri at Keri Recommends is late to the roundup because she and her husband were working with their bees all day. She wrote a trio of haiku in honor of the day.

Iphigene at Gathering Books shares a Good Friday poem: "Todo y Nada/All or Nothing."

Jone is in with a poem that perfectly captures the last days of school before spring break. She posted it at her blog Deo Writer.