An Inconvenient Birthday
I pushed through the door with a hastily wrapped gift and an un-hung birthday banner. I was calculating the minutes I had to celebrate while noisily throwing clothes from my gym bag to the hamper when, from my peripheral vision, I saw you staring at me. You handed me a clean towel to put into my bag, and I accepted in without meeting your eyes, the pain in the back of my throat swallowing all of my apologies.
Poetry Lesson Plan
Objectives:
1. Students will read background information on the Holocaust and Elie Wiesel.
2. Students will begin to write poetry using found language in a Found Poem.
Activities:
1. Read the handouts on the victims of the Holocaust, the survivor story, and Elie Wiesel's acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.
2. For each text, write a short 1/2-1 page reaction/reflection about what you read. Keep these on the same piece of paper and label each with the title of the text.
3. Then, go back to the text and look for words and phrases that catch your eye or that seem to contradict each other if you take them out of context. Look for repeated words and see what the text is trying to emphasize.
4. Select words and phrases from the text, and begin to arrange them on your own page. Try to keep them in order, even if you are leaving out phrases or sentences in between.
5. Look for poetic interest in these words. Look for ways to cut and arrange them to point out contrasting ideas or contradictions. Look for images that they provide.
6. Sometimes identifying an emotion you sense in the text or feel when or after reading can help you better select words and phrases to use in your poem.
7. Arrange your selected text into a 10-20 line found poem. Be prepared to share your poem with a small group or maybe the entire class.
Creative Writing Class for Grades 10-12
14 years ago
There are some really good visuals here: "un-hung birthday banner," "I accepted in (it) without meeting your eyes," "the pain in the back of my throat swallowing all of my apologies."
ReplyDeleteThe long, middle sentence is the area I would work on. I believe there are some good thoughts here that could be focused. I would add some connections to show the reader what's happening and use more sensory images versus concrete words.
The title also throws me a bit. Is is a play on Inconvenient Truth?
I think we all can relate to a situation like this, so I like that connection.
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI don't know how you do it but you manage despite your schedule to condense your experience projecting a kodak snapshot potential of video: of your life and your day in the class room into a neat storyboard. And, it certainly would appear to be challenging each day to to somehow conduct conventional practical lessons of content, organization, style, usage-mechanics-grammar transfer an English teacher faces relative to stakeholder demands;and how it all someway or another relates to knowledge of the nature of the holocaust. .
MT
Hmmm, poem very mysterious! Pulls me in. My impressions, which could be wrong: I assume that the narrator is creating a celebration for the one who hands the towel. The towel giver is calm and grounded--they have a clean towel whereas the narrator is throwing clothes, has a partially wrapped gift and hasn't hung the banner. It definately wets my appetite to know why a party is expected--birthday, I think, but why one that's done-up immaculately? However, giving all these details might spoil your poem.
ReplyDeleteThis poem leaves me wanting more! I am curious about who the person who hands the narrator a towel is. I like the contrast you set up in that one sentence. This mysterious person seems organized, calm or stoic maybe and the narrator seems like a haphazard hurricane running around trying to fit all of their expectations into a short day. My guess is that this narrator is a woman, someone who is having a hard time juggling everything in their lives.
ReplyDeleteI could use more clues. Maybe a bit more detail. Beautiful poem, made me think.