Poetic Voice on the Blogs!

This past week, I experienced a very powerful blogging session with 5th Graders from one of my schools...as a matter of fact, the one that's being closed...

As a culminating activity to National Poetry Month, we used poetry as our form for writing...and we focused on voice! We used Michelle @ Literacy Learning Zone's poem Voices from the Lost and Found as a mentor text...we talked about how the author gave voice to the items in the lost and found, the feelings they have, etc. We connected it with how the students had previously written from the voice of one of the animals Mr. Leo brought to the building to show the kids...Anna and I both shared our poems we wrote, dog and cat...here are our examples:

It's a Dawg's World
By Anna Panning

 When I woke up this morning I needed to stretch.

That didn’t happen, I had to play “go fetch”.

The day got better when I started to eat,

Just food from a box? That’s not a treat.

I needed to get a brush because my coat was all nappy.

When I was done getting brushed I was very happy.

My mood was all snappy so I started to bark

I just saw my friend cat and she gives me a spark!


From me, the Cat
by Amy Rudd

I am the small and lazy cat
sometimes sassy and a brat!

I have a friend whose name is Dawg
sometimes we like to go for a jog!

I like to do things with my friend,
I hope that we stay friends to the end!

We decided to start our own little gang
Just she and I, we like to hang

Dawg, I’ll just curl up on your lap
I am sleepy now, I need…a  n—a—p—zzzzzzz!

We all wrote one together, "Tiki" (not with the morning class, but with the afternoon class...we shouldn't have skipped this step...modeling is such a critical part of the process...)
After this, we turned them loose on their blogs and asked them to compose their poems! I am so proud of ideas they thought of writing from the perspective of: a closing building, glue sticks, chairs, a desk, the roadway, sidewalk, basketball, football, heat, socks, Cheese, Surfboard, pop tart, lion's food, Cake, tv, and test (just to mention a few)...we still have some editing work to be done but I think we could definitely combine them into a book!

We really challenged them with this and they rose to the occasion! Way to go fifth graders! I am so proud of you! A big thanks to Anna for taking the leap with me and seeing this through and a big thanks to Michelle for the mentor text that inspired this work!