Teaching and Writing Poetry: Poetry Workshops Students never cease to amaze me. I always assume that a new class of cynical, jaded teenagers will do the "usual" rolling of eyes and low-throated groaning the minute I introduce the idea we will be studying poetry. Yet, once I begin by looking at modern poets such as e.e. cummings, alongside lyrics from quality current songs, emphasizing their play on language and willingness to try anything and everything new, they slowly start to realize "they can do this, too". After spending a week or so looking at poets and analyzing their style, I discuss the idea that being a good poet is all about being willing to play with language, and not let the fear of conventions get in the way of one's creativity. Then I introduce the idea of the poetry workshop. The poetry workshop is a set of lessons I created during my student teaching experience. I was at a public school where the students were very active learners, and therefore tried to devise my lesson plans in such a way as to get the students moving while using language. After analyzing several poetry books and using a little ingenuity, I broke the students into 8 groups, each beginning with one "station". After 4 days of class(we were on 45 minute periods at the time) every student would participate in each station once. The goal was for each student to use the activity at the station as a brain-kick, as I liked to call it, and to write down what came to mind as pre-writing, not censoring oneself or attempting to necessarily write a full poem right then and there. These poetry stations were as follows: *Station 1: Diggin' in the Dictionary. This station asked the student to randomly flip through a dictionary and point to a word without looking. Then the student was to quickly look at where his or her finger had landed and write the word down. If the word was new, students were instructed to write the definition as well. As an alternative, they could flip through the dictionary and just look for words that sounded interesting; they could also use a thesaurus and write down words with all their synonyms in a row. *Station 2: Borrowing from the greats. In this station, I provided the students with a huge pile of poetry books, ranging from Shel Silverstein to Maya Angelou. They were to flip through and find a title or line that interested them, and begin a poem with those words, continuing with their own. Or, they could "answer" the poem, as if they were a character within the poem, or merely an observer. They were instructed to write down the name of the poet and poem; i.e. "Based on 'Ain't I a Woman' by Sojurner Truth". *Station 3: Magnetic poetry. This has always been a favorite. Students were instructed to simply play with the magnetic poetry words that I keep on the side of a metal filing cabinet. I also have a book with a magnetic front cover so that at least one student is not crowded. I tell the students to spend the majority of the time manipulating the words, and to write down what they created during the last 5 minutes of the station, even if the phrases seem disjointed or strange. *Station 4: Use your senses! In this station, I have around 10-12 brown paper bags with the words "smell, taste, or touch" written on them. The students are instructed to do as the bags say, using only that sense. Then they are to describe what it is they feel, smell, or taste, focussing less on trying to guess exactly what it is, and more on the details of description, along with images they associate with those details. Typically for touch I put items like silk or velvet scarves, rice, and strange objects like a koosh ball. For smell, I've used coffee grounds, incense, clean scented candles, and cinnamon. For taste I typically tell students to only take one piece of candy, providing a bag full of minty Lifesavers and buttery Werther's Originals. *Station 5: Look! This station asks the students to look at various pieces of art and describe what they see. I have a whole collection of laminated impressionist art pieces that I use. What do they make students think of? Can they tell a story about what may be going on in the picture? If nothing else, I tell them to just describe the picture itself, especially focussing on the colors and designs. *Stations 6: Listen! I have several soothing CD's with no words (or very few) such as Enya and Loreena McKennitt, and classical composers such as Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. I ask them to listen at first with their eyes closed, then to write what they envisioned. *Station 7: Word clusters. In an envelope I have several words typed onto small slips of paper. I ask the students to choose one and create a word cluster (web) until they can think of no other words. I do a lot in my class ordinarily with word associations to get them to understand how their brain naturally makes metaphorical connections, so they seem to really connect with this activity. *Station 8: Poetry forms and activities. I have several activities on paper which explain how to write haiku, sonnets, odes, acrostics, and more. I then ask the students to try out one or more of these forms. I also provide list poem starters (i.e. I dream . . . lies, secrets, and fears in my life . . . things I believe in . . .) as an alternative. After the students have done pre-writing in each station, I ask them to look back at what they've written and try to formulate final draft poems. I encourage them to look for connections between stations, to listen to the sound of words together, and to attempt to use poetic devices we discussed in class, such as personification and alliteration. I then assign the students to create 30 lines or more of poetry total, which can be several shorter poems, one long poem, or something inbetween. I have the students turn in their final draft poems along with the notes from the poetry stations, and a ½ to 1 page self-evaluation, looking at their skill as poets, as well as discussing what kind of poetic devices they used in their final draft poems. I tell them that although there really is no right or wrong in poetry, there is better and worse, and their self-evaluations will play a large part in how I grade their final draft poems. I give two separate grades: one for the completion of the stations and self-evaluation, one for the student's effort and success in the final draft poems. I have taught these stations 3 times now in very different settings, all with positive feedback. I highly recommend this format or something similar to any teacher with students who always say they have "nothing to write about". Rarely, if ever, have I had such a comment after participating in these activities. Typically the response has been overwhelmingly in the opposite direction, and more than once I've nearly cried at the beauty of a poem from one of my most cynical, English-loathing pupils.