Poem based on Fasano Prompts
3-12, Creative Thinking, Language Arts, Writing

Crowd-Sourced Poetry from Joseph Fasano

Weirdly, it was a collection of Joseph Fasano (@Joseph_Fasano_) quotes — compiled and presented to him by his students — not his poetry, that first brought him to my attention on Twitter. They compiled a notebook of the “craziest things” he said in class throughout one semester and gifted him the 152 page book at the end. Below is one example, which I think most teachers have either said or wanted to say at numerous points in their careers:

You can read the rest of his pinned thread of hilarious quotes here.

The Teacher/Poet

It turns out Fasano is not just a teacher with a sense of humor, but also a gifted poet. He began his academic career studying mathematics and astrophysics at Harvard, switched to philosophy, and then did his graduate studies on poetry at Columbia University. He has published several books and won numerous awards. Find out more about his biography and publications on his website.

Daily Poetry Themes on Twitter

Each day, Fasano suggests a new poetry theme on Twitter and offers an example. Responses pour in as readers share their favorite poems that center around that theme. For example, today’s theme was, “Wildness,” and he included this poem by Ada Limon to illustrate the topic:

The Poem That Made Me Cry

While I enjoy reading Fasano’s threads each day, and I am often moved by the beautiful pieces offered by people around the world, I wasn’t prepared to read the following Tweet, which includes a poem written by a woman with dementia based on one of his prompts:

A flood of people responded to this poignant Tweet, and Fasano was kind enough to Tweet the prompt so more people could try it out. You can read the thread to see examples from poets of all ages submitted in the thread.

The Prompt

Fasano Tweeted recently that he is working on a book of poetry prompts that teachers can use, and hopes to have it available soon. In the meantime, here is the prompt for the above poem. Other prompts and the creative responses to them can be found in his Twitter stream.

More Resources

While it’s almost the end of National Poetry Month in the United States, I think that we all know that our lives deserve to be enriched by beautiful writing and moving verses year round. Consider doing the above exercise with your students as the year comes to a close, or maybe to open next school year. You can find more poetry lesson ideas here.

Clint Smith quote about joy
3-12, Creative Thinking, Language Arts, Writing

Clint Smith to Stephen Colbert: Poetry is the Act of Paying Attention

In a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Clint Smith told the host that, “Poetry is the act of paying attention.” The author of the award-winning book, How the Word is Passed and Counting Descent, has just released a new collection of his poetry called, Above Ground. In the 7 minute interview, Smith and Colbert discuss the relationship between love and paying attention as well as the human experience of often feeling conflicting emotions simultaneously. Smith reads one of his poems from his new book, “All at Once,” and I think everyone can identify with what a struggle it can be to bear the knowledge of joy and tragedy concurrently.

April is National Poetry Month in the United States, so I’ll be adding this to my other poetry resources. But I’ll also be bookmarking in my Pinterest collection of Inspirational Videos for Teachers because Smith talks about one of the first poems he remembers writing in school and the encouragement from his teacher that he will never forget.

You can view Colbert’s interview with Smith below, or at this link. If you’d like to listen to a 37 minute interview Smith did recently with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, you can access it here.

3-12, Creative Thinking, Language Arts, Writing

Golden Shovel Poetry

Gwendolyn Brooks published the poem, “We Real Cool,” in 1963. In 2010, Terrance Hayes published a poem called, “The Golden Shovel.” If I was teaching a poetry unit, I would have my students read both poems and see what they notice before suggesting a direct relationship. Students would probably immediately recognize the title of Hayes’ poem appears in the second line of Brooks’. But it would be fun to see how long it takes them to see that Terrance Hayes actually structured his poem around Brooks’ by making each word in her poem the last word in each line of his poem — in order.

With “The Golden Shovel,” Hayes created a new poetic form, and it’s one of those challenges that compels and delights students with its opportunity for creativity through constraint. Take your favorite poem, favorite sentence from a book, or favorite passage from an article, even a newspaper headline and use each word, in order, as the last word for each line in your new poem. Be sure to credit the original author, but don’t limit yourself to their subject. You can see a perfect video explanation from the North Vancouver City Library for their “Teen Tuesday” series of how to write a Golden Shovel poem here. The Poetry Society offers a good lesson plan here.

Here is another example of a Golden Shovel poem, written by Michelle Kogan, and built from the words of the poem, “I Dream a World,” by Langston Hughes. If you want to see some work from actual students, this page shares some Golden Shovel poetry written by 5th and 6th graders based on poems by Gwendolyn Brooks.

Golden Shovel Poetry reminds me of the Found and Parallel Poetry that I used to do with my students, often resulting in pieces that surprised all of us with their insight. I’ll definitely be adding this link to my Poetry Wakelet Collection, and I would love to see any examples that your students write!

Side note: Wouldn’t it be fun to do a Poetry Out Loud presentation or something similar, and award one or two students these cute little golden shovel utensils?

light landscape nature sky
K-12, Teaching Tools

April Holidays and Celebrations

April begins next Friday, and I’ve gathered together as many resources as I can to help you with upcoming holidays and celebrations. Two exciting ones to note are that April is both National Poetry Month and School Library Month (TCEA just published an excellent post on this!). I have links to honor both of those in my April Wakelet. April 1st happens to be April Fool’s Day and the beginning of Ramadan, which are also included in the collection. Moving forward, there are: International Children’s Book Day (April 2), Passover (Begins April 15), Easter (April 17), and Earth Day (April 22).

(I want to note that these monthly Wakelet collections are in columns with headings for the holidays. It may appear differently according to your device. On my phone, for example, I can can just swipe to see all of the columns, whereas on my laptop I may need to scroll to or mouse over the bottom in order to access the horizontal bar that allows me to scroll to the right. As holidays come and go, I try to put the next celebration near the “front of the line” so you don’t have to scroll as much to find it.)

I’ll be adding new links as I find them to the April Wakelet, as I do with all of my collections. Follow me on my main page if you want to keep updated!

white graphing notebook
Photo by Bich Tran on Pexels.com

K-12, Language Arts, Science, Videos

Reimagine, Recreate, Restore

The beautiful poem, “Reimagine, Recreate, Restore” was written and performed by Jordan Sanchez for World Environment Day this month. You can’t help but feel inspired to get up each day and do something positive to preserve our beautiful world. I will be adding this to my poetry Wakelet, which also includes this blog post on Spoken Word poetry. To learn more about Jordan Sanchez, visit her website where you can also find other examples of her incredible work.

Image by ejaugsburg from Pixabay
ethnic worker writing in notebook in house room
Anti-Racism, Books, Creative Thinking, K-12, Language Arts, Writing

LatiNext Poetry Project

April is National Poetry Month in the United States, and it is not too late to celebrate! You may remember when I posted about the Teach Living Poets site way back in January right after being blown away by Amanda Gorman’s recitation of the poem she wrote for the Inauguration. Scott Bayer (@LyricalSwordz), who contributes to the Teach Living Poets site, tweeted out this amazing interactive Google Doc of poetry and accompanying lessons for Latinx poets featured in the publication, LatiNext, from Haymarket Books. Next to each of the eleven poets’ portraits, is a link to a detailed lesson plan, and a link to an interactive image made with Genially that provides even more resources. Kudos to Scott Bayer and Joel Garza (@JoelRGarza) for putting together this excellent compilation of meaningful activities submitted by participants in #TheBookChat. In addition, thanks to the @breakbeatpoets editors, @_joseolivarez @WilliePerdomo and @writeantiracist!

For more Poetry links, visit my Wakelet here. I also have Wakelets for learning about Amanda Gorman and Anti-Racism.