about 9 months ago - 1 comment
Just in time for the push of Common Core curriculum alignment by our state, and many other states, Sara Holbrook’s Practical Poetry: A Nonstandard Approach to Meeting Content-Area Standards is, well, practical and useful and full of interesting ways to merge poetry with math, science and social studies. I was lucky enough to receive this More >
about 9 months ago - 8 comments
(an updated version — with audio) A Warning: An Illuminated Poem from Mr. Hodgson on Vimeo. I was asked by a few people yesterday how I created the illuminated poem I shared yesterday. So, I am trying to step back a bit and reflect on how I went about it and the choices I made More >
about 1 year ago - 22 comments
The latest activity in the Edublog Teachers Challenge is to consider our blog readers (that would be you, by the way — we were talking about you. We only said nice things). It’s easy to get wrapped up in the writing sometimes and forget that there are readers out there (have I mentioned how nice More >
about 1 year ago - No comments
Each weekend, over at our iAnthology network for National Writing Project teachers, Bonnie or I or a volunteer post a writing prompt. It’s always sort of a challenge to find an idea that will engage as many of the close to 400 members as possible (on average, about two dozen folks will contribute to a More >
about 1 year ago - No comments
One of the units my student teacher took over was poetry and she had this great idea (from her own sixth grade experience) to have students create a pop-up book of their poems. It was pretty fascinating to watch (from my distance) the kids work on creating 3D books and they came out pretty neat. More >
about 1 year ago - No comments
Yesterday, thanks to the work of our school librarian, we had a special poetic visitor arriving from the Great Beyond. An actress who performs as Emily Dickinson (who lived in nearby Amherst) spent time with my students yesterday morning, talking and acting as if she were Emily Dickinson. She talked of her life and of More >
about 1 year ago - 3 comments
As readers of this space know, I have been writing poems every day over at Bud Hunt’s blog, where Bud has been posting images to inspire writing. We’re almost at the end (which is fine — I’m feeling a little poetry burnout right now) but I wanted to find some way to collect some of More >
about 2 years ago - No comments
I’d like to toss out some thanks to Bud the Teacher for giving me daily poetry inspiration with his photographs. I’ve been enjoying the experience. Here are a few poems from the past week that I have written that I still like a few days later: Nighttime Cleaning (listen to the podcast) Some nights, I’d More >
about 3 years ago - No comments
This photo is from my backyard and it reminded me of the imagery from the William Carlos Williams’ poem, Red Wheelbarrow. (The photo is part of the Photofridays project, too) Remember? so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. What about: so much depends upon the red More >
about 3 years ago - 3 comments
(photo by Getty images) Here is a poem for President Elect Obama. To Obama (listen to poem as a podcast) I don’t know who they think they are carrying on about Change when the reality is that change comes so fast to us that it’s never visible until the aftermath when the shadow of reflection More >
about 3 years ago
Man, I needed the voice over for this one. Loved the way we traveled with you to the end.
Bonnie
about 3 years ago
Here is the key:
poemtextmessage
iirc (if I recall correctly)
u thnk txt &wrds r doa (you think text and words are dead on arrival)
but omg rotfl bout that @shmh (but, oh my god, I’m rolling on the floor laughing about that and shaking my head)
‘cos ov cors, imo, 2moro will ch8g 4 us &4u (because, of course, in my opinion, tomorrow will change for us and for you)
QFT: ppl r str8ng & lng str8ngr (quoted for truth: people are strange and language, stranger)
th4, i activ8 ur txt 4u (therefore, I activate your txt for you)
w/lnks & soh fwiw &hope u (with links & sense of humor, for what it’s worth, and I hope you)
h/o 2 w/e u can (hold on to whatever you can)
& now pls gt bc 2 yr hw (and now, please get back to your homework)
yer PAW (your parents are watching)
Pce \\// (peace)
Kvn (Kevin)
about 3 years ago
Hey, Kevin thanks for providing us with the translation, cos I still would have been pondering on it. I only got a few of the common words!!! Guess this is the language of the 21st century
about 3 years ago
Excellent!
about 3 years ago
I LOVE it! This is what I’m seeing from two of my students. Excellent … maybe I’ll ask them to write some IM poems for me …
Thanks, Kevin!
about 3 years ago
This poem was fun to write and even a few days later, I, too, need the translation (doh).
It’s interesting how this poem dovetailed with the Pew report (see other post).
That was an unexpected convergence of ideas.
Kevin
about 3 years ago
Kevin,
Your poem was great especially when translated. Language is always evolving.
I just did I Am From poems with a group of art students. I told them that I spoke 3 languages and text messenging was not one of them. I told them I was too old to learn it now. They laughed. I subbed for a LA teacher who left Shakespear for the students to read with the directions to follow the side notes in their text. Of course some grumbling, but I told them it was like me understanding their text messenging. I would need side notes for that. I think it gives us an opportunity to teach and compare instead of forbid it.
Mary
about 3 years ago
I love this! As a fourth grade teacher, I’m just starting to see the hints of “leet-speak” in my students’ writing. I think it’s something that needs to be acknowledged as a legitimate form of communication and I thank you for this poem!