Shakespeare and Hip-Hop

April is such a great month for us bibliophiles.  First, we're celebrating the entire month as National Poetry Month, and then April 23 is generally accepted as the birthday of the most-acknowledged writer of the English language--William Shakespeare.

So in honor of Mr. Shakespeare birth on or around this date in 1564, here is a wonderful resource I found recently.  It seems that in England there is an organization that is exploring the connections between Shakespeare's works and....hip-hop.  Not necessarily the first connection that would leap to my mind, at least, but The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company founder Akala makes a good case for it.

For example, check out this video of his presentation before one of the TED gatherings.  First, he challenges the audience to guess which lines are quotes from Shakespeare, and which are quotes from rapper songs (and believe me, it's not as easy to tell as you might think).  Then, he gives two renditions of one of Shakespeare's most famous poems, Sonnet #18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?").  Both fall into hip-hop rhythms perfectly, showing that Shakespeare's "outdated" iambic pentameter is actually current in today's music.

Anyway, don't take my word for it....check it out yourself in this TED video:




It is, after all, the sign of a masterpiece that it can be re-interpreted and re-imagined over the ages.  The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company seems to be doing a great job of reaching at-risk youth and having them tap into the genius and wonder of the works of William Shakespeare.

Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day 2013 ! (And A Great Poetry Resource too!)

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, one of the events for National Poetry Month, a month-long celebration of poetry held in April each year by the Academy of American Poets.  On April 18--Poem in Your Pocket Day--people are urged to carry a piece of poetry in their pockets and to share it with other people during the day.  It is a fun activity to get poetry out of the hallowed halls of academia and into everyday life.

My selection for this year's pocket poem is Mark Doty's "A Display of Mackerel":

A Display of Mackerel 
They lie in parallel rows, 
on ice, head to tail, 
each a foot of luminosity 

barred with black bands, 
which divide the scales' 
radiant sections 

like seams of lead 
in a Tiffany window. 
Iridescent, watery 

prismatics: think abalone, 
the wildly rainbowed 
mirror of a soapbubble sphere, 

think sun on gasoline. 
Splendor, and splendor, 
and not a one in any way 

distinguished from the other 
--nothing about them 
of individuality. Instead 

they're all exact expressions 
of one soul, 
each a perfect fulfillment 

of heaven's template, 
mackerel essence. As if, 
after a lifetime arriving 

at this enameling, the jeweler's 
made uncountable examples, 
each as intricate 

in its oily fabulation 
as the one before. 
Suppose we could iridesce, 

like these, and lose ourselves 
entirely in the universe 
of shimmer--would you want 

to be yourself only, 
unduplicatable, doomed 
to be lost? They'd prefer, 
plainly, to be flashing participants, 
multitudinous. Even now 
they seem to be bolting 

forward, heedless of stasis. 
They don't care they're dead 
and nearly frozen, 

just as, presumably, 
they didn't care that they were living: 
all, all for all, 

the rainbowed school 
and its acres of brilliant classrooms, 
in which no verb is singular, 

or every one is. How happy they seem, 
even on ice, to be together, selfless, 
which is the price of gleaming. 

Copied from poets.org, the website of the Academy of American Poets

I chose this poem for several reasons.  First, last year we were involved in a year-long Oceans Coop that culminated in an unforgettable trip to study the coral reefs in the Virgin Islands.  So the nominal subject matter-fish--is close to my heart.  Secondly, several lines in there really reminded me of a wonderful art exhibit called "Carbon Load" that my son's very talented art teacher, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Art Studio, had at ArtSpace in 2011.

Mostly, however, I think I picked this poem because I read a wonderful essay by Doty on his thought process as he was composing this poem.  It is a wonderful explanation of how poetry can proceed from a simple, everyday image--like a row of fish on ice--to a grander statement on the nature of life, death, and everything in between.  Entitled "Souls on Ice," it is a great resource for students and teachers trying to better comprehend the magic and magnificence that is poetry.  I recommend you read it on the poets.org website.

And don't forget to share your favorite poem with other people today!

Middle School Summer Camp Opportunity: Young Writers' Workshop at NCSU

If your middle schoolers gets really inspired after participating in the Teen Poetry Contest in my earlier post, then NC State University has a summer camp that might be right up their alley.  The Young Writers' Workshop, sponsored by the NC State College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of English, is a two-week, nonresidential summer camp with daily afternoon activities to help students in late elementary and middle school to develop their creative writing abilities. 

The students spend two and a half hours on campus each afternoon with lessons on four different tracks:  fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama (each students lists their preferences, and are placed in two different areas).  Established professional writers, most of whom also teach at area colleges or high schools, give lectures, assign writing activities, put students into small groups to discuss or create something together, or work with students one-on-one on their writing. 

The students-to-teacher is kept low (a maximum of 12 students per instructor) to assure that all writers get individual attention.  The teen writers get instruction in such creative writing components as plot, character development, conflict, action, and more.  On the final day, students invite friends and families to celebrate the creativity of the group through a public reading of the work they have produced; they also get to take home a journal of work created by themselves and their peers.

The Teen Writers' Workshop costs $250, and is open to rising 4th through 8th graders.  They are now accepting applications, which require students to express what they hope to achieve through their participation as well as to submit up to two pages of their current creative writing.  The deadline for applying is Monday, June 3.

For more information, check out their website or contact the program director, Laura Giovanelli, at lbgiovan@ncsu.edu.

Art Exhibit and Poetry Reading: ForWord

The art studio where my son takes art classes, Egg in Nest Studio, always celebrates National Poetry Month with an art exhibition and live poetry reading/performance event that celebrates the intersection between words and arts.  The students write poems, create art pieces based on those poems, exhibit their art in the Halle Cultural Arts Center in downtown Apex, then read their poems to an audience, appearing onstage with professionals in various art forms who also discuss and display their talents.  It is always a creative and inspiring event, and brings greater depth and understanding to the students' art studies.

This year, my son had two pieces in the show.

I really liked both of the them, especially because they were a departure from his typical techniques and demonstrated some of the ways that his wonderful teacher, Miss Jenny, is encouraging him to grow and stretch as an artist.  On the other hand, they also contain elements of his inimitable style.

This was his first piece, which was based on the poem he wrote that was entitled, "The Saga of the Sproing-Boing," where he was experimenting with the sounds of invented vocabulary:

The second one had a two word poem written into the picture.  The poem is "Extinction Distinction"... or maybe "Distinction Extinction"--he never would tell me.

Of course, my photos don't do the artwork justice.  If you are in the vecinity of downtown Apex before the exhibit closes on May 5, go check them out in person at the Halle Cultural Arts Center (at the intersection of 10-10/Center Street and Salem Street).

Here is the artist showing the pictures to his father:

This past Sunday was the live event called ForWord.  There, each participating got to read his or her poem with comments and encouragement from Miss Jenny:

But the student readings were interspersed with live performances and commentary on the connection between words and other art forms by a local music group, Jack the Radio:

a local grafitti artist, Blake Burnette:

poet and NC State writing professor, Chris Tonell:

and dancer Marie Garlock:

All in all, it's quite a big event, which Miss Jenny and her hard-working assistant, Miss Amanda, put on AT NO CHARGE for the benefit of the students--just one of the perks of taking class at  Egg in Nest Studio:

Of course, the greatest perk of taking classes there is that each week the kids get to work with Miss Jenny, who is not only a wonderful and creative artist in her own right, but an intuitive and inspiring teacher who loves all her students--just like they love her (although some demonstrate it more than others):

What more could you want from the person teaching your children?

The Power of Dreams in Education

Why aren't US students going into careers in science, engineering, and math?  That is a question we've been asking as a society ever since I was working professionally in Washington DC in education policy in the 1980s.  There have been many proposed answers to that question, but mostly the blame as been laid on our education system.  Our science and math education isn't rigorous enough, or it isn't concrete enough, or it isn't relevent enough, or it isn't hands-on enough, etc. etc. etc.  So our latest response has been lots of government and private programs to improve education in what is now called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

While I know science and math are tough disciplines--tough to learn and tough to teach (she says, having just completed teaching a hands-on physics class on light and optics that required lugging multiple sets of things for hands-on experiments to an outside classroom for five weeks)--and that we could definitely improve our science and math education, to my mind, that isn't the biggest problem with our current "brain drain" in STEM careers.  The data I read indicates that most of "the best and the brightest"are choosing to go into fields other than math and science.  That is to say, even if we could wave our magic wands and make our STEM education programs perfect, that isn't going to change the situation if students refuse to go into those programs in the first place.

There are many aspects to why American students aren't studying STEM.  But one of the big ones, according to astrophysicist and science writer/media specialist Neil deGrasse Tyson, is that we, as a nation, have stopped dreaming about a better future and the important role science, math, and engineering have in getting us there.

I could say more, but Tyson himself says it so much better in the short video below, entitled "Why We Stopped Dreaming:"



There is no way I can improve on that.   Except that I would say that it is not just limited to STEM.  I grew up in the Washington DC area, where almost everyone there was employed in what we used to consider "public service."  When I was growing up, working in Congress or the White House, the multiple court systems, the many federal agencies, the military complex built around the Pentagon, the related research institutes, the multiple non-profit public interest groups on all sorts of issues--all of those were honorable professions, and even though people found it a financial sacrifice, in terms of making a lower income than they might have had in private industry, it was worth it because they believed they were making a difference or playing a role in making the world safer, smarter, healthier, and better.

Now, after decades of people bashing "the government," our best and brightest don't want to work there either.  Looking at the nastiness and frustration among our top politicians--the US Congress and White House--it is no wonder that our students don't want a career in politics.  Education is another field where most of the public policy discussion is very negative, constantly highlighting all the perceived failures and rarely lauding the good work done day after day by millions of teachers across our country.

So what is left?  Becoming an athlete, rock or rap star, an actor/actress or, even better/easier, becoming a celebrity through so-called "reality" TV?

This is a tough, tough problem, and I don't know how we are going to solve it as a society.  But I know one thing.  As teachers and as parents, we need to support our students in dreaming again.  And I think it is particularly important in this middle school age--when they are old enough to understand and deal with some of the real substantive problems of our culture, but haven't yet experience so much frustration and inability to make a difference that they become cynical and indifferent.  In our case, it is why we are so heavily invested in a effort called Healing Oceans Together, where the students wrote the following mission statement for their group:

Healing Oceans Together (H2O) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preservation of the seas, raising public awareness about the oceans, and supporting the community through environmental education. Our organization is largely student-driven and is exceedingly resourceful. We are homeschoolers saving the world one step at a time, because we believe that everybody, working together, can make a difference.

I have to end with quoting (yet AGAIN, for those who know me) from one of my favorite books of 2011, Okay For Now by Gary Schmidt.   In this passage from the book, which is set in the 1960s, the junior high science teacher, Mr. Ferris, is talking to a group of incoming students.

 "Within a year, possibly by next fall," he was saying, "something that has never before been done, will be done. NASA will be sending men to the moon. Think of that. Men who were once in classrooms like this one will leave their footprints on the lunar surface." He paused. I leaned in close against the wall so I could hear him. "That is why you are sitting here tonight, and why you will be coming here in the months ahead. You come to dream dream. You come to build fantastic castles into the air. And you come to learn how to build the foundations that make those castles real. When the men who will command that mission were boys your age, no one knew that they would walk on another world someday. No one knew. But in a few months, that's what will happen. So, twenty years from now, what will people say of you? 'No one knew then that this kid from Washington Irving Junior High School would grow up to do".....what? What castle will you build?"

With all our focus in education on test scores and STEM initiatives and funding priorities, we are forgetting to encourage our students to dream big dreams.  And what kind of a life are preparing them for without dreams?  As Langston Hughes said in his poem, Dreams:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.  

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Lesson Plan: Celtic Christian Prayers

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!  I hope the Leprechauns were kind to you.  They visit us every year, but didn't cause too much mayhen this time...  And my son and I did a great Green activity, which was to visit the beautiful gardens at the Arboretum at NC State, where all the flowering trees are blooming beautifully, before coming home to our new tradition of eating Bangers and Mash for St. Patrick's Day Dinner.

But last week in our World Religion class, where we have just started studying Christianity, we prepared for Saint Patrick's Day by studying Celtic Christian Prayers.  Ireland is an interesting place in terms of Christianity because it retained its Pagan religion longer than many other places that are now Christian, and I believe the Irish Christianity has more of an Earth-based-religious flavor than many other strands of Christianity.

For this lesson, I gave the students several pages of Celtic Chrisian Prayers (there are also current Celtic Prayers that are more Pagan, but the ones we used were all directed to the Christian concept of one God, along with Jesus as his special Son/Helper/Teacher).  We read them and then the students journaled about what they had in common and/or what seemed different to them from traditional Christian prayers they knew.  The list we came up with were:

1.  A concentration on concrete, rather than abstract, things or themes
2.  A focus on everyday life and/or common items
3.  More emphasis on gratitude for simple things than asking for "miracles" or personal goals
4.  Much attention to natural items

After that, I had the students write their own prayers or blessings, as influenced by Celtic Christian prayer philosophy.  As always, what they came up with was very different, but very beautiful.  Here are some examples:

May the rain nourish the plants
May the plants nourish the people
May the people nourish the Earth,
Let the earth provide for its providers.


May friends assist and bless you
And may beds aspire to rest you
And may you live under a roof
And may some dogs always woof
And may you earn substantial dough
And may you wear a wig Afro
And may your soup always taste good
And may your forest always have wood
And other stuff to be taken care
And may you have a rhyming prayer.


Let God be upon you when you are going through hard times.
Let God help you through your struggles and let him help you get out of the struggle.


May the sky always be blue
May the grass always be green
May the Earth always be saved
And may the people always want to save it.


To wake up looking at the trees
With the birds' songs in the air,
To break the fast
With healthy, nourishing food,
To fill the day
With creative, productive work,
To end the day
With loving family and good friends,
And to look forward to the next day filled with the same,
For this, God, I thank you.

They were all lovely and heartfelt reflections of the personality of each student, and I really appreciated each one.  So it was one of the best Saint Patrick's-related activities that I have ever done, as well as I great way to look at a different Christian tradition than most may be exposed to, at least here in North Carolina.

A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire

About a week ago, I wrote about finally reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I liked it way more than I thought, although I questioned whether it is really appropriate for anyone under 13 or 14.   Now I've finished the second book of the trilogy, Catching Fire.  It was very good as well.  I particularly liked some twists in the plot that I hadn't anticipated at all.  However, it is probably even darker than the first one--another reason to wait until your tweens get a little older before before exposing them to the book.  It leaves you on much more of a shocking cliff hanger than does the first book, however, so now I can't wait to finish the third book, Mockingjay.

We've been playing with poetry lately, and the muse hit.  So rather than give you a more traditional review for this book, I've summed it up in the form of a concrete poem (although, technically, it may be more of a space poem, since the words themselves don't really form the pattern).

SPOILER ALERT:  If you haven't read the book, you probably don't want to scroll down to the poem, although you probably can't make any sense of it.  I hope that it does make sense to those of you who have read the book, though.....


Note:  If you are having trouble reading it, you can click on the picture of the poem once to bring it up, and then click again to magnify it.

Art and Poetry Camp

While I've mentioned previously that my son is taking a Calder camp this week at the gorgeous new Cary Arts Center, I also have to report on the fabulous Art and Poetry Camp he did last with his weekly art teacher during the school year, Miss Jenny of Egg in Nest Art Studio.  Like everything he does with Miss Jenny, the camp was multimedia, multidisciplinary, creatively inspirational, individualized, a little offbeat, and really high quality instruction:

They started with bookmaking, taught by one of Miss Jenny's former students who has studied bookmaking at Penland School of Arts.  They ended up making a 60-page coptic stitch book out of luscious paper that they decorated themselves with black ink:

Then they studied poetry, and wrote and illustrated their own poems, which they included or inserted among the pages.  This sample of Madison's poems really captures Ogden Nash's poetic style, I think:

MANATEE

I'm partial to the Manatee
Of which it has no enemy
Full of lovely proximity

Or sometimes they would just do art:

Or found word poetry:

Or just react to the patterns created by the ink decoration:

I can't do justice to this piece with my photographs, because it is so lovely to hold and to page through, discovering one little quirky gem after another.  But he had a great experience and ended up with a really wonderful art book, and I am very grateful to Miss Jenny for running the camp even though it has a small enrollment.

Madison showed his appreciation to his teacher by immortalizing her through his inimitable portrait style:

World Religions: Asatru and Norse Religions

Like most teachers, I have a plan about what it is that I am going to teach and when.  What is so lovely about my situation, however, is that if I feel like I should through away the plan and do something else, I can.  And sometimes it is that sudden inspiration that turns out to be the perfect lesson.

This was my situation last week in my world religion class.  I had planned to do a lesson on Native American spirituality.  But suddenly it hit me--what big event in the lives of my students took place last weekend?  Why, the opening of the movie Thor, of course.  So why not take advantage of all the buzz of the hottest movie of the moment, and do a class on traditional Norse religions and mythology and its modern incarnation, the religions of Asatru and Northern Heathenism?

So I through out my lesson plan (or, actually, rescheduled it for next week), and plunged into Norse mythology.  And it was so much fun!  Of course, it ended up taking a lot more time and a lot more work than I had anticipated (a common problem for me!), but unlike Greek, Roman, and even Egyptian mythology, I never knew too much about the Norse gods and goddesses beyond the biggies--Odin, Thor, Frigga, and Loki.  But what a fascinating cosmology the Norse tradition created.  The Norse universe consists of nine worlds inhabited by different beings--gods and goddesses of the sky, gods and goddesses of the earth, giants, light elves, dark elves, dwarfs, and, of course, us mere mortals--all supported by a Tree of Life with a name I have no idea of how you are supposed to pronounce because it is spelled "Yggdrasil."  It is a world of balance, but instead of the usual light versus dark or good versus evil, the primordial contrast in the Norse world is cold versus dark.  As I read about the creation of life, which came from the drippings from the real of ice when it was warmed by the ball of fire, which were the only two things at the beginning of time, or the battles of the gods against the frost giants, or other great Norse tales, I couldn't help put it into my American perspective on things, perhaps best expressed by Robert Frost in his wonderful poem, Fire and Ice:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Anyway, it worked out really, really well.   As I expected, most of the students were excited to learn more about something so topical.  They enjoyed learning the truth about the Norse myths (from which the movie apparently departs significantly in many ways) and learning more about modern worshipers who are trying to revive the old Norse religions.  Towards the end of the class, we read the myth about how Odin gave his eye in search of wisdom, and how he suffered in order to obtain the mystic runes.  We discussed some about the runes and how they were used, and each student made a set out of air dry clay to take home for his or her own use.  All in all, I think they really enjoyed the class.

For my part, besides learning a lot about this tradition myself, I was glad to get some of this information to them before they saw the movie and thought that was how the Norse gods, goddesses, beliefs, and worlds were originally written.  Also, this was a great example of how Earth-based religions reflect the environment from which they were derived.  Of all the religions we have studied so far, this was the first to talk about the power of cold and ice.  So this ended up being a valuable addition to our studies of nature-based spiritual traditions.

Lesson Plan: 19th Century Romantic Poetry and Earth Day

We try to incorporate our latest areas of study into every holiday, and Earth Day is no exception.  We've been focusing on 19th Century history and literature this year, so yesterday we prepared for Earth Day by reading nature poems by such 19th Century Romantic Poets as Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth.

These writers actually go well with Earth Day because one of their favorite topics was the exaltation of Nature, along with comparing the pristine beauty and innocence of the natural world with the corruption of Man and human society.  So poems from that era do a great job of evoking visual images of a gorgeous natural scene, as well as sparking a sense of caring for protecting these lovely wild areas.

Next, my son tried his hand at writing some Romantic poetry.  Realizing that is something of a stretch for a 12 year old boy, it took a few attempts to get in the right mood.  But after his first poem about hallucinogenic mushrooms (rejected not for the topic, since many of the Romantic writers experimented with mind-altering substances, but because it was too comedic, and humor was NOT a feature of the Romantic poets) and his second one about two men arguing over a shark (too anthropomorphic--the Romantics wanted humans to become more like Nature, not for Nature to become more like Man), he came up with one that I thought set a more Romantic tone.  I told him to think about this task like he was writing a love poem to a tree or flower or other particular aspect of Nature, and I think he did just that with this poem:

The weeping willow has little grief
Serenity surrounds it in a wreath
Under its branches lies lovely peace
Its warmth is warmer than any fleece

So right now in North Carolina, we are renewing our Earth with some welcome rain, so it may not be the best day for traditional Earth Day activities like planting vegetables and such.  But if you find yourself housebound, don't worry--try reading and writing some Romantic poetry in honor of our Earth.

Math Trek and Fib Poems

Yesterday was the last session of this academic year's version of the Math Treks, sponsored in the Triangle NC area by Natural Math.  The idea behind the Math Treks is to "grow math eyes" by trying to find math concepts, such as fractals and tessellations and golden ratios and such, in nature, or at least among the landscapes in which we live.  These concepts are captured in photography and shared via Flikr, and help students connect abstract math concepts with the concrete reality in which they live.  It's a really great program, and I'm so grateful that we were able to participate.

Since yesterday's session was the last one, it was a culmination of many of the treks that came before.  Find all of the items on the list, and you were designated as a "Super Treker."  We were looking for these items at the Arboretum at NC State, which was a rich place for both photography and natural math (and which I've written about before in this post).  Maria D. of Natural Math and I ended up working together, and eventually found all the items, winning ourselves the title of "Super Trekers."

One of the things we had to do was write a Fibonacci Poem, also called a Fib (which I've explained before in this post), which has syllables in the Fibonacci sequence.  So I wrote this Fib Poem:

Math
Trek
Super
Edition.
Find Nineteen Items.
Then You Are a Super Math Geek!

So here I am--a designated Super Math Geek!  Who would have thought it (especially given that Math is not my strongest discipline)?

My son did his own quest with other students of his age, so I didn't see his items until everything was over. However, as we were walking out, he did show me this thing that he had created:

Start of my son's Fib poem

Not only was it a public declaration (at the very entrance of the Arboretum), but it was the opening syllables of his Fib poem.  Here is his Fib:

My
Mom
Is The
Best Mother
In the Universe.
I Think that She Is Really Great!

So we all had a great day playing with math and photography on a beautiful day in a gorgeous setting, with a little bit of sadness mixed in because we were ending something that we've really enjoyed.  But I think I was probably the happiest mom leaving, thanks to the poetic tribute from my son.

Combining Art and Poetry (and Dance and Music.....)

For the past several years, my son has been taking art lessons with a fabulous art educator, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Studio.

Jenny Eggsleton of Egg in Nest Studio

Miss Jenny's classes are kind of different from most art classes.  Hers are multi-aged and multi-leveled, with each student working on different projects of his or her own creation.  The studio is filled with different art materials and art inspiration, and each child picks the medium--painting, colored pencils, pastels, collage, digital art, etc.--and the topic for the latest project.  Jenny them roams through the room, giving one-on-one assistance with each separate project.  She is kind of like an art coach, which is perfect for someone as independently minded as my son.

Each semester she sponsors an exhibition of all the students' artwork.   However, for the past two years, the spring exhibition has turned into a big event.  She has each student create a piece of art, and then write a poem about that art (or sometimes vice versa).  Then she not only has a public art display, but she organizes a public event where all the students get up and read their poems on stage, along with some poetry or other art from professional artists.

The Poet Artists of Egg in Nest Studio

This year's event, which took place yesterday (Saturday, April 16, 2011), was called "Blurring the Line," because it was exploring what happens when you combine the visual arts with poetry, music, dance, and other art forms.

For not only was Miss Jenny having the students present their poems and artworks, but she had professional artists create songs, poems, dances, etc., on the spot that reflected what they heard in the children's poetry!

It was a wonderful event, made all the more dramatic by the fact that it was interrupted in the middle by a tornado warning, so everyone had to leave the performance stage and wait downstairs until the tornado that wreaked damage in much of Wake County had passed us by.

I feel very fortunate that we have such a gifted art teacher in our lives.  Miss Jenny not only continues to produce and display her own work, she attends workshops and finds other ways to grow in her own development as an artist--and, of course, passes that on to our children.  I'm glad he is exposed not only to her art instruction, but her encouragement for them to think more broadly and more deeply about what is art and how different artistic approaches complement each other.  We love Miss Jenny!

Here is my son's work for the show, which is on public display until April 24 at the Halle Cultural Arts Building in downtown Apex:

The Birds of Tackfar

Lesson Plan: National Poem in Your Pocket Day

There is so much to celebrate in April!  But I didn't want today to go by without recognizing that April 14, 2011 is National Poem in Your Pocket Day.

The idea behind Poem in Your Pocket Day is to carry a short poem in your pocket and to pull it out of your pocket and read it to people you come in contact with during the day.  I usually don't organize a formal event for this, but I do encourage my son to participate (and I do as well, of course) by picking out a poem relating to what we are studying and sharing it with the people we see that day.  Most years we have some class or coop he can read it to, but I almost always make sure we visit a library or our local independent bookstore that day so we know we will have at least one receptive audience.

Right now, we have been studying the American Civil War and Reconstruction, so our poetry choices this year have come from the man who is probably the most famous American poet--Walt Whitman.  Here is the poem that my son chose for today:

I Celebrate (an excerpt from Song of Myself)
by Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass

My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

And my poem for the day is:

Miracles
by Walt Whitman 

WHY! who makes much of a miracle? 
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, 
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, 
Or stand under trees in the woods, 
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, 
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother, 
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, 
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, 
Or animals feeding in the fields, 
Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, 
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet and bright, 
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring; 
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--mechanics, boatmen,farmers, Or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera,  

Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,  

Or behold children at their sports,  

Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, 

Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,   
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass; 
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, 
The whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place. 

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, 
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, 
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, 
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same; 
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns    them, 
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. 

To me the sea is a continual miracle;  
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with men in them, 
What stranger miracles are there?

So mine is a recognition of the everyday miracles all around us, while my son chose his because he sees it as a paean to goofing off...which, if you read his blog, he claims to be inordinately fond of (although he exaggerates the extent to which he actually does that).  That actually tell you more about us than about Whitman, though...  Especially with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, you hear more lately about his war poems ("Beat! Beat! Drum!",  "Ashes of Soldiers") or his Lincoln poems ("Oh Captain!  My Captain!"), but we are drawn to his earlier, more exuberant ones.

Anyway, today is our monthly trip for an activity with the elderly at an assisted living place we have been visiting for 11 years now, so we'll get to read our poems there.  He also has a book club at an area library, so that will be an excellent opportunity to share poems.  Another local library is having a Poem in the Pocket event, so we'll probably stop by there, and perhaps a third library to pick up a book we have on hold--and to read more poetry!

So grab a poem, stick it in your pocket, and start sharing it with people today.  Any excuse to get middle schoolers reading poetry aloud is a good thing, I think.

Persian Fairy Tales, Small Worlds, Bananas, and the Power of the Internet

I love words (as regular readers of this blog might have realized, since I use so many of them!)  One of my favorite words is "serendipity," which Wikipedia defines as "denotes the property of making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated, or the occurrence of such a discovery during such a search."  And while I have long loved the word, and work it into my conversation and writings as often as is appropriate (another word like it that I love is "cacophonous," which the occasion to use arises, alas, all too often), it was not until tonight that, perhaps inspired by my recent post on the word history game Etymologic, I looked up the derivation of the term.  (Man, what a sentence.  And while I think it is grammatically correct, my homework is to try to diagram it.  It's what I tell my son to do, so I need to follow my own advice.)

Anyway, it turns that, according to my favorite etymology resource, the Online Etymology Dictionary, that serendipity was actually coined by a specific person--namely, Wallace Walpole--on a specific date--January 28, 1754.  He said he created it from a Persian fairy tale called "The Three Princes of Serendip," within which the protagonists "were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of."

So I don't know what worked for the ancient Persians, but my favorite vehicle for serendipity these days is the good old hyperlinked World Wide Web.  I can easily begin with a simple task (like looking up the etymology of the word serendipity) and get lost for 30 minutes in Persian literature and foreign languages and translation difficulties and who knows what else.  But blogging is a particularly great vehicle for these serendipitous encounters, as people seek out your site while you seek out their posts, based on some common interests.

That happened to me today when, in following up a comment someone made on one of my posts, I discovered a marvelous resource.  Another homeschool mom out there is writing a great blog about her homeschooling adventures under the name of SmallWorld at Home.  I'm not sure where the name comes from, but to me it brings to mind William Blake's wonderful words:

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

Maybe that's just me, who has 19th century poets on the brain as we study them along with our 19th century history--but what a lovely way to describe what we do as homeschoolers, and, really, as parents in general.

But more to the point, however, is the fact that this past week, we've spent a lot of time on writing--fiction, non-fiction, and quasi-fiction (see my son's blog, The Madisonian Blog, to see how easily he can morph one into the other).  Specifically, we have been working on mastering the Five Paragraph essay.  He is taking a class at our homeschool coop on this topic, where the teacher has been doing a masterful job of trying to move the students from their preferences for storytelling to the tighter format of an essay. But the real work needs to be done at home, where they do their actual writing.  So we've done draft after draft after draft on my son's essay, which is about the history of bananas (which turn out to be a fascinating not fruit, but technically an herb).

So what do I find at SmallWorld at Home but a very useful post on writing an essay, with this oh-so-validating comment:

If you spend a whole year perfecting the 5-paragraph essay and its various types (descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive, etc.), you'll have accomplished much of what is covered in a basic freshman composition class.  Imagine how far ahead your student will be if he is familiar with the format in middle school and fluent by high school!

So bless you, SmallWorld mom!  It's worth all the time and effort after all....

If you want to read her resources about writing essays, click here to read that post.  She also has a whole wonderful series about creative writing that is especially geared to beginning and reluctant writers.  Look at this neat link she has created for that resource:







So I'm really grateful that I live in a time of technology-facilitated serendipity, and for the support I get for my journey from all these other bloggers and web writers whose insight I soak up, even if we never meet.

Picture Books for Middle Schoolers

As long as I am on my "don't abandon all youthful tools" kick...

Pragmatic Mom had a thought-provoking blog post where she asked people to help compile a Top 10 list of Caldecott Medal and Honor Books.  It was tough, but I finally came up with this list based on my self-imposed rules:
--No more than one book from any one author
--Selection was more than just that one book, but also considered body of work by that author

Going in order from oldest to newest, my top 10 choices were:

Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss, pseud. [Theodor Seuss Geisel]

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti , adapted and illustrated by Gerald McDermott

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

Tuesday by David Wiesner

Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young

In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming 

What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? illustrated and written by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Zen Shorts illustrated and written by Jon J. Muth

And while some might think that Caldecott winners were too young for middle schoolers, I would disagree. For example, we still create Oobleck, sometime for science, sometimes just for the fun of it. I used Tuesday in a writing class (for a lesson of "show, not tell" in writing) and Seven Blind Mice in a religion class (as a metaphor for trying to explain the divine). I anticipate using Anansi the Spider when we get into Jung, and Zen Shorts when we get to Buddhism. And, of course, we once again celebrated the Christmas season with our annual reading of The Polar Express.

But it got me to thinking that maybe I would create my own Top 10 list of Non-Fiction Picture Books for Middle Schoolers, based on the resources I have been using in my classes for this academic year. So here are the Picture Books that have figured most prominently in our 6th Grade lessons so far:

Math (but really, so much more)

Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese  I wrote an entire post about this book, which we love, love, LOVE.  We used it not only for math, but for history, art, and even literature, since it has inspired us writing some short poems known as Fibs.

History (we are studying 19th Century World and American history)

Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations by Diane Stanley

The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy) by Barbara Kerley (my review of this book)

Walt Whitman:  Words For America by Barbara Kerley

History and Science  

One Beetle Too Many:  The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin by Kathryn Lasky

The Cod’s Tale by Mark Kurlansky

Science

The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay

The Way We Work by David Macaulay

These aren't really classic Picture Books, so I'm counting them both together as one book.  But they both present scientific information in such a great visual way, and work either reading sequentially through the book, or just picking up a page or two at a time to get clear about a particular question that has come up about a tool or a body part.

World Religions (so far, just Judaism and Christianity)

Creation by Gerald McDermott

Exodus by Brian Wildsmith (my review of this book)

Spirit Child:  A Story of the Nativity by John Bierhorst

I also found a couple of resources with some other good Picture Books for middle schoolers.  One is from another blog of a book-loving teacher, Planetesme, where she lists some other top notch picture book biographies.  An even more thorough and academic-oriented resource is A Middle School Teacher's Guide for Selecting Picture Books.

But I would love to get any suggestions that you have for picture books for students in the 11-14 age range.  Anyone have any other picture books to recommend to us?  Please share them in the comments below.