begin a month-long residency in two area grade schools, second graders at Dueber Elementary in Canton, Ohio, and Franklin Elementary in Massillon Ohio.
My plan is to first, to write a group poem about their school-- more exciting than you think as we are going to look at some history. (Hint: Lillian Gish is believed to have attended one of them in her childhood.)
Second, we will look at Amanda Gorman's Super Bowl poem for what we can learn about the number three, alliteration, and rhyme and then write poems about our own three heroes in Covid.
Third, we will look at a poem by 94 year old poet David Wagoner who lives in Seattle but was both in Stark County and has written a poem about his childhood accident there. Maybe we will have our own long-ago childhood memories to write about, like in kindergarten, oh, three long years ago.
Their teachers want us to work on reading fluency, so we will do some oral readings of poems on popcorn and summer and their own poems.
The last day, we will have what one teacher calls, "A Poetry Jam" with reading and rapping their own poems wearing Amanda Gorman and Billy Collins headgear. We'll exhibit the broadsides they have made-- because poetry is for the EYE and the EAR. And we'll eat Fisher's Smiley Face cookies iced in the school colors with a P for Poetry.
If you you'd like some lessons or some prompts, check in here next Monday, April 5th.
