TL 525 - Week 3

This week we were tasked with putting the rubber to the road and actually working with a lesson from Fletcher and Portalupi's (2007) Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8.  I started out deciding to write using one of my favorite literary devices, IRONY.  Over the last 17 years, I have used different methods for teaching irony with my students.  I started by reading though the craft lesson "Experimenting with Irony" on page 117.  I then turned to the back and read the poem in Appendix 28.  Manning's poem, Another Night, was well written and succinct.  I appreciated the short phrase style, the matching stanzas, and the lack of popular poetry traps, but it was dark.  Though it was certainly realistic, and unfortunately something that many of our students face in silence, I wanted to create humor with my irony.  I decided to work with a situational irony story I have told students in the past that usually got a few laughs.

After writing my notes, I decided that I wanted to try and make this into a poem.  I don't see myself as a poet, but I often encourage my students to write their ideas into poetic form.  I thought this could possibly be the start of my own mentor text.  I put pencil to paper, and here is what I got...

It was ok, and I could have stopped there, but I went back to what I liked about Manning's poem.  I decided that I had used too many words.  I was telling the reader instead of showing him.  I wanted to try and be more succinct, so, after much thought and contemplation, I rewrote the poem.

I think it's better, but it's still not finished.  I didn't realize that I had left out my favorite line from the original until I was taking the picture for this blog.  I have to find a way of adding "Crap" back into this.  :)

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Speaking of irony, it is ironic that I wasn't comfortable simply doing the previous poem and considering it my entry for this week.  What if it wasn't good enough?  In Lehman's (2007) book he spoke of the fact that ANYONE can be a disengaged writer.  He also mentioned that some students feel the need to make sure that they are doing everything RIGHT.  I guess I am one of those kids.  I went back to Dr. Barrentine's assignment for this week, and looked at the examples she had given us.  Hmmmm...I hadn't chosen one of those.  Maybe I should give one a try.

I then turned to page 62 of Craft Lessons and read through the lesson on "Using Sensory Details."  I love the use of imagery in writing, and try to encourage my students to do this as much as possible.  I decided to write about my favorite pizza shop.  Here are my notes...

I don't know how many times I have drawn a similar diagram to this on the board and asked students to describe things using imagery, but I really think this might be the first time I had done it on my own.  They're right, it is harder than it seems!  I then decided to take my description ideas and create a short narrative based solely on entering the shop up until ordering.

Obviously this is unfinished, and I couldn't help myself from making some editing corrections.  (Tense shifts and repeated phrases drive me NUTS!  I should have kept the original and showed it to my comp kids.  I could have used it to explain that we all do it in drafts, but we need to make the corrections before publishing our work.  I hope to try some of the revising techniques Lehman suggests.

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This final writing simply made me smile.  Just check it out...it really doesn't need much more explanation.