{"id":7690,"date":"2017-04-29T11:56:57","date_gmt":"2017-04-29T18:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/?p=7690"},"modified":"2017-04-29T11:56:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-29T18:56:57","slug":"where-im-from-poems-and-blackout-poetry-from-kids-writing-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/2017\/where-im-from-poems-and-blackout-poetry-from-kids-writing-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"“Where I’m From” Poems and Blackout Poetry from Kids’ Writing Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 21, our Kids’ Writing Workshop for ages 8-12 met to do some poetry in honor of National Poetry Month. We started with a poem template based on a poem by George Ella Lyon<\/a> called “Where I’m From”:<\/p>\n

Where I’m From<\/p>\n

I am from clothespins,
\nfrom Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
\nI am from the dirt under the back porch.
\n(Black, glistening,
\nit tasted like beets.)
\nI am from the forsythia bush
\nthe Dutch elm
\nwhose long-gone limbs I remember
\nas if they were my own.<\/p>\n

I’m from fudge and eyeglasses,
\n from Imogene and Alafair.
\nI’m from the know-it-alls
\n and the pass-it-ons,
\nfrom Perk up! and Pipe down!
\nI’m from He restoreth my soul
\n with a cottonball lamb
\n and ten verses I can say myself.<\/p>\n

I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch,
\nfried corn and strong coffee.
\nFrom the finger my grandfather lost
\n to the auger,
\nthe eye my father shut to keep his sight.<\/p>\n

Under my bed was a dress box
\nspilling old pictures,
\na sift of lost faces
\nto drift beneath my dreams.
\nI am from those moments–
\nsnapped before I budded —
\nleaf-fall from the family tree.<\/p>\n

I had the kids use a template which I adapted from the “Freeology” website: http:\/\/freeology.com\/worksheet-creator\/poetry\/i-am-from-poem\/<\/a>. I tried to make it easier for kids to use. This isn’t the actual template kids used in class, because I printed out a previous draft by mistake, but it worked out fine. If you want to do this activity I recommend using this revised one:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Encourage your kids to think about how they would express the way their house looks or their favorite toy with simple but vivid images, conveying how it looks, smells, feels, etc.<\/p>\n

Here’s what the kids came up with! I think they were very creative and I told them these poems will make great Mother’s Day presents!<\/p>\n

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We also did a blackout poetry activity using pages from wrecked children’s books that had to be discarded. There are lots of different ways you can do blackout poetry, but I recommend scanning the page first for any words that pop out as having a similar meaning or theme, that can be pulled out of the prose and put together to form a new poem. I circle those and then start blacking out other things. <\/p>\n

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We’ll have our next writing workshop on Friday, June 16. We’ll be doing fiction writing. To sign up call 626-744-4066 option 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 21, our Kids’ Writing Workshop for ages 8-12 met to do some poetry in honor of National Poetry Month. We started with a poem template based on a poem by George Ella Lyon called “Where I’m From”: Where I’m From I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[190],"tags":[233,241],"class_list":["post-7690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-poetry","tag-tweens"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p71KT0-202","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7707,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690\/revisions\/7707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}