Scott
Johnston
It was the height of autumn
and the liquidamber tree outside my classroom glowed and flamed
as the leaves did their annual magic trick prior to drifting
exhausted to the concrete paving blocks below.
Autumn - time of harvest, wonder
and awe in cool temperate climates: time of inspiration for
Keats or Shelley, and countless others, I mused.
When students in my class write
‘poetry’, I’m frequently left feeling that I
don’t know how to respond to outpourings of adolescent
angst or confusion which seem to have a therapeutic rather than
literary or aesthetic purpose. ‘How can I move them on
from this stuff towards the creation of poetry, from self-expression
to artistic statement?’ I’ve often wondered.
The liquidamber’s exuberant
autumn display led me to develop a lesson sequence with a focus
on abstraction of experience and observation and use of specific
poetic devices which, with my Grade 9 and 10 creative writing
class, moved their products from angst toward the poetic.
Step One: The students
were taken outside to locations of deciduous trees in school
grounds. They spent time observing before choosing one
leaf from amongst those lying on the ground. Students made particular
note of the place (using sensory details) in which their special
leaf had been, prior to selection.
Step Two: We returned
to the classroom and fixed the leaves into the students’
workbooks. The students spent 10-15 minutes making notes around
the leaf, commenting on texture, shape, colour, structure, location
found, as well as connotations and associations.
Students were asked to write
four similes and metaphors, which describe aspects of the leaf.
(I needed to revise/clarify these terms with some students!)
Step Three: (next lesson)
- Students reviewed their notes, made additions,
and shared some similes and metaphors with the class, incorporating
other people’s as appropriate.
- Students wrote a poem about their leaf
focussing on sensory description and including a number of
similes and metaphors.
- Then there was peer conferencing with
a focus on heightening imagery and descriptive language.
Step
Four: This was a mini-lesson on symbolism delivered by teacher.
We explored the nature of symbols, visual, aural and language,
citing everyday examples. We established that symbols may change
in different
I asked the questions, ‘For
what in our culture is a red rose a symbol?’ …. ‘How
can we extend the image to explain the process of falling in
love, being in love, falling out of love?’ …’…
with bitter consequences? Or with friendly consequences?’
I blackboarded the student responses, and worked with the class
to produce an extended metaphor on a love relationship.
The students redrafted their
poems so that the leaf became a symbol for autumn. This could
be by replacing the words "the leaf" with the word
‘autumn’ as a first step, taking care to amend pronouns
… e.g. ‘the leaf ripples burnt oranges and russet
reds’ might become ‘Autumn ripples burnt oranges and
russet reds’.
Students continued revising
to strengthen images and symbolism. They held peer conferences
with the same focus.
Step Five: I announced
that their poem is to be called ‘Autumn’, and that,
after students have decided which gender they ascribe to Autumn,
they must replace the word ‘Autumn’ with the appropriate
personal pronouns in the body of the poem. For example, "She
ripples burnt oranges and russet reds" or "He ripples
burnt oranges and russet reds".
With my critical literacy hat
on, this became a brief but productive opportunity to consider
gender assumptions and their impact on word choice and implied
meanings as well as overt ones, e.g. "Is the rippling of
a different quality if he ripples or if she
ripples?"
The students continued polishing
to publication stage.
There was a lot of teacher
direction and instruction in these poetry writing lessons, and
that intervention on a whole class and on an individual student
level was I think what pushed students forward with their work.
In the constructivist learning way of thinking about things
these lessons were about supporting students to do things together
before they were asked to do them by themselves. It was hard
work, both the teaching and the learning, but my students and
I felt a real sense of achievement when they could confidently
give me their ‘finished’ work and I could say, "Yes!
I think you’ve got a poem there!"
