Keep Indianapolis Beautiful

Last week my class participated in a project building day with State Farm and Habitat for Humanity. Students worked with local community members to help build benches, paint bird houses, and paint/plant flower pots. This was part of the Keep Indianapolis Beautiful grant. The items that students worked on will directly impact people in their own community as they are going to help decorate new Habitat homes. It was so awesome to see how great they worked together for such a great cause.

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So this is week two of poetry in my class. We have been noticing what poets do and everything you could possibly imagine about poems. Today we did writing to art. I show them the painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. First they responded in prose or poetry, what ever moved them. I had each of them share one word from their writing to describe the poem (great activity for showing tone) and we talked about their ideas and writing. We then circled several words and phrases from our writing and put them together in a poem. Three of my students shared and they were INCREDIBLE! I was floored when I heard these poems...FIRST TIME POEMS! It doesn't get any better than this. I would like to share two of those poems in response to "The Scream."

Surrounded by Nightmares
A fire ball sky
trapped
or about to burn
crying out for
help
trying to find
a place to
go
screaming
out loud
but no one can hear you
people in the distance
paying no mind
just exploring the dark,
dull colors
of a terrifying world
behind
by Shayonna

The Man
Old, lonely man
Alone on a dock
No one around
to help.
Two bystanders
Walk away.
Yelling,
Screaming.
Silence kills
Everyone
But only one
Deaf scream
Emerges.
by Imani

Stay tuned for more amazing 6th grade poetry. Tomorrow we will be responding to "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" painted by Georges-Pierre Seurat. A much different tone so I can't wait to hear what they will come up with tomorrow!