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LESSON PLAN #1 - I REMEMBER
untitled poem (from Poetry Everywhere)
by Ann Jankowski, 12th grade
I remember a girl with red hair
Heavy red hair
Wrapping a gentle face
of cream and pebbles
A banana held in her hand
Opening the banana
And the rotten fruit falling on my foot.
I remember going to the Anglican School, Jerusalem
And having my Calvin Klein knickers flushed down
The toilet of the locker room
But I remember it didn't matter
'Cause I didn't like them anyway.
I remember playing house
With 88 cans of baked beans
Beans on the floor and the walls
And telling my mother they were modern art.
I remember dancing and hitting my head
And wishing I passed out
So Mr. Dish would carry me home.
I remember being chased around the bunny hutch
The bunny hutch painted with a brown rabbit
By Derek
Who had heavy red hair and a face
of cream and pebbles
And wishing he wasn't so slow
Wishing he'd caught me.
Class Plan
Read an example “I Remember” poem to the class (your own, or one from Poetry Everywhere). Write the word “detail” on the board and ask the students what specific details they remember from the poem. Create word pools of the details, and word pools of general things the poet listed as something they remembered in the poem.
Let the students know they will be writing their own “I Remember” poems, and that it can focus on a slew of memories, or just one. Whichever they choose, they must include details to place their readers in the moment. Stray them away from “flat” memories. Instead of “I remember the first time I swam,” they should be writing “I remember the feeling of the concrete pool bottom scraping my feet before my mother held me up by my belly below the water and told me how to move my arms, slowly letting me go.”
The students are to write vividly, but also in their own language. Create a safe atmosphere and let it be known that although these do not have to be “important” memories (they can write about that very morning’s breakfast if they’d like!), they should have a personal feel to them, something very specific to the author and true to their voice.
As students write, offer different types of things they might remember, such as:
- the first time; the last time
- learned how to...
- a meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack)
- first pet / bike / book / words / etc.
- a vacation
- a day of school
- an embarassing moment; a proud moment
Also offer the ways they should flesh out these images with detail:
- colors / sounds / smells / shapes / taste / texture
- time of day, month, year; specific date; nonspecific date
- names, proper names, movie titles, book titles
- a line of a song playing at that moment
Encourage the students to never stop writing and to put any memory that comes to mind on the page. They may not be “prolific,” but they are obviously important to the life of the author if they were the first thing to appear in the mind when they thought “I remember...”.
Share and collect.
LESSON PLAN #2 - I AM FROM/WHERE I'M FROM
Where I'm From
by George Ella Lyon
I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush,
the Dutch elm
whose long gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
I'm from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from perk up and pipe down.
I'm from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.
I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,
friend corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments--
snapped before I budded--
leaf-fall from the family tree.
Class Plan
Read an example “I Am From” poem to the class (“Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon, your own, or another found model poem). Ask the students what lines they remember. At the top of the board, write “I am from...”. As you discuss the memorable lines with the students, create word pools of the different categories the author discussed- are they from an animal? a specific place? a movie? a storm? You may also write the actual words the author wrote, but try to start making lists of general places/things/people/ideas someone could be from so that the students can look and create their own ideas out of it.
Try a class poem by starting lines with “I am from”, then have the students flesh out the lines with detailed images. Once the students understand the direction of the exercise, have them write individually, circling the room and reading aloud good lines that may inspire others. Share and collect.
Ideas for Word Pools:
I am from...
- favorite... (pet/color/room in their house/teacher)
- best/worst memory
- best friend
- mother/father/siblings: their habits/traits/phrases, not just their name!
- book/movie/character/song
- something they see every day on the way to/from school
- a type of food or drink
- a telephone/television/dvd player/speakers/computer
- board game/video game
- laugh/cry/yell
* Students should be thinking abstractly- Let the students know, “You may literally be from Ohio, but what really makes you who you are?”