Found poets

My COMPASS Lab usually gets to choose what to blog about day to day, but today is not just any day.

Up until now, we have primarily focused on getting used to reading challenging texts of the prose fiction, natural sciences, social sciences, and practical reading varieties.Today’s article would probably fall under the humanities category for COMPASS Test text types, but the focus was diverted a little more into writing territory, especially rhetorical skills like style and strategy.

Say what you will about poetry in the classroom, but I  think having students write found poetry from “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Richard Lacayo was probably not only a way to have students reflect on the significance of that other Day that Will Live in Infamy 11 years ago, but also to make them think about word choice and the power of language. I mean, they were picking out some juicy lines–a useful reading analysis skill in itself–and the way they were combining them…at first they probably did it just to be done, but when I looked over their shoulders and read what they had actually put together…it was juicier still. Meaty, even. I think we’ll spend some serious time analyzing their poetry in preparation for the COMPASS Test after this!

If you are interested in what they came up with, I am collecting students’ entries on a 9/11 Memoriam Diigo list as they turn them in, and I created a Voicethread for students to respond to some of my favorites. (They were supposed to comment on either the author’s line breaks, word choice, pace, or tone.)

If you are interested in what I came up with, here is my found poem contribution:

From “Gravity’s Rainbow,” Time, by Richard Lacayo

Was there a way, he wondered.