Fellow teacher and poetry enthusiast Jason Stephenson and I would like to invite all educators, students and authors to help celebrate poetry in the classroom by participating in a worldwide Blackout Poetry Event on Twitter and Instagram. You can find more information about how cool Blackout Poetry is by going here and here.
Middle Grade Example:
Magic is gone
into the night pale white street light
dark shadows tight pull sky blue beautiful
Magic answered flung into golden whirls curls like the rest of the world
From: A Snicker of Magic, by Natalie Lloyd
We’d love to see you do a blackout poem of a page from your favorite novel, a newspaper article or something lying around your home. Students from all over the world will be participating and sharing their love of words.
Please contact @blackoutpoets, @lesleymosher and @teacherman82 for more information.
It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys and invites bloggers to recap what they’ve read this week while planning ahead on what to read next! Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers added their own twist by focusing on kidlit, from picture books up to YA.
Here’s what I’ve read lately:
(Click on the book covers to add these titles to your Goodreads TBR piles
Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
2014
Upper YA Science Fiction
My Goodreads Rating: 5/5 Stars
So. Grasshopper Jungle. Have you heard about this book? It’s all the rage on social media right now so I had to check it out. Let me tell you that this is the weirdest book I have ever read in my entire life. The writing is a total game changer as far as I am concerned. Andrew Smith is a GENIUS. Grasshopper Jungle is beautiful. Grasshopper Jungle is creepy. And you will not be able to put this book down.
The Shadow Throne (Book 3, The Ascendance Trilogy) by Jennifer Nielsen
2014
MG Fantasy
My Goodreads Rating: 5/5
One of my favorite MG series. The False Prince, Jaron, and his loyal friends are really in trouble in this one and I thought that it was a great ending to the trilogy.
The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson
2014
Contemporary YA Fiction
My Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Stars
A sad story about a teenager whose father has PTSD, which many students can now relate to and possibly benefit from while reading Hayley’s journey. Typical Laurie Halse Anderson book – gut wrenching, real and edgy. Very good book!
Bystander by James Preller
2009
YA Contemporary Fiction
My Goodreads Rating 3/5 Stars
The ELA department at my school is currently narrowing down choices for next year’s One Book, One School event and this is a contender. I thought it was just ok and did not care for the ending, but it does have a message about types of bullying and would be good for middle school students to hear.
Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky #3) by Veronica Rossi
2014
YA Science Fiction
My Goodreads Rating 5/5 Stars
I really, really liked the Under the Never Sky series and wish there were more books. Great characters and plot. I have read so many final books from series that I have loved lately that it’s starting to get a little depressing. Oh, reader problems! 🙂
Here’s what I plan to read next: (Click on the cover for more info from Goodreads)
I’m down to my last library book No One Else Can Have You and then I am going to tackle my huge TBR pile at school. I’m still ahead on my Goodreads goal, but not by much!!
Backstory – Last fall I had an idea revolving around the success I’ve had with blackout poetry in my middle school reading intervention classes. I contacted my Twitter friend Jason Stephenson who also has used blackout poetry in his high school English classes with great results and asked if he’d be interested in co hosting a Twitter wide blackout poetry event. Fast forward to today and we are happy to announce…
our first Blackout Poetry Week will be held April 7-11th!
Now, to the good stuff…
If you don’t know a lot about blackout poetry, I suggest you check out Jason’s awesome post here. Basically, here’s what you need: enough Sharpies for your entire class, willing students and texts to use for their poems. Anything works, and I have used newspaper and magazine articles, random pages from discarded books and even texts that students have already read.
I like to show the blackout poetry guru Austin Kleon’s work as a starting point before we dive in. This time lapse video captures students’ attention and they are very curious about this activity.
I work with struggling readers and this is something that, with a little practice, they really have success with. Poetry is a tricky temptress – students are drawn to the idea of poetry, but it is scary and elusive and hard to wrap their heads around. Blackout poetry is safe, cool and very, very creative. The visual and text combination is awesome! There’s no doubt that students are definitely doing some higher level thinking and I’ve seen even the toughest critics (aka 7th grade boys) dive in. Truth be told, the sharpies don’t hurt either.
Here are some examples of some blackout poems from last spring:
This is my personal favorite. Eighth graders had recently finished reading a short story version of Flowers for Algernon and Noah pretty much captured the entire beginning of the book with his poem! Love it!
Other Ideas…
I’d really like to copy various sections of a read aloud or a text that students have all read in their ELA class and have them create a series of blackout poems that capture the mood, actions or development of a particular character throughout the book.
Old Encyclopedias would be an interesting text to use too. It would be fun to use pages containing outdated information and see what students come up with to use for their poems.
Younger students will definitely enjoy blackout poetry and this would be a great way to celebrate learning new words.
Another cool idea for older students would be to use banned books for this activity!
I’d also like to have students get a little more creative with the style of their poems and create a picture or design that fit with the subject or emotions of the subject.
Kind of like these…
Angela Watson, http://goo.gl/fIOzD
Tyler Ducas, http://goo.gl/sVA5R9
Sue Olson, http://suzenart.blogspot.com/
Aren’t these amazing? Jason and I hope you’ll join us in April for Blackout Poetry week. Follow Blackout Poets on Twitter for more examples you can share with your students and more updates and reminders about this worldwide event!
It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys and invites bloggers to recap what they’ve read this week while planning ahead on what to read next! Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers added their own twist by focusing on kidlit, from picture books up to YA.
Here’s what I’ve read lately:
(Click on the book covers to add these titles to your Goodreads TBR piles
Hollow City (sequel to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children)by Ransom Riggs
2014
YA Fantasy
My Goodreads Rating: 5/5 Stars
I think I loved Hollow City more than Miss Peregrine’s, which is saying a lot. I won’t give away any spoilers for either, but this book is fast paced and moves really well. There are so many characters, and it was surprisingly very easy to keep track of what was happening to everybody. Riggs included a lot more pictures in book two and they are fascinating and do not interrupt the flow of his beautiful writing.
Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
2013
YA Dystopian
My Goodreads Rating: 5/5
Another dystopian survival story, and this time by Ohio author Mindy McGinnis. Water is extremely scarce and Lynn and her mother protect the pond that is their lifeline. Lynn is a fascinating main character and I really enjoyed this story!
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, Illustrated by Maira Kalman
2011
Contemporary YA Fiction
My Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Stars
This was one of my two Random Reads from January. Why We Broke Up won a Printz honor in 2012 and the writing in this heartbreakingly sad book is absolutely gorgeous. There are a ton of old movie references that distract from the storyline, and I’m not sure a lot of teenagers would stick with this one. I loved the pictures of the items that the main character gives back to her ex and how the story ends, but this was a tough one to read.
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
2013
YA Contemporary Fiction
My Goodreads Rating 5/5 Stars
I am a huge fan of David Levithan and have been wanting to read this one forever. Two Boys Kissing was nominated for several awards and was even a 2013 National Book Award nominee. The story is centered around the “based on true events” of two seventeen year old boys who take part in a 32 hour kissing marathon to break the Guinness Book of World Records. The book is narrated by a “chorus” of an entire generation of gay men who lost their lives to AIDS. A beautiful and very important book!
Evertrue (Everneath #3) by Brodi Ashton
2014
YA Fantasy
My Goodreads Rating 3/5 Stars
I really liked this series as a whole – it’s based on mythology and is a great love story, but the last book was a little disappointing. It was a slow and the ending was just ok. I know that there are a lot of Everneath fans out there that are a lot more invested in the series than me that are probably really annoyed with how it ended, but I’m not sure there was another way to do it. Students who are looking for mythological infused fantasy will enjoy this one.
Here’s what I plan to read next: (Click on the cover for more info from Goodreads)
I have so many library books on my bedside table right now. I am going to give Doll Bones another try and am almost halfway through The Impossible Knife of Memory which I can’t put down. Here’s to hoping March is a much better reading month than February!
Literacy Love 