Thankful List Poem

During the month of November, writers in room 101 kept a list of things we're thankful for, adding to the list gradually throughout the month.

Today, we read some list poems from the poetry anthology Falling Down the Page and we each chose items from our personal thankful lists that we wanted to include in our class list poem.

Our published list poem hanging outside room 101.

Room 101 has so much to be grateful for.

Poems in the Making by Mac

Poems, Poems in the making. In class we were recently making poetry books. The whole class was working really  hard. So was I. It was very hard work, too.

The video above contains photos of our class's poetry anthology covers taken by Mac. It's set to Some Nights by FUN, a song chosen by Mac for the video.

Mayhem Poets Assembly by Dylan

We were sitting comfortably in our seats watching the Mayhem Poets make us laugh. They were making us laugh more and more every second. At the end they asked some people to come up for a one word poem. It was funny because they sometimes messed up.

After we went back to the classroom everybody was talking about the Mayhem Poets. "Let's do a one word poem," I exclaimed. While we were doing that I noticed that everyone around us was doing it, too. Cool, I thought.

This assembly was very important because it taught us that poetry can be written in more than one way.

Visit the Mayhem Poets website for more info: http://mayhempoets.com/ .

Things Room 101 Is Thankful For

Today, the day before Thanksgiving, we published a class poem titled Things Room 101 Is Thankful For. Our poem is a list poem, inspired by Georgia Heard's Falling Down the Page, and used parts of the thankful lists we've been keeping in our writer's notebooks for the last week and a half.

 The published poem hanging outside our classroom door.

Writers in our room chose items off their thankful list, decided what kind of punctuation they'd want to include within and at the end of their line, and also made decisions about where to place their line (their sentence strip) in relation to the line above theirs in the poem.

Please enjoy the video below, which includes the sound of our first-read of the poem (turn your volume up:) and photos of each line as they were added to the poem.

Room 101 feels like there is a lot to be thankful for and we hope you do, too. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thirteen Ways of Getting Through a Hurricane

Hey Fourth Graders (and Mrs. Barnett!),

How are you doing? I've been thinking about you all week, wondering how you're doing. I (probably obviously, since I'm able to do this blog post), have power back, and am wishing, wishing, wishing it back on in Fair Haven for you all.

I'm sure you have Burning Story Ideas you've been adding to your WNB at home, that you've been enjoying the unexpected time with your family and friends. I'm anxious to get back to school and hear your stories.

Some people on Facebook update their status each day in November with something they're thankful for. We'll each start our own thankful list in our WNB as soon as we're back (you can, of course, start it before we're back if you want!).

Until then, though, I wanted to share a poem that I've been working on. Coreen, my best friend, suggested that we use a poem called Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens as a mentor to write our own poems about how we've gotten through the blackout and Hurricane Sandy.

So, I'm including my poem at the end of this post- maybe we'll all write our own next week as a writing homework. It would be fun to see how we all got through this hurricane.

See you soon!

Thirteen Ways of Getting Through a Hurricane

Invite neighbors over

who you’ve meant to have over,

but haven’t yet,

and play card games

by the candlelight.

Sleep in.

Pull all the candles out,

from every drawer

and cabinet

and shelf

and move them around with you,

from kitchen to family room,

to light your way.

Make two trips to 711 to call family:

Cell phones aren’t working.

All’s ok.

Use spaghetti noodles

to light the gas stove

and cook whatever’s

thawed in the freezer

(it will be bad by tomorrow).

Download new books

on your kindle

and read them

under two blankets

because it’s chilly

without the heat.

Hold your breath

and scrub

fast,

fast,

fast,

in an ice cold shower.

Then sprint back

to the aforementioned

two blankets.

Nap.

Take walks through town.

When the nights seem

to be creeping by,

move to Derek’s Jeep,

charge phones

(still not working, but just in case…),

plug the laptop in,

and watch Parenthood episodes.

Take a trip to Sickles

and stock up on “necessities”:

salad,

turkey sloppy joe's,

mashed potatoes,

sandwich,

caramel chocolate popcorn.

Do a celebration dance

when the power

comes

back

on.