Alexander Graham Bell Elementary | The Poetry Center of Chicago

Alexander Graham Bell Elementary

Anthology of Student Verse

Responding to Art through an Ekphrastic Poem.
Submitted by Marissa Spalding on March 17, 2011 - 1:14pm.
Alexander Graham Bell Elementary

For our final poem this year the fourth graders at Bell Elementary responded to four different paintings. We learned that when we respond to artwork, music, or dance we are engaging in a poetic form of Ekphrastic poetry.

For this excersise we read the poem Girl at Sewing Machine by Mary Leader - her poem was based on the painting by Edward Hopper of the same name).

We then responded to the following paintings, choosing one for our own writing.

From the Lake No. 1 - by Georgia O'Keefe

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How the world changes us and we change our worlds.
Submitted by Marissa Spalding on March 5, 2011 - 11:41am.
Alexander Graham Bell Elementary
The Fourth Grade read a poem by Chicago Poet Suzanne Buffam this week. I was happy to teach a poem from her new book, and was really impressed with the level of investment the students had her with imagery. The poem we read was, The New Experience.

The poem is broken into couplet form, though w/out traditional end-rhyme, and uses an extended personified image of old experiences burning out -
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Showing our favorite things.
Submitted by Marissa Spalding on February 26, 2011 - 6:55pm.
Alexander Graham Bell Elementary
We completed our work with Li-Young Lee this week by working with and reading the poem, My Favorite Kingdom. This lesson was created by Hands on Stanzas Poet Ryan Downey, whom I have had the pleasure of working with in the program this year.

Ryan's lesson centered around the idea that when we describe something we shouldn't just tell our readers what we are talking about, but we should focus on also showing our readers our favorite things through details and vivid imagery.

As usual the fourth graders at Bell read more »

	Words are not simply words. Submitted by Marissa Spalding on February 20, 2011 - 12:14pm. Alexander Graham Bell Elementary This week we began our study of poetry written by acclaimed Poet Li-Young Lee. As our first encounter with his work we read the poem, A Table in the Wilderness. read more »

	To look at family in a new light. Submitted by Marissa Spalding on January 29, 2011 - 6:23pm. Alexander Graham Bell Elementary This week we wrote poems about a family member. We made sure to include several poetic devices in our poems including repetition, simile, metaphor, and an image that was impossible or surreal. read more »

	Variation on a phrase. Submitted by Marissa Spalding on January 5, 2011 - 11:06pm. Alexander Graham Bell Elementary The fourth graders at Bell read a portion of the poem, "She had Some Horses" by Joy Harjo. Harjo weaves a phrase throughout the length of her poem, a very basic form of repetition, yet she uses little variation with her repeated phrase. read more »

	For Pride & For Fear. Submitted by Marissa Spalding on December 31, 2010 - 11:37am. Alexander Graham Bell Elementary With a final session before the winter break the fourth graders at Bell maneuvered their way through a second week of metaphors. We closed out the year with a clever poem by acclaimed Croatian Poet, Anka Zagar. read more »

Transforming an image into a metaphor.
Submitted by Marissa Spalding on November 27, 2010 - 1:28pm.
Alexander Graham Bell Elementary
The fourth graders at Bell this week took a simple image, changed it into a simile and then changed it into a metaphor. (A metaphor is a literary device that makes an image become another image by using words such as, "is" and "are.") We spent our class time taking various images and seeing how far we could stretch them by first changing them into a simile.
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	Mixing Poetic Devices. Submitted by Marissa Spalding on November 20, 2010 - 6:11pm. Alexander Graham Bell Elementary After reading the poem Sunflakes by poet and children's illustrator Frank Asch, we reviewed simile and discussed end-rhyme, rhyme schemes and also talked about the idea of changing words inside of words (compound words) to create a new and different image. read more »

	Finding the similar in Simile. Submitted by Marissa Spalding on November 5, 2010 - 7:58pm. Alexander Graham Bell Elementary A good Artist should have a good number of things in their toolbox, and as Poets are Artists, it is wise to practice and hone the craft of several poetic devices. One such device is one we discussed this week at Bell, the Simile. read more »