6th graders Thoughts & Emotions

For the second week of our mini-residency 6th graders explored their thoughts and emotions. On Tuesday students read and discussed the poem “Thought Machine,” by Laura Mucha. In her poem Mucha compares her mind to a machine that generates positive or negative thoughts, Sometimes my thought machine makes thoughts like /THAT WENT WELL or YOUR DOING GREAT or YOU GOT THIS/ but sometimes it makes thoughts like/ THAT WAS TERRIBLE or HOW EMBRASSING or WHAT A MESS. Most students agreed that they had similar thoughts to Mucha’s, and at times these thoughts can be triggered by certain people and environments.

On Thursday we embraced our emotions. As a warmup activity students played a YouTube guessing game, where they saw scenes from the movie “Inside Out,” and had to identify what emotion the main character Riley was experiencing. Afterwards we read the poem, “Confidence” by former Shoesmith Elementary 6th grader Morgan H. In her poem Morgan uses personification, bringing the emotion of confidence to life by giving it human-like qualities. Confidence wears a blue shirt with white pants and blue shoes. Her hair done, nails done, everything done. If you don’t like her style, that’s not her problem. Students then imagined how their own emotions would appear if they could walk, talk, and behaved just like a human.

Please enjoy reading these thoughtful and emotional poems by 6th graders.