Weaving Words and Worlds: Tapestry and Folding Poems

I got sucked into the Netflix original 13 Reasons Why a few weeks ago, and though it was uncomfortable and nerve wrecking, I had to see it through. I knew some of the students in my class were binging just like I was, so I decided to take the opportunity to discuss bullying, the importance of standing up to it, not doing it and counteracting its effects with kindness and love.

In each class, we talked about how there are always connections to make in the world and demonstrated that interconnectedness by writing collective poems. Our examples this week, for the first time, included no published works, but collective poetry that I have experienced in group settings. I read a poem to the 6th graders that had been woven from a set of corresponding lessons I ran with four co-workers. We ended up with a suite of haiku, one for each season. To the 7th graders, I read two folding poems, both created at the birth celebration of Asanti, held before his birth. The poems, A Letter to My Daughter and A Letter to my Son are brilliant examples of what can happen when a group of strangers, even, meditate on a common idea. Since there can be quite a bit of waiting around involved in collective poetry writing, the students made anti-bullying artwork/posters/wordles to accompany this post.

To add to the world of collective poetry, the 6th graders began their tapestry poems in which each writer writes a portion of the poem and passes it to the next person. The final product results in a tapestry, woven by many writers to make a whole. They got a good start, but since a portion of their class was dedicated to a disaster drill, I will leave their completed works for next week.