We had a revision party today! We started by looking at Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” without line breaks and guessing where Brooks might have put them. We then looked at the actual poem and line breaks. The students had some great reflections on the ways that the line breaks emphasized the “we” making a sort of ghostly chorus and on the rhythm it created in the piece. We then discussed the ways we could use line breaks creatively in our own work. Students chose a previous piece of theirs to revise with a specific goal in mind. We ended with a celebration of our newly revised poems.
Maryam revised for additional figurative language.
My Mother Calls Me
–Maryam
Me-
ry-
em.
My mother calls me,
not Miriam or Mariam
her voice
as smooth
as butter
and as powerful
as the
ocean
rolling the R
like a haybell
in the desert
my mother’s
accent as
thick as the
pomegranate molasses.
Saying my name
loud and proud.
Meryem,
she calls me.
Daniel experimented with line breaks and how punctuation could help mimic the starts and stops of a football game.
***
The Football
–Daniel
I still.
Remember.
My first football.
The.
Brown leather.
That filled me with.
joy.
The white.
Color laces.
With those.
Very.
Smooth seams.
Made by the best.
company.
Wilson.
The sound of that.
air filled ball, hitting.
the finger pads.
The smooth look of.
The spinning ball.
THE SMELL OF.
ACCOMPLISHMENT
AND
VICTORY.
The.
Football.
