A Plethora of Poetry Prompts

Today, after completing your newsletter assignment, write a poem using one of the following prompts below:

1. David Lehman wrote a poem called “The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke.” Pick a similarly everyday pair – butter and margarine, hotdogs and hamburgers, peanut butter & jelly, etc. Write a poem about the pair.

2. In the poem “Words”, Dana Gioia writes: “The world does not need words. It articulates itself/ in sunlight, leaves, and shadows.” Think of other things that don’t speak, and write a poem about how these things express themselves. How does an apple, or a spoon, or a house communicate, etc?

3. Write a poem where every line of the poem begins with the same word or the same letter.

4. Think of a time you tried to explain something but just couldn’t put what you wanted to say into words. Try to put your feelings into words, this time in a poem. You may wish to start the poem with the line: “What I wanted to say was…”

5. Write a poem about disliking a chore or job that you have to do. Imagine yourself as an older person still having to do this chore or job.

6. Write a poem in which you ask a question of an older person. The first part of the poem should focus on describing the question. Remember to use a few metaphors or figurative language. In the second part of the poem write about the answer the older person gives you.

Today's Class

Welcome back from your testing. Today, please complete your journalism/newsletter assignment (see post below).

Additionally, if you haven't finished your other creative writing, please get caught up. This is our last week in Creative Writing. Your portfolios are due at the end of the week. Please print out (with the assignment in the heading) your completed work and put it in your portfolio if you have not already done so.

Journalism & Porfolio

This week we will not have class during your Math exams. For the next two days, please complete the following prompts/activities:

learn this JOURNALISM vocabulary:

Headlines: the attention grabbing title of an article
Masthead: the name of the newspaper/magazine (usually designed, but doesn't change)
Article: a specific story/narrative/non-fiction writing about a specific topic
Body: refers to the text of an article
Hook: Every article starts off with an attention grabbing sentence.

1.     Using a NEWSLETTER or BROCHURE template from the word processing program, alone or with one partner, create your own newsletter/magazine. Decide what topic or subject you would like your “magazine” to be about—for example: fashion, sports, news, cooking, teenage problems, vampires, etc.

2.     Interview a parent, neighbor, or student and write out the interview as if you were a reporter. See this link for ideas how to set up and conduct an interview.

 

3.     OPTIONAL: Film/Book/Theater Review: watch a film, read a book, go see a theater or musical production and review the event. Review a book you read this year either for pleasure or for English class.

WEBSITES to gain more ideas for writing projects:

http://www.teenink.com

http://www.layouth.com

http://www.reporter.org

A variety of journalism websites: http://www.threesixtyjournalism.org/audience/students/websites

HELP/ADVICE WRITING ARTICLES:

If you need HELP writing journalism articles, check this website out for advice!

 

Writing Prompts

Often students just need a push in a direction to get their ideas on the page. The best part about writing is that you (as the artist) are in complete control of everything. There is no wrong answer. Yes, the more you practice writing the better you will get at it, but imagination can take you anywhere. The prompts are just ways in which to point you in a direction.

Feel free to use any of these prompts from this page throughout your life to express yourself through writing.

Creative Writing Prompts
The One-Minute Writer

Today, please take a look at these websites. Write something (or finish a piece of work you didn't finish last class).

NOTE: Your portfolios will be due in two weeks! Best get writing!

Don't forget to check the blog post under this one about poetry.

Poetry and Poetry Devices

What is poetry?

Mark Strand: "Eating Poetry"
Marianne Moore: "Poetry"

There a millions of answers to this question. For our purposes, it is the careful organization of words and phrases to express an idea or emotion concerning the human condition (what is means to be human).

Poetry is found in song, in novels, in advertisement, and children's television programming. It's everywhere!

Q: Does poetry have to rhyme? NO. Rhyme is only one poetic technique that writers use. You don't only use a hammer when a saw or wrench is a better choice. So it goes with rhyme. Use it when it works; don't use it when it doesn't.

What are the ELEMENTS of a POEM?

Content: poetry can contain feelings and ideas. Poems can tell stories about famous or common people, places, or things. But content comes from the writer. It is often what the writer THINKS or FEELS about a topic that makes it appropriate for poetry.

Images: Color, taste, texture, sound, scent, temperature are all the stuff of images. Poets use imagery by using metaphor, simile, personification, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and other figurative language in their poems. Try to include at least one of these techniques in every poem you write.

Let's watch a few poems:

Billy Collins: The Dead
Some Days
Alone
The Letter
The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac
Shel Silverstein: Crocodile's Toothache
Shel Silverstein: The Giving Tree
Dr. Seuss: Fox in Sox

POETRY VOCABULARY & DEVICES (to use when writing poetry):

Ode: A poem praising its subject. Please read Pablo Neruda's ode: Ode to My Socks in which he praises his socks.

Elegy: a poem of mourning or grieving about something or someone lost.

Ballad: a narrative poem (a poem that tells a story), usually written in quatrains (4 line stanzas) and often sung.

Here's an example of a ballad (and elegy, come to think of it): Molly Malone sung by Sinead O'Connor

List or Pattern poem: a poem that repeats a particular phrase. For example: "I Believe" "I Am" or "I Remember" poems.

Lyric Poem: A short poem about an emotion, meant to be sung or read with music.

Song: a lyric poem set to music.

Repetition: a line or phrase that is repeated in a poem. Usually a key phrase or important idea is repeated.

Verse: A stanza in a poem.

Chorus: A repeated line or group of lines in a song. Another word for this is REFRAIN.

Tercet: a 3-lined stanza.

Quatrain: a 4-lined stanza often found in Ballads.

Writing Micro and Hint Fiction

For those of you who like to Tweet and Twitter and so on, here's a type of fiction that has become popular lately: micro fiction!

Most short fiction can be anywhere between 3,000-10,000 words. 3,000-5,000 words are preferred by most magazines. 

Micro fiction is a very short story (usually a story between 300-1,000 words in length). It was originally meant to fit snugly on a computer screen (just like the one you're looking at right now!)

For those of you who like your fiction even smaller, there's something out there called hint fiction, which can be anywhere between 6-100 words, with the most common being 25 or 50 words in length. 

Let's take a look at some of these as models for our own writing:

Or Even Longer
Together they throw the dirt, listen to its plunk against wood, a sound so unlike anything else in the world, one you could remember forever.

Nothing Hurts Anymore
Seth’s energy paths are blocked to his spleen and stomach and large intestine. The acupuncturist places the needles in his tiny body. Seth sees Jesus.

The Test In Front Of Him
It’s that nothing stands out, each detail equal. What to focus upon? Moths in the classroom screen. Leaf-blowers. His teacher’s smile flying like birds, south.

My Son’s Fifth Grade Journal
This boy catches balls, divides fractions, won’t die if he drinks milk, grabs flags off the other team’s players. My dad loves this other boy.

See? That didn't take long at all.

How do I write a short, short story?

1. Start in the middle. Get rid of an introduction and minimize your backstory or character history. Begin with the action!

2. Use the familiar. Use familiar situations or settings. Use historical places or situations so not much description is necessary

3. Use small ideas. Focus on a single specific event or aspect of your topic. Avoid complex plots or long timelines. 

4. Build your story around one central image or moment. Choose something striking.

5. Remove unnecessary words and characters. Edit out any unnecessary words. Combine characters whenever possible. Using short, choppy sentences creates urgency.

6. End with a bang. Keep the reader guessing until the last line. Use a twist by setting up the reader's expectation (what the reader expects to happen) then turn it upside down.

As you read these examples/models, look for the six tips we just read!

Look Into My Eyes
She snaps her fingers at her companion and I cry like a baby, sucking my thumb and calling for mum. The other travelers stare and giggle, then look away.
Further down the train a man turns the pages of his newspaper. WORLD'S GREATEST HYPNOTIST DIES MID ACT reads a headline.
© Rupert M Loydell

Loose Like A Noose
His dentures were lying on the stairs.
She discovered them after the undertaker had left, so she saved them for the Chapel of Rest.
“His teeth,” she said. “They popped out when he took the leap.”
Clearing out the drawers later she found three tubes of denture glue, all unopened.
© Ben Myers 2001

Dad
I thought my father looked like Captain Kirk. There was the blond quiff and the proprietary way he marched around his supermarket, surveying the chiller cabinets.
When he left early in the mornings, I'd wave goodbye through the bug screen. He'd be multiplied in the raindrops hanging in its squares.
© Carrie McMillan 2001

Now it's your turn. Using the advice above and inspired by the models, try writing your own hint fiction: between 25-50 words. Use the title of your story to help identify a key idea, character, setting, or plot point.

Try writing a few of these short, short stories. You can put them all on the same page. Print them out when you have completed this exercise.

The Recipe Poem Exercise

Think of the format of a food recipe. First there is a list of ingredients you will need, then the explanation of how to mix the ingredients together, and finally the cooking procedures and cooking time.

Click here to view a few recipes.

Using this format, write a recipe poem that has nothing to do with food. Ex. you might write a recipe for how to make good conversation, how to climb a tree, how to fight with your father, or how to fall in love, etc. See the example and model poem below for ideas and formatting:

Example poem:

Recipe Poem: How to Make a Morning
By Elaine Magliaro

Melt a galaxy of stars
in a large blue bowl.
Knead the golden sun
and let it rise in the East.
Spread the sky
with a layer of lemony light.
Blend together
until brimming with brightness.
Fold in dewdrops.
Sprinkle with songbirds.
Garnish with a chorus
of cock-a-doodle-doos.
Set out on a platter at dawn
and enjoy.

Slam and Repetition in Poetry Examples

Here are a few famous poems that use anaphora and repetition:
classic examples

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

What Teacher's Make by Taylor Mali
I'll Fight You for the Library by Taylor Mali
Kill Them With Love by Boonaa Mohammad

The List or Slam Poem

A list poem repeats a significant phrase or line throughout the poem. It is generally used in Slam and performance poetry. The use of REPETITION or (REFRAIN) is a poetic device poets and writers use to stress an important idea in a poem. In music this would be the refrain or chorus. It works the same way. Each time the phrase is repeated, it gains strength and stresses the point.

In PROSE (and poetry) writing, a repeated phrase in the beginning of a sentence is called an anaphora. At the end of the phrase or sentence it is called: epistrophe. And when it is used at the end and then again at the beginning of a sentence it is called Anadiplosis.

Click on the links above for examples of these forms and what they look like. At this point you may begin using anaphora, epistrophe, and anadiplosis in your writing, along with metaphor, simile, personification and chemomorphism.

LAB WORK: Choose a line. Any line. Use this line as an anchor, a repetition of idea or theme.

Some sample lines might be:

• I believe...
• When I die, I want...
• The world I live in...
• This is for...
• Tomorrow I will go...
• I am...

or pick any other line starter you'd like.

Use metaphor or simile or chremomorphism or personification, anaphora, epistrophe, anadiplosis to help explore your theme.

Tips on Writing

Today please continue your previous writing assignments. Try to type up and finish these projects this week.

A few tips about writing:

1. Be specific! Try to write about specifics. Young writers often are too vague writing about generic characters in generic settings with vague and unspecific words. Avoid this.
2. Be creative! There's no wrong answer. Use your imagination.
3. Be active! Write. The best way to get better at writing is to write. If you don't write you are quickly going to be left behind by millions of people who DO write. People who write get jobs. Just saying.

Take a look here for daily writing tips for teenagers!

Play Script Exercise

Get into groups of 2-3. You are going to write a scene together (but you all need to record the lines in your journals or in ONE computer file).

In your group:

• Decide on a place or setting. Write this in your journal or type it on a computer (your choice).
• Decide on a time. Write this in your journal or on the screen.
• Each member of the group should create a character, name the character, and write a one-sentence description of the character for other members to see: 
• for example: 
• Setting: A playground
• Time: 2:00 in the afternoon
• Character: Mrs. Chittlesworth: a twenty-seven year old woman who stutters.
• Describe the opening scene. What are each characters currently doing? Give them an action to perform on stage.
• Mrs Chittlesworth enters the playground with her baby carriage. She stops at a bench and unpacks a lunch.
• Once at least two characters are on stage, go ahead and begin writing the dialogue.
• Script dialogue is not "quoted"
• Each speaker should write their character's name and a colon before they speak. 
• MRS. CHITTLESWORTH:
• MS. JONES:
• MRS. CHITTLESWORTH:
• Write dialogue for each character. Try to give each actor at least 10 lines or more before ending the play.
• Indicate stage directions where appropriate. These are usually separated from the dialogue by parenthesis and italics. 
• Before you print, check your work for grammatical and spelling errors.
• Give your play a title. Then print out enough copies of the script for all members.