Literacy Speaks Volumes

Approach of Winter by William Carlos Williams The half-stripped trees struck by a wind together, bending all, the leaves flutter dryly, and refuse to let go or driven like hail stream bitterly out to one side and fall where the salvias, hard carmine-- like no leaf that ever was-- edge the bare garden. I am a consummate consumer of the written word~poem or prose, fiction or nonfiction. I'm like Sherlock Holmes~constantly noticing those unusual sound combinations and odd spellings that make for an interesting gem of a word. Besides the overall feeling of this poem, I'm impressed with the word "half-stripped"; it implies tenacity (another great word)~the tree seems to know that winter is on its way bringing with it the harsh reality that all will soon be lost.  As a lesson, I would first ask students to tell me how they know that this is a poem~I'll probably get answers like "it looks like a poem" or "it's shaped like a poem....

Pantoum , a photo by Melissa Reese Etheridge on Flickr. Here is another poetry lesson idea. Use this photo (or any photo that suits your fancy) to spark a writing idea. The following poem is by Sasha Steenson; I found this poem on the public web site  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ . Pantoum Perhaps the universe is an extinguished building with blue banners strung along and the forest, more like a commodity bordering bushes and asphalt. something else to string our blue banners on. Never was restoration swifter: the leafless trees, the asphalt less splintered and more splendid. Never was restoration swifter with its mightier solutions,  less splintered and more splendid snipers, dynamiters, and colorful bombs. We please ourselves with mightier solutions, picnics under blue spruces snipers, dynamiters, colorful bombs the guardians of what we might call "home rights." At picnics, under blue spruces we clamor after th...