A Poetic Summer
One of the assignments for E's summer writing class was to write a poem about summer.
Now, when E has a writing assignment, it means that both of us do a lot of work. It's just where she is in her development—she has absolutely no idea how to take her teacher's posted assignment and translate the words into a plan and process on her end. So I'm much more hands-on than I've ever had to be with either of the boys' online classes. This is mostly because E is taking her first class at age 9, while L and P started their first online classes at 13 and 12, respectively.
But this is also because they're boys, and she's a girl. That's an obvious statement which probably lacks obvious relevance to my reader and therefore sounds pejorative... unless you happen to be raising or teaching both boys and girls at the moment, and you've already noticed for yourself that they really do tend towards some major differences in their learning approach.
L's first online class teacher Miss S put it to me this way: Boys generally prefer to learn by doing things on their own, while girls tend to want their hands held. The boys will refuse help until they've fallen flat on their faces enough times that they're certain they need your help, and offering assistance before they've reached that point is usually pointless. All that failure can be nerve wracking for a parent to watch, but Miss S assured me that the process is a fruitful one, because those young men are actually learning essential lessons about what doesn't work. And boys usually have a healthy competitive streak, so they get tired of watching their own failure and get motivated to figure out how to make it work.
Conversations with Miss S's girl students, on the other hand, tended to start with, "Can you help me...?" My own girl child has certainly taken this generality and galloped off into the sunset with it. She just wants the answers so she can check off the problem. Honestly, I just want to give her the answers, so I can be done with helping her. Instead, I have to find a way to coach her into thinking it through for herself.
This goes more smoothly sometimes than others. My favorite moment of the summer course experience so far was when I made her sit down to attempt something on her own first, after which she could bring it to me for feedback and help, and she cried out in genuine infamy, "You're making me do all the work!!" Um, yes. I'm so glad we came to this understanding.
At least, that's the theory, but the working actuality is that I spend a lot of time helping her understand what the assignment is really asking for, and then helping her understand that she hasn't yet fulfilled the requirements.
She tends to huff and roll her eyes and generally throw weight around while I help her, until I get fed up and call her on the attitude problem. She has an (irrelevant) idea of how this should go, and mostly the problem is that the experience doesn't look at all like what she expected. At one point, she was so angry with me that I sent her packing. I told her not to come back until she knew why she was so irritated, and then we could face it and move on. She stormed off, and was back within a couple minutes.
"We're just changing EVERYTHING," she complained, referring to the editing process we had just put on pause.
"Yes, we are," I replied, choosing to accept the hyperbole as reality in order to make my own point. "It's called revising, and it's exactly what your teacher is asking you to do next. Remember what I keep telling you: Thinking it through IS the hard work. Figuring out what you're going to say to begin with is HARD. Coming along after you've written something and figuring out what's wrong with it and how you're going to fix it is HARD. Welcome to the hard work of writing well."
So, as I was saying, she had to write a poem about summer. It had to be 3 stanzas, 12 lines, and a quatrain rhyming scheme. I wanted to be sure she understood her options (AABB vs ABAB, etc.) so I threw together a couple of similar but different 4-liners. After looking at them, still unerased on our white board, for a couple of days, I realized that with a little tweaking they could complement each other and lead into a finished poem.
So here's my summer poem:
You'll notice my rhyme scheme starts with AABB and then moves to CDCD (technically, it's BCBC), which was what I was originally trying to demonstrate to E. To be consistent, I chose to come back to EEFF, and then I had to add a couple more lines to finish out my verbal picture.
I asked E what she thought, and she said, "It's supposed to be 12 lines!"
I said no, your poem is supposed to be 12 lines. I'm not turning this into your teacher, so I don't have to stop at 12 lines.
Then she patted me on the arm and said, "Don't stop! Keep going!"
Here (below) is the second poem E wrote. She wrote it because she was stuck on the first one she had started and needed to try a new approach.
That second poem flowed out pretty quickly, but the first one had a lot of potential. In fact, the first few lines of the first poem made me think that E has a natural flair for poetry writing. So I wouldn't let her leave it alone. (I've had it first-hand from more than one of our respected online teachers that the parental involvement in the student's progress is the most crucial part of his or her academic success, so I feel utterly justified.) At my prodding, she finished it. And it's good.
"Summer Scene"
I swing in my hammock and marvel at the sultry sunbeams
As my teeth crunch down on watermelon seeds.
I’m more careful now; I spit them down into the green, green grass
And pause to watch a caterpillar pass.
My bare feet kick lazily against the breeze.
Mr. Jim passes by with Ashley; she sees
Me lying in the melon-colored hammock.
She strains at her leash: she still needs to learn to walk
Properly. She acts quite happy to prance out in the hot
Weather, whether or not
Mr. Jim gains a leisurely amble.
Maybe I should join them for a summer ramble!
Yes, E had some help—a lot of help—with the initial writing of both poems, and then again with thinking through her revisions. I caught her mistakes as she was making them (that doesn't actually rhyme, OR you can't end with that because you have to end with the rhyme, but you can spill the meaning over into the next line and keep going, OR now you've gone from good imagery to flowery, cheesy, over the top prosaism—trust me, that's not what you want).
We talked over some of the things that were working well, and some that weren't working so well, and how they could be fixed. We found all the "be" verbs and replaced most of them (all but one in each poem!) with more colorful, specific word choices. (This is a big thing with TPS, limiting be verbs.)
We used thesaurus.com... and sometimes we looked up words from thesaurus.com's results in dictionary.com to figure out what those words were really saying. We talked about how altering a word in a line could completely change the picture she was creating in the reader's mind, so she needed to think her words through very carefully.
We checked to make sure we had used at least two instances of descriptive language, per the assignment. This means things like alliteration (sultry sunbeams), hyperbole (trees don't literally loom, nor are sunsets literally fiery) or anthropomorphic comparisons (although we did not choose to have the dog prance like a ballerina).
In other words, she learned.
And you see the result.
Now, when E has a writing assignment, it means that both of us do a lot of work. It's just where she is in her development—she has absolutely no idea how to take her teacher's posted assignment and translate the words into a plan and process on her end. So I'm much more hands-on than I've ever had to be with either of the boys' online classes. This is mostly because E is taking her first class at age 9, while L and P started their first online classes at 13 and 12, respectively.
But this is also because they're boys, and she's a girl. That's an obvious statement which probably lacks obvious relevance to my reader and therefore sounds pejorative... unless you happen to be raising or teaching both boys and girls at the moment, and you've already noticed for yourself that they really do tend towards some major differences in their learning approach.
L's first online class teacher Miss S put it to me this way: Boys generally prefer to learn by doing things on their own, while girls tend to want their hands held. The boys will refuse help until they've fallen flat on their faces enough times that they're certain they need your help, and offering assistance before they've reached that point is usually pointless. All that failure can be nerve wracking for a parent to watch, but Miss S assured me that the process is a fruitful one, because those young men are actually learning essential lessons about what doesn't work. And boys usually have a healthy competitive streak, so they get tired of watching their own failure and get motivated to figure out how to make it work.
Conversations with Miss S's girl students, on the other hand, tended to start with, "Can you help me...?" My own girl child has certainly taken this generality and galloped off into the sunset with it. She just wants the answers so she can check off the problem. Honestly, I just want to give her the answers, so I can be done with helping her. Instead, I have to find a way to coach her into thinking it through for herself.
This goes more smoothly sometimes than others. My favorite moment of the summer course experience so far was when I made her sit down to attempt something on her own first, after which she could bring it to me for feedback and help, and she cried out in genuine infamy, "You're making me do all the work!!" Um, yes. I'm so glad we came to this understanding.
At least, that's the theory, but the working actuality is that I spend a lot of time helping her understand what the assignment is really asking for, and then helping her understand that she hasn't yet fulfilled the requirements.
She tends to huff and roll her eyes and generally throw weight around while I help her, until I get fed up and call her on the attitude problem. She has an (irrelevant) idea of how this should go, and mostly the problem is that the experience doesn't look at all like what she expected. At one point, she was so angry with me that I sent her packing. I told her not to come back until she knew why she was so irritated, and then we could face it and move on. She stormed off, and was back within a couple minutes.
"We're just changing EVERYTHING," she complained, referring to the editing process we had just put on pause.
"Yes, we are," I replied, choosing to accept the hyperbole as reality in order to make my own point. "It's called revising, and it's exactly what your teacher is asking you to do next. Remember what I keep telling you: Thinking it through IS the hard work. Figuring out what you're going to say to begin with is HARD. Coming along after you've written something and figuring out what's wrong with it and how you're going to fix it is HARD. Welcome to the hard work of writing well."
So, as I was saying, she had to write a poem about summer. It had to be 3 stanzas, 12 lines, and a quatrain rhyming scheme. I wanted to be sure she understood her options (AABB vs ABAB, etc.) so I threw together a couple of similar but different 4-liners. After looking at them, still unerased on our white board, for a couple of days, I realized that with a little tweaking they could complement each other and lead into a finished poem.
So here's my summer poem:
Summertime means lazy days!
I lie back, thinking of the ways
The butterflies make tiny breezes,
Soft on my face like gentle sneezes.
Butterflies wave gentle breezes
That puff at me above my book.
They alight, so light, on waving reeds as
I read, toes dipping in the brook.
The book slips down; I close my eyes.
I soar in thought past hot, blue skies
To cooler ones of ink and stars
That shimmer, beckoning from afar.
A celestial butterfly, I dream
I wing 'midst summer’s heavenly gleam.
You'll notice my rhyme scheme starts with AABB and then moves to CDCD (technically, it's BCBC), which was what I was originally trying to demonstrate to E. To be consistent, I chose to come back to EEFF, and then I had to add a couple more lines to finish out my verbal picture.
I asked E what she thought, and she said, "It's supposed to be 12 lines!"
I said no, your poem is supposed to be 12 lines. I'm not turning this into your teacher, so I don't have to stop at 12 lines.
Then she patted me on the arm and said, "Don't stop! Keep going!"
 |
| Babcia is continually revising a living poem titled "My Garden" |
Here (below) is the second poem E wrote. She wrote it because she was stuck on the first one she had started and needed to try a new approach.
"Summer Evening"
Summer is beautiful
Scented golden flowers bloom
The butterflies act graceful
And over the bushes leaf-laced trees loom
As I sip my grapefruit flavored Bubly
My thoughts wander up into the sky
A fiery sunset—it looks so lovely!
A nearby buzz—a bee catches my eye
Kids throw on their swimsuits
And jump into the tempting, blue pool
They dive and splash and hoot
With laughter in the water cool
That second poem flowed out pretty quickly, but the first one had a lot of potential. In fact, the first few lines of the first poem made me think that E has a natural flair for poetry writing. So I wouldn't let her leave it alone. (I've had it first-hand from more than one of our respected online teachers that the parental involvement in the student's progress is the most crucial part of his or her academic success, so I feel utterly justified.) At my prodding, she finished it. And it's good.
"Summer Scene"
I swing in my hammock and marvel at the sultry sunbeams
As my teeth crunch down on watermelon seeds.
I’m more careful now; I spit them down into the green, green grass
And pause to watch a caterpillar pass.
My bare feet kick lazily against the breeze.
Mr. Jim passes by with Ashley; she sees
Me lying in the melon-colored hammock.
She strains at her leash: she still needs to learn to walk
Properly. She acts quite happy to prance out in the hot
Weather, whether or not
Mr. Jim gains a leisurely amble.
Maybe I should join them for a summer ramble!
Yes, E had some help—a lot of help—with the initial writing of both poems, and then again with thinking through her revisions. I caught her mistakes as she was making them (that doesn't actually rhyme, OR you can't end with that because you have to end with the rhyme, but you can spill the meaning over into the next line and keep going, OR now you've gone from good imagery to flowery, cheesy, over the top prosaism—trust me, that's not what you want).
We talked over some of the things that were working well, and some that weren't working so well, and how they could be fixed. We found all the "be" verbs and replaced most of them (all but one in each poem!) with more colorful, specific word choices. (This is a big thing with TPS, limiting be verbs.)
We used thesaurus.com... and sometimes we looked up words from thesaurus.com's results in dictionary.com to figure out what those words were really saying. We talked about how altering a word in a line could completely change the picture she was creating in the reader's mind, so she needed to think her words through very carefully.
We checked to make sure we had used at least two instances of descriptive language, per the assignment. This means things like alliteration (sultry sunbeams), hyperbole (trees don't literally loom, nor are sunsets literally fiery) or anthropomorphic comparisons (although we did not choose to have the dog prance like a ballerina).
In other words, she learned.
And you see the result.
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