by Cassandra Dilley
The following poem won in the August poetry contest for the 12-14 year old category. Congratulations Cassandra!
Butt in the air – face on the floor
I growl at the ball – it can’t be ignored.
Orange, round, fast and quick
I’ll get that ball lickety split!
Running, jumping, pitter-patter paws.
Yipety – yap I’ve got my ball!
Proudly I prance back to my bed.
To take a snooze and rest my head.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
What would you do if someone got in front of you when you were in line at the movies?
I teach writing at our homeschool co-op to juniors and seniors in high school. When I started, a few of the moms asked me to “really work” their teens. To “make them put in effort.” I smiled. Don’t you know me by now?
I like the kind of effort that comes from internal motivation. I like hard work that is the result of care, as in, I care about finding the right word or the best way to express this idea.
The question of the year, then, is how to inspire quality writing from teens that causes them to work hard but that isn’t drudgery.
We’re using my Help for High School writing manual as a guide because that’s why I wrote it. The goal of that manual is to help teens figure out what they care about, why they care about it and then how to get that passionate concern across to a reader.
As we’ve worked through the Keen Observation of an Idea exercise, an interesting discovery was made in our little group of students. Each student, except for one, felt it was easier to write from the opposing perspective – that is the perspective she or he didn’t hold. That means a student who is pro-life felt it was easier to write about the pro-choice position.
We wondered why that would be.
Some interesting insights followed that I thought worth sharing here.
I love teens. It’s important that we remember that not one of us holds the identical views of our parents. In many cases, we chose to go directly against our up-bringings, even by becoming committed to religious faith! Our kids will develop their own points of view even if they stay committed to the essential values with which they were raised. If we can help them to explore and discover how to articulate those views (speak and write about them) and if we can be excited when we see them nuance their values with their own insights (even when they differ from ours), we will give them the gift of growth in writing and thought and personhood.
Julie,
Does tea on a Wednesday count? What if it’s not international but historical? Both my son and my daughter came to me this afternoon and said, “Can we have a tea on a Wednesday just because?” Here is a picture of our “just because” tea. We are reading about early American history so we all dressed (even Mom) in period clothes and made muffins. We invited my daughter’s American Girl dolls (all dressed in Felicity’s clothes, of course) and read about colonial life in Felicity’s World. We had a surprise visit from Papa and after sitting him down for tea and muffins he looked at us and said, “Boy, you really do have fun during the day, don’t you?”
Yes, we do!
Brave Mom
I have more poems to share from our September poetry winners. Today’s poem comes from Sean Malone, (17) (winner of the 15-18 category). I am also including his notes on the writing experience because they might encourage you or your kids in their writing.
It’s rushing and gushing, the wind – how it blows!
We’re fighting its biting; our noses are froze!
We swish and we slide down the mountain with ease,
Our heads bundled tightly, our feet in our skis.We’re jumping and spinning and flying through air,
Of course there’s some danger; we haven’t a care.
The mountain is trying to beat us – it’s furious
I hope we can make it with nothing injurious!Notes on the writing experience:
This poem came about in a rather interesting way. Unlike most writing assignments, it did not start with a topic. Rather, first I found the meter I wanted, then came up with the “–ing†rhymes in the first two lines. I set it aside for about a week, and then picked it up again and thought about how I wanted the rest of the first two lines to sound, and finally wrote the first line. I did not settle on a subject until I was working on the second line.
I find this to be a very effective method to get past writer’s block, and especially poet’s block. Instead of stressing out about what to say, or even what topic to use, instead you simply create a rhythm in your mind, and then find words to fit the rhythm and a topic to fit the words.
In this particular piece, the fast-paced meter combines with strong words that are almost onomatopoeic (such as “rushing,†“swish,†and “furious,†to name a few); the result being an overall feeling of swift motion, just as the narrator in the poem is experiencing. The slight change in meter at the end of the last two lines helps to give the poem a sense of completeness. All in all, I went through three drafts before coming up with the final copy.
Julie’s Notes
What I enjoyed about Sean’s poem is that he wrote it inside out; that is to say, he started with the feel of the poetry and then allowed the topic to sort of drop into the mood of the rhythms. He is following the pattern used by song writers. Most song writers start with a melody followed by words that fit the tune. Some do it the other way around (words first), but the vast majority get a little riff going inside and then later they join words to the music.
Poetry can be written in the same way, as Sean has shown us with his poem here. And don’t you love that he went through three drafts? Yes! That’s how it works.
Thanks Sean!
