Dining Room Window
Photo by Amy LV
Students - Greetings from the land of snow! Our family lives south of Buffalo, NY, and as you may have read in the news, snow has been falling like crazy in the towns nearby. We only have about a foot here (two more expected over the next day) but some towns have five feet of snow! This is a lot of snow. Even the bit we have at the end of our driveway was so heavy that it broke this (lifetime guarantee - the new one is in the mail) shovel right in half.
Oops
Photo by Henry LV
As the roads are impassable, we have all been home playing games, shoveling, making cookies, and thinking snowy thoughts. We've even sung a few bars of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" and perhaps this is why I wrote about a snowman today.
This poem is a list, and it tells a story too. On my early drafts, I wrote out the numbers as words, but when I moved to typing the poem, I decided to try numbers. I think that the numbers have a more list-y look, and that this makes the warm story part of the poem more surprising. I have loved every snowman I've ever made...and tomorrow, if it warms up, we just might need to make a new snowman here.
I like the idea of a list poem turning into a story, and I will definitely try it again.
Teachers - right now I am reading Thomas Newkirk's wonderful new MINDS MADE FOR STORIES, a book which proposes, "That narrative is the deep structure of all good sustained writing. All good writing." I highly recommend this book along with anything else that Thomas Newkirk has ever written.
This poem is a list, and it tells a story too. On my early drafts, I wrote out the numbers as words, but when I moved to typing the poem, I decided to try numbers. I think that the numbers have a more list-y look, and that this makes the warm story part of the poem more surprising. I have loved every snowman I've ever made...and tomorrow, if it warms up, we just might need to make a new snowman here.
I like the idea of a list poem turning into a story, and I will definitely try it again.
Greetings to my teacher friends already at #NCTE2014! I hope to arrive on Friday as today's flight has been cancelled. If you are a teacher attending NCTE, Janet Wong has put together a list of some of the poetry sessions you might wish to attend.
Over at Sharing Our Notebooks, I am so happy to host teacher, literacy coach, author, and founder of Book Love...Penny Kittle! Please check out her notebooks, the great exercise she offers us, and leave a comment by Monday, November 24 to be entered into a book giveaway.
Please share a comment below if you wish.
