The grade 9 ELA class have been working on their Found Poetry assignments which have them "finding" their own poem within a set of song lyrics that they find interesting. When we started our poetry unit, we spent a lot of time discussing theme, tone, and mood, and interpreting various types of poems, including "My Papa's Waltz" which got the class in a bit of a heated frenzy when we tried to decipher its meaning. The agitation and friendly arguments made me smile because the students were quarrelling about POETRY! How awesome.
In their assignment, they had to chose lyrics that were interesting and maybe had some sort of meaning to them. The key was to make a new found poem using the words from the lyrics in order, and they couldn't add or alter words from their lyrics to make their new found poem. Another thing they had to keep in mind was that they had ensure that their new found poem had a different theme and tone than the lyrics they chose. In their assignments, they have to contrast the theme and tone from their song lyrics to their new found poem. Quite the task, indeed (but they're definitely up for the challenge)!
Before introducing their assignment, I showed them a poem of my own. I didn't mention that I had "found" it, but we simply discussed its meaning, theme, and mood.
She loves me
But can’t stand to see me
Try to fight the feeling
Alone.
The thought is killing me
You think you’ve got it
There’s nothing at all
Nothing is forever
Denial.
You don’t want me here
Don’t make me break.
After we discussed the poem, I showed them where I got it from:
After the confusion subsided, they thought it was "cool" that you could do that. I explained that even simply taking words from an upbeat song that have a negative connotation, placing them in order, and tweaking the punctuation by italicizing words or adding emphasis with an exclamation mark can make all the difference.
I cannot wait to see and read the end results! Check out the students hard at work trying to "find" their new poems!
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