Day 1, Literatti

"Each child is born a poet and every poet is a child." -Piri Thomas

This morning after reading and discussing a few contemporary poems by Mary Oliver and William Stafford, the children began to create word tickets. Word tickets are comprised of any unique and evocative words they can think of. These words can come straight from their minds or be found in books. The children jumped in to ticket creation and came up with some brilliant, inspirational words. We then played what I call, “Literatti”. Literatti is basically a forum for free-writing. We pull a word ticket at random from the bag and the students have a minute to write as much as they can about that word. The children then share out what they wrote. The results are always exciting and varied and the kids get a huge kick out of listening and sharing. Literatti helps set up an environment of risk-taking and trust for the kids and is an excellent warm up for any writing session. Here are some samples from our first Literatti session:

Word: SOON

When I hear the word soon,

I wonder if it means I'll soon

be home playing gaily

in my dogs bed.
The word soon makes me
cry out like a loon.

-Estrella


Word: MUNCH

I munch down butter and sweet pancakes at brunch. - Miko

The munching sound out of someone's mouth is the most disgusting thign I have ever heard. -Garet

I was munching in the sunlight, I was. -Finn

I love to munch on sweet skittles, munch through the world, munching on every experience that I take. - Liza

I felt like I was pulverizing food as I munched into stuff to swallow. - Aidan

I munch on my cereal in the first light of day. -Ella

I see animals munching on leaves in the lines of a cornfield. -Collin

I munch an apple. -Oliver

I munch the great leaves on the oak tree. -Wren

I munch on the blue, sparkling sky. It tastes like blueberry ice cream, blue, blue, blue ice-cream. -Avery

WORD: PEBBLES

The pebbles are like
little drops of earth,
exploding high when
it pushes for it's new home
on top of the earth.
The pebbles twinkle
in the sunlight
like dew drops.

-Estrella
Word: COOL

I like the word cool. It makes me sing, my favorite thing. - Lily

The cool air is like ice cream on the dinner table. -Wren

I think that most people's personalities are very cool. -Hayden

Ice cream is cool in a delicious way. I like ice cream. -Whitney

Cool is a rod for awesome. Cool is also a word that rhymes with pool. Cool is also a word for stupendous and super. -Jack

I am cool like the sun. The sun is my pal. -Nathan

I think that some people are cool. Like people that play football. -Beckett

Cool is an awesome thing you can do whenever you want. -Ellie

I feel cool as I walk through the noisy grocery stores. People staring. Jealousy dripping down their things. Stop appreciating what they look like because of this scene. -Liza

The cool sky I heard of once is dark and scary now. -Garet

The cool dark night shimmering tiny beams of coolness down at me. -Gillian

I'm a cool, cool person. I am just a cool, cool person. I do cool stuff. I eat cool stuff. I like cool stuff and I'm just cool, cool, cool. Cool the wrod is just cool. Cool, cool. cool. -Will