“They have secret meanings… like, meanings deeper than what’s actually written. Also, it has emotions for the reader.”
8th Grade writers, readers, and thinkers this week are learning all about poetry, including discussing what they think makes a poem good or successful: “It’s something creative; something that hasn’t been done.”
And, “It uses abstract words. It paints pictures using words.”
[A poem] paints pictures using words.
Last week, students studied various poetic forms, including haiku, concrete, and free-verse poems. This week, they were introduced to odes using a “choice board” which invited them to study of odes by choosing at least three of nine activities provided by teachers. In the “start here” square, all students read about the structure that unites the classic and variable forms of odes and also read some noteworthy examples. Then students explored odes through a range of analytic and creative writing, observing, reading, and listening exercises, navigating through the “Odes Choice Board” in a sequence of their choosing. Some students chose a song that represented an ode and wrote about why it was a good example of this form. Others read, watched, or heard recordings of famous odes, including a section of The Poet X (Elizabeth Acevedo), “Ode on Melancholy” (John Keats) and “Ode to My Socks” (Pablo Neruda).
Students annotated, analyzed, and created to make sense of this form and how it is both similar to, and different from, other poetic forms. Sitting by the creek, some students reflected aloud about what makes them grateful to turn it into an original ode. As they get ready to say goodbye to Los Gatos campus, the creative, nostalgic, and analytical are powerfully pointed at people and places here that have mattered to them.