Welcome! January 30th, 2017 Tuesday Do Now Find your seats! If you don’t remember where you sit, ask me. Write the date at the top of a new page in your journal. Once the bell rings, begin the freewrite. Prompt: Death looks at your character. Your character looks at Death. “You’re early,” Death says.

Practicing structure When we think of the structure of a piece, we usually think of the rhyme scheme, the rhythm, and the line breaks. Oftentimes, writers (especially new ones) tend to think that adopting a structure, forcing your poem to follow a certain pattern, rhythm, or rhyme scheme, limits creativity. Sometimes, however, it can do the opposite. By forcing yourself to build off of a structure, you force your brain into thinking in ways it hasn’t had to before. Instead of taking the “easy way out” and writing down the first thing to come to mind, your brain has to change the way it things so your words fit the structure. Sometimes, adopting structures can force you to be creative in a way that might surprise even yourselves.

Practicing structure Today, I’m going to give you a loose structure to follow. It will be a little challenging, but I think you can do it!  But before we start writing, let’s read some poetry. Individually or with your group, skim through the packet of poems on the front of your desk. As you read, underline, circle, or mark in some way any lines that you like, find interesting, or otherwise stick out to you in some way. In your journal, write down your10 favorite lines from the ones that you marked (at least – you can write more if you’d like). Make sure they are: Not all from the same poem. Try to get a good mix of quotes. Not any less than 4 words long. If they’re shorter than that, you may need to include some of the previous or next line. No more than 10 words long.

Practicing structure Read through your quotes. You can share them with a neighbor if you like, and add some of their to your list if you like them as well. 3. For the rest of class, your job is to write a poem using two of the lines you wrote down. Here is your structure: One line needs to be the first line of your poem, and one line needs to be the last line of your poem. The middle is all yours. Your two chosen lines cannot be from the same poem. The challenge is to connect two lines from two different poems. Your poem needs to be at least 10 lines long Good luck! 

Practicing structure Once you are satisfied with your poem, trade with a neighbor. 4. Write down your partner’s name and one line from their poem that you really liked (not their first or last lines). 5. Write another poem (don’t worry, only 5 lines). This time, the first line should be the line from your partner’s poem and the last line should be another quote from your list. 6. Once your finished, show your partner your masterpiece. Tell them “thanks” for allowing you to write such a wonderful poem using their words.  Good luck!