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I had a great time working with 4th-8th graders at Young Authors Conferences in May, and I wanted to share (with their permission) just a few of their poems. We imagined certain scenes/settings, and then the writers brainstormed all the things Hope and Fear could do in those situations. They used randomly chosen verb lists to prewrite, then chose their favorite lines to create poems. They came up with some amazing stuff! Here are just a few of my favorites:

Fear 

Flies me on the wings on the swarm
Rolls me in a thick carpet of yellow and black
Brushes my arms with stingers of steel
Clenches my stomach so I am no longer hungry for the picnic

--Janessa H., 6th grade

Fear

sleeps until he hears his prey
walks he can't, he has no legs
runs and screams and yells
hunts for me again and again
learns not to go by them again

--Lexis B., 5th grade

Fear

Screams from the battlefield
Constructs a legion of utter destruction
Destroys the hope of victory

--Trevor B., Woodland Elementary

Fear

Climbs up when I board the plane
Swims around in my stomach
Hops into me when the engine starts
Skips a beat in my heart
Casts me into an unhappy place

--Kellie S., 5th grade



Hope

Holds the hands of those who are scared
Sprints to the entrance, eager to ride
Dances in the splash of the wave
Spins the ferris wheel around, making me soar above the park
Catches the door as it shuts, and always keeps it open

--Emma S., 8th grade

Birthday

hope runs its way to the party
hope sprints to the cake and presents
hope marches home

Erik E., 6th grade

Hope

creeps on little feet
stumbles across a forked road
relishes in pride of heart

--Colleen S., 7th grade


Fabulous, right? You can find more poetry goodness at the Poetry Friday Roundup. It's hosted this week by Cazzy at The Cazzy Files.

 

I'm so excited! I received an email early this week from someone who had found me through my page with the Children's Literature Network (a terrific organization). The woman is part of an organization that puts together Young Author Conferences, and she invited me to participate in five days' worth of Young Authors Conferences here in the Twin Cities in May.

Over five days, I'll work with between 320-800 4th-8th graders. It depends how I structure my sessions and whether they will work for larger groups of forty or whether I need smaller class sizes of 20 or so. My sessions need to be interactive, with the students actually writing, of course! And the theme for the whole event is Writing - A Passport to New Horizons. 

In the previous event, in February, session leaders took the theme in many directions, exploring other countries, disabilities, travel essays, immigration, manga, genre writing, family history, prejudice, myth, journey into the imagination, etc. So you can interpret the theme broadly!

I want to have kids leaving the session with a great poem presented in a fun way...some kind of frame or other concrete thing to hold onto that they can show or take back out and look at later with pride.

I'm playing with the idea of writing on the backs of scenic postcards, writing poems about our home cities that we then send overseas, using scrapbooking paper, doing poems inspired by images...so many choices.

I need to keep the costs low, since I might be buying supplies for 800 kids! 

So, my brain will be buzzing the next few days. If you have any ideas to throw out, I'd love to hear them! Even though the event isn't until May, I have to plan my session now for the promotional/registration materials.

Well, the entling apparently did NOT win a trip to J.K. Rowling and the Moonlight Signing at London’s Natural History Museum, on July 21st. There were ONLY 40,000 plus other entries. I note that a 17 year old girl in the area did get the call.

Hokey smokes, look at the line up B&N and Disney Publishing has put together for July 20 at Barnes & Noble Union Square in Manhattan!

Dave Barry (via video) and Ridley Pearson
Eoin Colfer (via video)
Rockstar Rick Riordan
Jonathan Stroud
Cinda Williams Chima (anybody read her books?)
Uber Narrator, Jim Dale

They will be webcasting the event.

Update: B&N is rescheduling the authors. They are now saying "each author will be individually rescheduled at a later date." -- from Mickey News

I have been listening to Book 6 so I will be ready. The entling has been reading them in reverse order, as is her tradition.