Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
Bird on branch, UC Davis Arboretum
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~David Wagoner
Words are the spark that ignites my soul. I am a collector of language in all forms, not a hoarder. The extraordinary beauty of the written word must be shared. These monthly posts, inspired by another’s words, are my gifts of beauty and spirit, shared with love.
This beautiful, meditative poem by David Wagoner found its way to me via The Writer’s Almanac.
Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.
True confession: I haven’t always been a poetry lover. When I was younger I collected poems, intrigued by the connection I felt with a complete stranger’s expression of my emotions. I copied poem after poem into spiral notebooks, savoring every word. And in college, I fell in love with Blake and Dickinson and Maya Angelou and so many other voices that spoke to me from the pages of their slim, hardbound books. I developed a love for words less linear, less formulaic, and less predictable.
Then I started teaching middle school, and wasn’t sure how to share my love for language with my students – kids who were hesitant to approach text that looked different, and were afraid of getting the meaning ‘wrong’.
So I backed off.
Textbook poetry bored all of us to tears. I couldn’t find a balance between helping them build the scaffolds they needed to understand how and why poets wrote, and where poetry was relevant or even just found in their lives.
This poetry month has been my favorite out of 25 years of trying.
Getting started with poetry:
I decided to just jump in and start writing. I used this Blackout poetry hyperdoc because it seemed to be so accessible and so simple. What kid couldn’t just select words and black out the rest?
Well, it turns out that some kids think WAY too hard. Instead of just relaxing and circling words that were beautiful or powerful or simply stood out, they tried to turn it into a sort or upside down word search. And some kids STRUGGLED.
I found myself flitting around the classroom reminding kids to ‘let their creativity flow’ and not to think too hard. I told them to not pay attention to font size or location of words. I suggested they just circle, and see what happens.
And of course, some came up with their own methods. But whatever they chose, I was happy that they were starting to see the beauty of language, and how words could bring power to a page.
This student was inspired by an image alongside the words and ended up creating a beautiful poem with a combo blackout/sketch effect.
Some kids decided they wanted to combine columns to create a more complex poem.
I’m pretty confident that the finished products shocked them – especially when I read them aloud to the class.
Finished blackout poems.
Using hyperdocs:
Once I had them relaxed and hooked with the blackout poems, I started slipping in mini-lessons using foldables in their interactive notebooks. I LOVE the series from Lovin Lit – her Interactive Poetry Notebooks have really helped me balance the poetic structure practice my 8th graders needed with learning how to annotate and write poetry, too.
My next step is to slip in some instruction about how to read poetry. I’ve been using this poetry hyperdoc as part one of this lesson. I’m a huge fan of hyperdocs, mainly because it allows me to differentiate instruction while giving my students choice and voice about how they learn. It’s ‘hands-free’ for me; I work to create the hyperdoc up front, but during class time I’m free to wander around, talk with students and coach them through the harder parts. Hyperdocs have transformed my teaching.
Writing odes:
We’ve moved through types of rhyme and learning how to annotate, so I threw in writing odes. I got the basic idea from Interactive Poetry Notebooks and created an outline to help them create some of the figurative language components.
This has been hilarious.
You might think middle school students would think odes were silly – I mean, adults usually think of odes as serious declarations of love, right?
So what do you think middle schoolers declare their love for?
Dogs. Water. Waves. Netflix. Flowers. Minecraft. Twenty-One Pilots. Lots of students write odes to their pillows and their beds. One student wrote an ode to his ill grandmother, and another to her mother. Some wrote odes to each other, some wrote about ice cream and tacos and one even wrote about Donald Trump.
I’ve also created a Poetry hyperdoc part 2 to help give students more practice and choice about writing and publishing poetry. I don’t want to drag the unit out too far – just enough to have them feel confident and curious about reading and writing poetry, and have some fun along the way.
One thing I’ve learned is that I actually CAN teach kids to love poetry, and to have confidence that they can read and understand the sometimes abstract messages poets create. For 13 year-olds, I’d say that’s pretty great.
Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.
Part of my teaching job is running our AVID program, which specifically prepares students for college and careers. I absolutely love that part of my job. I love helping kids see their futures, plan their goals and prepare for their dreams.
When it’s my own kid, I love it in a different way.
It’s like investing with someone else’s money. You care, you try to make the best choices to ensure a strong return. I do all that with my students. But when it’s my kid, sometimes my emotions get in the way.
Like when my youngest child is starting to prepare to go to college.
And when he says he wants to move across the country when he graduates next year.
With my son, I’ve got a similar, yet different challenge. He wants to move from our home in California to Boston to fulfill his college dreams.
I’d never been to Boston before; neither had he, actually. So while most of his friends were doing the University of California college tours over spring break, I figured we’d better take a road (er, air) trip and check out the other side of the country.
Now, I’m pretty west coast. So is he. We love the mountains and the snow doesn’t bother us – lucky thing, since Boston was full of it. Our first stop was Northeastern University, located smack inside the city. In fact, we had trouble telling where the city ended and the campus began! Northeastern is a unique college offering a program called ‘co-ops’, where students are able to work at paid internships for 6 months, three times during their college experience. It makes the total number of years in school longer, but what a cool opportunity!
Can you believe these are dorms? Boston’s buildings are so full of beautiful architectural details; it makes walking around the city feel like strolling in an outdoor museum.
Our second stop was Babson College a very small private college in the suburbs of Boston. Babson is known for their entrepreneurial business program; in fact, they only offer a B.S. in Business, and students are able to concentrate on different functions of business as they earn their degree. Babson was the most beautiful campus we visited. The buildings were mainly brick, and the campus was a combination of grassy open spaces and forests of trees. I can only imagine the fall colors!
Despite having to trudge through the rain and snow while touring the campus, I was happy that we got to see what winter would look like in the northeast – definitely different spring conditions here than in California!
We were pleasantly surprised to see that despite their historic appearance, most buildings we toured were very modern inside.
Babson is known for hosting international students, as well as offering study abroad programs aligned with many international businesses.
I thought this classroom was particularly cool – the walls are whiteboards, and freshmen students spend an entire year utilizing this space to create, pitch, plan, market and sell a business. I love the real life applications – students will definitely learn if studying business is their niche!
The dorms below all center around a grassy quad. Most Babson students live on campus – can’t you just imagine this on a sunny day, full of students studying on the lawn?
Babson’s mascot is the beaver…
From Babson, our next stop was Harvard. My first impression? Tourists. Everywhere. Visiting Harvard’s campus felt more like visiting a historic monument than a college campus – kind of a turn-off. I don’t think I’d want to have to navigate people with selfie sticks on my way to class every day, would you?
But then again, if you want to feel like you’re going to school at Hogwarts, Harvard might be the place for you!
Our last college tour was Bentley University, another smallish private school located in the Boston suburbs. Bentley is another beautiful campus located along and atop a hill. That means a LOT of stairs! Bentley is also known for its business program, and the campus also had the beautiful historic feel of a northeastern school.
Bentley has its own trading room, where students learn investing skills by utilizing live stock market access.
It was pouring rain during our Bentley tour, but like Babson, can you just imagine the trees bursting to life? Or the brilliance of the fall leaves? College in Boston definitely will be beautiful, wherever he chooses.
Bentley is larger than Babson, but still has a nice community layout.
Many private colleges require interviews as part of the admissions progress. At Bentley, I got to nervously wait outside. I appreciated the descriptors!
As much as I love college tours, I couldn’t wait to see a bit of the history of the Boston area. Top of my list was Salem – the witch museum, taverns and walking on the jetty were such a special way to end our memorable trip.
Four days and four nights were just enough to get a taste of Boston, and enough to get me thinking of all the other adventures and restaurants and coastlines we could see…the bright side of thinking about my boy moving so far away, I guess.
Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.
Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished if you entertain a certain strict posture. Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree. So why should I think I could ever be successful?
Another one of my favorite neighborhood trees, budding out for spring.
Some days I fall asleep, or land in that even better place – half-asleep – where the world, spring, summer, autumn, winter – flies through my mind in its hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent. So I just lie like that, while distance and time reveal their true attitudes: they never heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.
Of course I wake up finally thinking, how wonderful to be who I am, made out of earth and water, my own thoughts, my own fingerprints – all that glorious, temporary stuff. ~ Mary Oliver
Oh Mary Oliver, how I love your words. Thinking about the wonder of life, the gift that getting older offers if we’re only paying attention. I’ve been saving this one for a long time – thank you to First Sip for sending it my way so many years ago. This is just the right time to share.
Words are the spark that ignites my soul. I am a collector of language in all forms, not a hoarder. The extraordinary beauty of the written word must be shared. These monthly posts, inspired by another’s words, are my gifts of beauty and spirit, shared with love.
Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.
I can count on one hand the number of women I trust will always be in my life. They each entered my world at different, crucial, life altering times, and while not one of them lives within walking distance of my home, our connection remains – through words that nourish.
I’ve been a pen pal, a journaler, a poet, a blogger, a note-take, list maker and a lesson creator. Words make my world centered, they offer me a chance to slip away and at the same time, ground myself. Words are solace in a life that I struggle to understand and often, to trust.
One of these phenomenal women is my friend Michelle. We met during our early years of teaching English – a time in our twenties when life as we know now was merely a whisper. Our paths crossed in an interview for a teaching position – I, the interviewer, she the interviewee. I was captivated by her quiet grace, her creativity, and her absolute desire to share her love of language and words and books.
That was over two decades ago, and despite many moves, some marriages, a divorce, numerous job changes and a few precious children thrown into our realiity, our friendship ebbs and flows like the tide, constant, reliable, soothing.
Michelle may not realize what an inspiration she’s been to me; she may not know that when I bake bread or dig in my garden, or read about her treasured Lousisiana or find myself succumbing to fine food and wine, she’s with me.
Today, we were on each other’s minds. Close friendships work like that – I mailed her a book she needed on her shelf this morning, and this afternoon she called to talk writing and summer travel plans.
Today, I’m happy to share a beautiful blog post written on Michelle’s new blog, A Power 4 Good. I know you’ll love her words that nourish – she’s one of a kind! Please welcome her to the blogging community with open arms!
Words that nourish; words that heal by Michelle St. Romain
“Wherever I’ve lived my room and soon the entire house is filled with books; poems, stories, histories, prayers of all kinds stand up gracefully or are heaped on shelves, on the floor, on the bed. Strangers old and new offering their words bountifully and thoughtfully, lifting my heart.” ~ Mary Oliver
I have been thinking recently about why we write stories, why anyone writes their thoughts on paper (or computer screens). In my days as an English major in college, I was always amazed by my classmates and even my professors who chose to put their written hats in the ring and try to publish their writing. Why would anyone pick out of the millions of things that have been written this particular piece or that particular poem? Why would anyone care about my writing, or anyone’s, for that matter?
And so I chose to do other things. I continued to write, because I cannot help it. I wrote in journals. I wrote essays. I wrote for a newspaper for a short time and I found quickly that my writing could be used in almost any profession, to entertain, market, raise funds, make a case, explain, take a stand.
At this point in my life, I find that the writers I have loved have become my teachers, their words the medicine for my soul. These are the ones who have the power to change my mood and my thinking in an instant. These are the ones with a power that transcends everything that is happening in our world, at any time, no matter how ominous or depressing.
They are Mary Oliver, Toni Morrison, Barbara Kingsolver, Amy Tan. David Whyte, Alice Hoffman, Joanna Macy. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Marge Piercy. Alice Walker and Maya Angelou. Sandra Cisneros and Kate Chopin. This list could go on, go deeper, go farther into the past, more fully into the variety of cultures and stories that inform our world, whether we are conscious of it or not.
It goes to Ovid and Shakespeare, Richard Wright and Steinbeck. Their classics shaped my view of the world, challenged what I was taught about class and reality. They are immortal inside me and the influence of their words on paper cannot be known, even in the singular strand of my life – of decisions I have made, paths I have taken, words I have spoken. Of stands I have made on issues that seem larger than my small life.
I am making these decisions today. And their words are my solace and guidance. They are my living teachers. Their stories and reflections shape me still, in this time of great change in our world.
I believe that stories and words will heal us from all that is hurting around and within us. I believe that every story that has ever been lived or spoken is still alive today. I believe that every story we are now living, every truth and broken moment, every travesty and victory, no matter how small or large, has been lived in one way or another and we can learn from what has happened before us.
We may have to go deep, go far into the past. We may need to journey to cultures far from our own, or perhaps simply allow ourselves to imagine what it is like today, in this moment, in a country where running water is a luxury and homes have dirt floors. If we expand our thinking to include the larger stories of those who have gone before and of those who are now living lives much different than our own, we may find our way. We may find hope.
We will most definitely find sorrow and grief, but we will also find companions on the path. We must only look, be curious, be patient enough to step back and open to seeing the larger shape of what is happening in any moment of our own life stories.
Thank you, great writers and thinkers and teachers. Thank you for the living gift of words that heal and uplift, teach and guide and make us question ourselves. I bury myself deeply in your wisdom. I offer my own words as an offering of gratitude, and as a prayer.
(this post originally appeared on Michelle’s blog, A Power 4 Good)
Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.
I have been thinking recently about why we write stories, why anyone writes their thoughts on paper (or computer screens). In my days as an English major in college, I was always amazed by my classmates and even my professors who chose to put their written hats in the ring and try to publish their writing. Why would anyone pick out of the millions of things that have been written this particular piece or that particular poem? Why would anyone care about my writing, or anyone’s, for that matter?