Found Poetry For 9th Grade Class

Some may wonder; what is found poetry? In all, found poetry is a type of poetry by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them by blocking out or adding text in order to make a completely new meaning to the page.

For our 9th graders, we expose them to these forms of poetry to expand their creativity both artistically and as a type of free practice in the classroom for the student. So in class, we first worked on making poetry a little different than most would expect. The students made their own college out of magazines and then proceeded to try and describe in their own terms the definition of poetry out of cut up magazine letters, old books, and more. The results are always amazing with this one; just getting to see the student's ideas and creativity flow out on to a blank sheet of paper, it's truly amazing!
Our second version of found poetry was from simple pages of a book. They took these and made them their own by blocking out as many or as little words and or letters that they needed. The results with this one were quite stunning as well! To see what these children can come up with out of already spoken words that are printed down on the page and to make them their own is incredible!

We are very excited to see their creativity in the English room prosper!

Of Mice and Men

       The First reading assignment for the tenth-grade English class was the classic short novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck which tells the story of two men named Lennie Small and George Milton and their struggle through the Great Depression. In this time in History, the American Depression caused a lack of steady jobs and immense amounts of itinerant workers swarming towards the west coast to find work in order to survive. For George and Lennie, they had a harder time keeping a job due to Lennie Small's mental disorder. George, because of this reason, tried to keep it hidden from others while starting off in a new town with a new job. With the completion of this book, we found out that Lennie had killed Curley's Wife (who happened to be the wife of the boss's son); which caused George to make the decision of killing his only friend in life, Lennie Small.

       For the project at the end of this book, we had our annual mock trial to decide whether or not George Milton was guilty. Each child was assigned a different role; for example, a character from the book, being apart of the jury, lawyers, and or the journalists. In some cases we even got faculty and students to join in as being apart of the jury! The kids really had a fun time getting to play the role that they could really get into in order to really bring this court case to life!

Below are some photos of the 6th hour English class: