About Hands on Stanzas

Hands on Stanzas, the educational outreach program of the Poetry Center of Chicago places professional, teaching Poets in residence at Chicago Public Schools across the city. Poets teach the reading, discussion, and writing of poetry to 3 classes over the course of 20 classroom visits, typically from October through April. Students improve their reading, writing, and public speaking skills, and participating teachers report improved motivation and academic confidence. You can contact Cassie Sparkman, Director of the Hands on Stanzas program, by phone: 312.629.1665 or by email: csparkman(at)poetrycenter.org for more information.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

What About America?

This is the question, I posed on Wednesday morning for the 8th graders in Lapota's class. I wanted to see what they felt about America? Likes? Dislikes? Suggestions for improvements? I used a free verse poem called, "America" written by a seventeen year old writer from the teen anthology, "Make Some Noise!". At first I wasn't sure this was going to work, as you know it's an early morning class. And I am asking them some deep questions when they just rolled out of bed. The poem generated a lot of feedback on our government, and the stance of the speaker in the poem, who some thought lost a family member to war. The tone of the poem was more in a questioning, melancholy way, and the students did relate with this poem about how they felt about certain things in this country they felt needed to be changed.

But fortunately for me, they did 'get it' and after the initial brainstorming, here are a few poems I got:

What About America?
Carmen Emanuel

Some parts of America
is good and some is bad
But most of all there are more bad things
that happen in America
The guns, so many people get killed by gun fire
Up to about 5,000 people get killed everyday in America by guns
Someone needs to stop all the fighting also
So many people get killed in fights
Someone needs to stop the madness and stop killing people
I see this sign too much and people is still doing the same thing
I just want people to stop killing!!!

Dear Reader
Danielle Swain

The sorrow of many hearts in America
crying out to the Heavens for peace
Why
Why must the cries be so loud
It's almost like America is burning
Praying for peace
Dying for peace
The liberty statue shall fall
and all the sea will dry up
and people, thousands of people
will fade away
Bringing new life into the world
Then maybe
Maybe the sun will shine again
Rebirth is brilliant, isn't it?

To America
Reginald Radford

So many deaths
so little time
how can you stake claim
when the one in charge
is the reason for these deaths?
A ruthless leader is what we
have
taking after his father...
Thank God
we still stand
Because with the rulers of today
Thank God we
Still stand...


Check back next week for more fabulous work by the writers at Walter Reed Elementary.

-- Pam Osbey
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)