Starting with Little Things: Ingrid Wendt

Lee: Report 4

It was wonderful to discover Ingrid's poetry creation's are available in book form. I have not always enjoyed teaching poetry?in part due to the sappy, sentimental, angst ridden, love tales students produce and call poetry. Reading about lost, adolescent love and the drama accompanying each dissolved relationship renders me nearly comatose. Of course, not all lessons and classes produced this kind of writing, but in my experience it is the direction students like to lean when they hear the word poetry, especially the young women in class. I realize kids this age are exploring relationship, making connections and are up and down emotionally?but I could not endure one more love poem.

Ingrid's resource book offers a plethora of ideas that lead the student comfortably away from love topics and into more imaginative, creative images. The book is very usable. I will use the Chain Poem exercise. It's a great warm-up/lead in and something every student can do. We were involved in this activity in class, so I will not walk through the process other than to remind it begins with a noun on the board and then students write a word immediately under that word that reminds them of something the noun brought to mind. It is a kind of free-fall, and does not have to make sense. I loved the activity in class and participants came up with some wonderful pieces when the process was finished.

I especially like the idea of Poems Written to Music. I try to incorporate multiple-intelligence concepts into the curriculum as often as possible. Consequently, there is a lot of movement in class on my part and that of the students. They seem to like the use of music, even when it is not of their selection. Ingrid suggests students listen to a recording of instrumental music for the mental pictures they create. "The Grand Canyon Suite" was offered as an example. She has the kids describe the picture the music brings to mind asking what changes take place in the picture as the music changes. What is going on? She also cautions the kids not to worry about making complete sentences as the music itself is impressionistic. There are some good examples in the text. I have lots of music I play in class daily. Much of it is classical, woo-woo, flutes, etc. I look forward to the kids using this as a springboard for writing.

I have actually done something close to her: Turning Abstractions into Concrete Images. These particular pieces set out to describe an emotional concept. What shape is time, what color is an hour. If we could see the image of "wasting time" what would it look like? First, she has students come up with a list of emotions on the board: fear, hate, jealousy. Then, using one of the emotion words to start a sentence have students come up with a metaphor or simile that makes the emotion appear as one of the senses---Jealous is like a planet watching a shuttle go swiftly past it. Jealous is like an American bomber looking at a jet speeding away.---this is a sure way to deal with teenage emotions without encouraging pages of sappy love lines.

Wendt offers a series of wonderful exercises in this little text. I am looking forward to beginning the year with poetry. It is a valuable resource, one I am sure I will consult over and over. My colleagues will also be happy to have a practical piece of curriculum material developed exclusively for the teaching of poetry