Hello #ucpspln!!  I wanted to share a really cool facet of Twitter that I have recently learned about.  Tweetchat.com allows you to enter a hashtag and then converse in real time with others using that hashtag.  When you log in, and comment, the hashtag is automatically added to your comments and works much like an IM that also posts to Twitter.  Try it out!

So, I'm going to take a brief intermission from poetry to discuss a recent tweet from @rondacbaker.  She had asked, "What makes a great YA dystopian novel"?  Now, you know how I like to wax philosophical about all things YA, so I mulled this around in my head for days and here's what I've come up with:

Besides the obvious requirement that the main characters should be teenagers and therefore the plot should directly involve them and their lives, I think a great dystopian novel mimics the entire world of a teenager.  I mean, lets face it, adolescence is a dystopia!  Every teen thinks that they are living a life that is repressed and controlled.  Therefore, the dystopia would have to reinforce their ideas on what would be (or is) the most horrible things conceivable, i.e. lack of choice/no free will, no foreseeable future, parents agreeing with the forces that be and encouraging the teens to follow the rules of the land (instead of protecting their kids against it), sexual/romantic tensions that they don't know how to handle, etc.  All of these things would create a world that any teenager could relate to, and yet, no teenager would care to live in.

And that is what a great YA dystopian novels does; it takes what already scares or upsets teens and it blows it out of proportion, but not too much.  Great dystopias are ones we can believe are possible, And yet, you can still close the page and return to a world that isn't so terrible after all.

So, here is the web that I created from my T-Charts, and from the web, my students created lists of figurative language to use. 

So, for mine, I did things like:  white water, splash! splish!, smooth as glass, boat was swimming, sun was a light bulb, the river snakes through, the leaves are a green curtain, etc.  

From this, we crafted the poem.  Mine is below:

Climb into the kayak

from off the dock

I push off and start to paddle

My paddle

cuts through the water;

A knife through hot butter.

Swoosh!  Splash!  Swoosh!  Splash!

The boat is swimming to

my least favorite spot,

but it's a necessary 

passage

to open water.

This part of the Catawba is

a tangle of roots;

the water

barely deep enough

to cover them.

"Stay in the middle,"

I tell myself.

Spanish moss,

full of God-knows what,

hangs down

like a green curtain

I must part to

get out.

The river snakes through the shallow bed,

and finally a breakthrough!

--the open Catawba River.

My kayak races through the flat water,

smooth as glass.

Without white water,

I fly across the expanse toward

the big brown bridge 

that is my cue

to turn for

home.

I love poetry.  And I have taught it roughly the same for the last 9 years or so.  So this year, I thought I'd switch it up and bit, and instead of crafting a different type of poem for their portfolio entries, I thought I would have them craft one poem (from a memory or topic they loved) and then have them rework that same poem, focusing on a different aspect of poetry each time, i.e. tone/mood, theme, figurative language, etc.  So their portfolio would all be the same topic, same poem really, just altered to highlight a new aspect of poetry each time.  We'll see how that goes!

At this point in the lesson, they have crafted an original poem about a topic they love.  For collection purposes, we started with T-charts like the ones below:

Best	Worst		First	Last
dinner	dinner		job
date	date		day of school	day as a student
vacation	vacation/trip		time I saw my kids	time I say my Grandpa
job	job
friend	enemy
Hobbies	Skills		Favorite Things	Least Favorite Things
cooking	teaching		football	nails on a chalk board
kayaking	reading		my children	failure
swimming	singing		music	laundry
reading			water anything

Then we choose one of the subjects, one we could really talk alot about and we created a web of that topic with all the words that popped in our heads from that topic.  I chose kayaking, because it is almost kayaking season and I love it!! I'll  upload my web and the resulting poem after bit.  (The students are coming! LOL)

Some poetry...

We are smack-dab in the middle of our poetry unit, so I thought I'd throw up some sample poetry.  I love poetry because it can be anything...virtually anything!  And it really just involves putting the words that keep chasing themselves around the inside of my head onto the paper.  This particular poem comes from Isaiah 61, which I read EARLY Saturday morning, and hasn't let me go since!  Let's see what you think...

Restoration

Restoration is more than

fixing what is

broken.

It is a labor of love.

Restoration takes place when there is

worth

to what has become battered,

by misuse.

So Hands reach in

and begin to strip away what is lost.

And replace it with what can never be lost,

only left.

Replacing beauty for ashes,

Putting a crown of praise

on the bowed head of the mourning.

No job is too far gone.

Of course, this is a process

And not an easy one,

but it is worth it to return the piece to its

original state.

Restoration involves

giving you back what you lost.

It is a promise to return pride and glory,

beauty and joy.

Rebuild, repair, revive, restore.

And in the end,

At the close of the long journey,

After the pain and the tears,

After the burning and sanding away of the rough edges.

Everyone will realize

This is a project Someone took great pride in

This is a job only the Restorer could do.

So this must be valuable to Him.

More Extreme Micro-Fiction

I've had a whole 24 hours to think of new extreme micro-fiction to post.  I introduced it to my students today and to say that it piqued their interest would be an understatement.  It's like I could watch them begin mentally counting and then recounting words.  It is a great minilesson on word choice.  It fit really well into my poetry lesson today.  Choose words that convey the most meaning possible...trim the fat!  Use words the readers won't soon forget.  Find a phrase that sticks with them!  Hopefully some of them will get on here and post their ideas!  We'll see...but for now, more of micro-fiction:

• Juicy apple ruined by half worm.
• Met the neighbors...need a fence.
• Be a virus.  See the world!  
• First date means butterflies like condors.
• I'm the lamb that was lost.
• He left the others for me.

Some of these are funny.  Some are inspirational.  Some can be interpreted in different ways.  That is what is so great about micro-fiction (or short fiction of any kind, really), it can be what you want it to be!  Enjoy!

Extreme Micro-Fiction

Narrative, along with several other literature magazines and blogs, randomly have contests where short fiction is concerned.  But one of my favorites, and by far the most challenging, is the extreme micro-fiction stories.  For the contest in Narrative, the word count had to be 6 words...no more, no less.  The entire story!  The idea comes from Hemingway (doesn't everything?!).  Legend has it that he was asked once to write a story in only six words.  He wrote:  "For Sale:  Baby shoes, never worn.".  Now, I'm no Hemingway, but the idea intrigued me, so, I thought I'd take a stab at it.  Below are a few I have been working on.  Let me just say that it is amazing how much editing you have to go through to create a 6 word story!

Two brothers, one girl.  I won.
Wanted:  Politician who held real job.
Blooming lilacs.  Achoo!  God bless you!
If only he would have listened!
Teaching?  More like "three ring circus"!

I could do this all night!  But, alas, I actually do need to attend to that "three ring circus" in the morning!  Let me know what you think!