Acrostic Poems

Yesterday I was working on teaching the students poetry, specifically acrostic poems.  The problem, however, with creative endeavors, is that most students really aren’t very creative.  Now this may very well be tied to maturity, but most are incredibly simple in their word choice, styling, and attempts.  Most believe that creating one means they’re done, regardless of the quality.  It was interesting to watch as students almost pathologically REFUSED to edit, review, or revise their own written work.  It’s as if it had never occurred to them to continue to work with a piece to find perfection.  Now, I am willing to believe (just based on our work yesterday) that they hadn’t edited poems in the past.  Just talking about it was enough to send them into a frenzy.  But there was also that weird little, “I’m done!” thing going on as well.  There was no push to CONTINUE producing after the production of one.  How weird is that?

Mind you, in retrospect, I should have TOTALLY cut off the activity once they were convinced they couldn’t write about themselves (REALLY?).  But, no!  I decided to persevere.  Apparently I’d forgotten that when stretched to the limit, I snap and get that extra special mean that only I can make.  While the following poem is true, and the child needed the message, the delivery system SUCKED.  I have to apologize for that.  Although… the students picked up on the idea of “tone” very quickly (even though it wasn’t the POINT of the lesson!).


Knowing that, I woke up this morning to characterize myself as:

Naughty and

I’ll share this with them so they know that I got it, and that my prevailing characteristic was one of sarcastic cruelty.  Nice… Good job establishing a safe community.  Sigh…


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