Slice of Life Tuesdays: Great News for Student Writers!

This morning I got some great news! Thirteen students who attend enrichment opportunities I offer at one of local elementary schools will have their Haiku poetry published in the Young American Poetry Digest for this year!  Wow! Thirteen students!

I have helped students to submit their poetry to this compilation for the last six years, since my Third Grade Writer’s Circle started. Almost, but not all submissions are accepted for publication. I think maybe 3-4 students in the last five years have submitted without an offer for publication. Still, a very good track record, I’d say! This year, all six of my Writer’s Circle students are being offered publication and seven of my garden club students are being offered the same! It is exciting!

Having one’s poem published in an actual book, that you can hold in your hands, provides the students a sense of pride and accomplishment. There is an option to buy the compilation for a reasonable price, too. However, if cost is an issue, each school that has poems accepted for publication receives one free copy. Our school places these in the LMC for all to enjoy! Another advantage of that is that when I begin my poetry unit in March, the compilations are there to show the students examples of some grade level peer work that was accepted. I refer to these copies at least once a year.

This was the first year I included my garden club students in trying to write Haiku poems for submission. We learned about bees and I thought it might be a good activity to have the students put some of what we studied into an emotional poem such as a Haiku. The garden students got a very abbreviated haiku writing lesson, much less than my writer’s circle students, but I am so pleased that many were successful at being selected for publication. I cannot wait to distribute the congratulatory letters to the students today!

During the March SOL challenge, I wrote about working on our color poems in Writer’s Circle. Some interested readers asked to see examples of the student’s completed poems. I am including a few in today’s post. The students enjoyed the unit and did a great job creating mental images with words for their chosen color. Enjoy!

Red is the Best

What is red?

Red is a friendly smile.

Red are roses so beautiful and bright.

Red can be a sunset so bold – like a candle light.

Red is a Valentine heart and when you cut your hand,

it’s the gushing pain.

Red is the first color of the rainbow and

the stripes on the American flag.

Red are strawberries so sweet and cherries so bright red.

Red is the burning flames of fire.

That’s what red is.

By Natalie, Third Grade

Yellow Shines

Sight

Yellow is a bell with no speck of rust in sight.

Yellow is the yucky color of yellow dead grass.

Yellow is a butterfly flying in the sky leaving a trail of yellow.

Yellow is the Easter color, better than pink.

Yellow is the third color in the rainbow.

Taste

Yellow is the sweet taste of honey in your mouth.

Yellow is the taste of a sweet-sour lemon giving of flavor in your mouth.

Yellow is that sugary sweet taste of a lemon Jolly Rancher.

Yellow is the fruit – Bananas – monkeys eat.

Smell

Yellow is the sweet-smelling beautiful marigold.

Yellow is that good smelling shining candle light.

Yellow is that good smelling sap.

Feel

Yellow is a duckling’s soft newborn fur.

It also is that sticky feeling of sour lemon gum.

Yellow is the wrinkly yellow leaves in fall.

By Izzy, Third Grade

Green Rocks

Green frogs are the slimy creatures with wrinkled skin and are glossy near the pond.

 Green are the hummingbirds that chirps, flutters, and flits in the forest.

 Green is the sweet sour and tart flavor that you can strongly taste.

 Green are the tiny, scaly creatures that dash through the leaves.

 Green are the shiny, sparkling rocks that are really rare.

 Green is a Great Color.

By Ethan, Third Grade