Mississippi River

Today in writer's workshop, we made heart maps to give the students ideas on what they could write poems about. They were to draw a heart on their page and then inside the poem write things that are important to their hearts.

My heart’s “list” looked like this:
Mom and Dad
Grandparents
Matt and Angu
Kelsey
Natalie
DJ
Children
Jerry
Mississippi River
Iowa
Arizona
Prescott
Phoenix
Florida
England
Gulf Coast
Georgia

After the students had time to think, and write I gave them just a few minutes to rough write a poem from their heart maps.

I heard over and over for the first few minutes that they couldn’t think of a poem, that they couldn’t do it.

So I did one on the board while they did one on their paper, and this is the result:

Mississippi River
Fast Moving
Lazy Days

Summer Heat
Summer Haze

Barges Rolling
Steamboats Beat

Fireworks popping
Rides swinging

Mosquito’s biting

Then after we came back from specials I made a few adjustments to the poem to show the students how to work with rough drafts and sloppy copies:

Mississippi River
Fast Moving
Lazy Days

Summer Heat
Summer Haze

Barges Rolling
Steamboats Beat

Rides swinging
Mosquito’s biting

Sun Setting
Fireworks popping
Tired Children crying

Going home
With the River flowing
Through our heads