Introductions & Exquisite Corpses

First Visit, November 12, 2007

We’ve certainly gotten off to a great start at Castellanos. The seventh graders in particular were extremely enthusiastic about the day’s project. After a brief introduction we read I, Too, by Langston Hughes and used it to discuss some poetic basics: What is a poem? What are stanzas? Line breaks? Then we talked briefly about the poem itself, what it means and how powerful its message is.

The bulk of the lesson was spent writing and reading our own exquisite corpse poems. Each class was already grouped into little tables, so that part was easy. Each table got a piece of paper on which I had written the first line of the poem. The first line everyone received was “The first thing you should know about this place is…”

Watching each poem evolve was great. It was amazing to see all the wildly different directions each group took the line in. During writing time, problem solving was a lot of fun, too. If someone couldn’t think of a place to start the poem, I would sit with them and we’d come up with lists of cool or scary places, real or imaginary. If a writer was stuck in the middle of the poem I played a word association game with them to give the idea a fresh start. The students really responded to the word association games, and were quite excited with their results.

By the end the kids didn’t want to stop writing. I had one student exclaim, “Wow, now I can write a poem!” Quite a few of them seemed very excited to teach the process to friends and family and keep writing collaborative poems outside of school.

Here are some fabulous examples:

From Ms. Gonzalez’s Class:

Exquisite Corpse

The thing I love about this place is that
it is a magical place of different colors
and a kid likes a magical place.
You can go to different parts of the world just
by turning the corner
and the ocean is the only thing far away
full of millions of magical fishes
and the fishes dance all the time.

by Sara B., Karla F., Veronica G., Christinea L.

From Ms. Formisano’s Class:

Exquisite Corpse

The first thing you should know about this place is...

That the clouds are crying for
suffering too much in this world.

The people who live here, suffer
of gunshots and pain.

My family is going through a rough time gunshots
rough stuff suffering tears and pain.

Hoping tomorrow the difference shows.
A whole new day a whole new world.

by Maria B, Anna M, Sandra R

From Mr. Lukas’s Class:

Exquisite Corpse #1

The first thing you should know about this place is…
that it’s beautiful and a nice place to be on
a place to sing along
somewhere where its peaceful
a park
a place that you can be by yourself and relax
a place you can be with one another and chat.
Somewhere you could meet new people
someone special
someone that cares about you
someone that loves you!

by Heriberto P, Angelica J, Dulce C, Esteban G