Nearly two summers ago I participated in our local National Writing Project Site, Fox Valley Writing Project (FVWP). To date, FVWP was one of the most important and meaningful professional development sessions I ever attended. Although I have loved writing since about fourth grade, unless it was related to school (something that I was teaching or a required assignment) I rarely shared my writing. Before I joined FVWP, I lacked so much confidence as a writer. It's still something that I am working on. FVWP was where I first began sharing my writing in a more public way.
FVWP gave me so many safe opportunities to play with writing.
In addition, FVWP reminded me that just noticing beautiful words made me happy. I quickly realized that I enjoyed making different arrangements of words and phrases.
One of my favorite writing exercises we did at FVWP was called Paste Pot Poetry. To create a Paste Pot Poem:
- Arrange words from old magazines into a free verse poem. (For me, I’ve found that it is easiest to page through magazines and cut out words or phrases that catch my eye.)
- Cut out your words and play with the arrangement until you like what's on the page.
- Glue your words on paper.
Simple, right?
Since I learned about Paste Pot Poetry from FVWP, I have made several Paste Pot Poems at home, and my nine-year-old daughter often joins me. She likes that you can’t do it wrong and these poems don’t have to rhyme. My daughter also likes to add images from magazines to enhance her Paste Pot Poems.
Honestly, Paste Pot Poems can be whatever you want them to be - meaningful, silly, or even about a certain theme. I like the combination of different fonts, colors, and sizes of words.
Here’s my Paste Pot Poem from late last night:
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| My Paste Pot Poetry Poem |
I LOVE this type of found poetry! As an instructional coach, this is something that I definitely miss by not being in the classroom. Your Paste Pot Poem is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI'm drawn to these words: "noticing beautiful words made me happy." I feel the same way and often tell students the reason grammar is important is so we can control our words and make them do the things we want them to do on the page.
ReplyDeleteI love that you're teaching your daughter "paste pot poetry," what I've heretofore known as found poetry. Reading your post reminds me of found poetry my students composed after 9-11. They were amazing. I wish I'd kept some. And I need to introduce my granddaughter to found poetry, too.
Finally, I have a lesson plan idea from reading your post and a couple of blogging ideas. Thank you!
I like the can't fail nature of paste pot poetry, and I love the funky name! I can imagine students would embrace this idea.
ReplyDeleteI have done this kind of poetry, but I have never heard it called paste pot poetry. I have an envelope full of snippets from magazines. And actually, I don't know where it is, and I am sure I will be needing it this month.
ReplyDeleteTime to get out the scissors and start collecting words from magazines before they get recycled. Thanks for sharing and reflecting on the Fox Valley Writing Project. It looks like others have been given inspiration by your post which is a HUGE!
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of Paste Pot Poetry, and now I want to make one. Finally a use for all those old magazines! I think my students would love this as well.
ReplyDeleteKindly help me on how to arrange those words so that I can get the meaning.
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