"Miss, please tell me none of these poems made it big!"

Last week was my first week of teaching my period four class and it has been a rollercoaster of emotions! The first day that I taught them I had them first period, after two snow days. Needless to say, they were less than excited to be in school that day. As I was teaching my WOW lesson on disillusionment, defiance, and discontent (the major theme of our unit) I realized that my lesson was a little redundant.The students didn't notice this, thankfully. But I made a note to myself to revise the lesson plan for when I have to teach it to my two other classes. The first day went well, but not without a few hiccups. I was a little hesitant to call on the students, because I did not want to put them on the spot. So instead, I used this as an opportunity to exercise my wait time. 

The next day I was teaching them "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams as an introduction to Imagist poetry. I was really excited about this lesson because I thought that the students would have fun with it! These poems are really short, no longer than twelve lines and each line was only about 3 words, so I felt that the students would like this. Next, I planned to introduce the students to the idea of "parody" through a Weird Al song, "Eat It" (a parody of "Beat It"). I wanted to then have the class journal about why this is a parody and what elements of this song make it a parody of "Beat It" and then do a whip to share out. Finally, I wanted the students to write their own parody poems of either "The Red Wheelbarrow" or "This is Just to Say" (and I provided them with examples of parodies of these poems, written by students their age). 

As we were reading the two poems, it became very clear to me that the students did not like these poems, as I thought they would. At one point one student said "Miss, please tell me none of these poems made it big! I could write something better than this!" I could not have been happier that he said this! "YES! You say you can write something better than this? HOLD ON TO THAT THOUGHT!" Now he was just saying that to get some laughs from his classmates, who shared his dislike and disinterest of the poems, but he was leading us right where I had planned for the lesson to go! It was an amazing way to transition into the next part of the lesson. When it came time to tell the students that we were going to be writing parody poems, I referenced back to his statement and said "How many of you think you could write something better than this? Good, because you're going to have the chance to do that!" The parody poems that the students handed in were so funny! They all included a clear example of imagery and kept the same structure of the original poem. I could tell from the class discussion and the parody poems that the students understood the concept of Imagist poetry. I have included three student examples below! I hope you all enjoy them as much as I did!

A parody of "The Red Wheelbarrow" 

So much depends

upon

the Golden arches

a soda dripping

with condensation 

beside the McDonald's

worker

A parody of "This is Just to Say"

This is Just to Say: I'm a tree

I have broken

the windshield

of your new red sports car

which you're 

going to be angry about.

But I swear it's not my fault

the wind pushed me too far

into your front yard. 

A parody of "This is Just to Say"

This is Just to Say: Coca Cola

I have drank

the last bit of cola

that was in the fridge

which you wanted

before bed.

Forgive me

it was tempting

so sweet

so bubbly.

I love soda.