GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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Kowit (1995) encourages practicing poets to draft an “object poem” in the third chapter of our course text; in other words, a poem concerned with rendering some sort of object (no matter how idiosyncratically obscure, arbitrary, or absurd) AND its larger meaning(s) to the poet and / or reader via extremely vivid detail and reflection. For this week's assignment, I would like to transform Kowit’s (1995) “object poem” into a “place poem;” as you’ve probably guessed, a poem concerned with rendering some sort of place (again, no matter how idiosyncratically obscure, arbitrary, or absurd) AND its larger meaning(s) to the poet and or / reader via extremely vivid detail and reflection.
I offer the “place poem” as a paired activity to the “object poem” and / or a standalone activity as such a task requires students to exercise similar skills with manipulating and managing vivid detail and reflection to render / make concrete otherwise abstract emotional, idiosyncratic associations with specific places.
Much of this assignment will refer to some unique detail management vocabulary ("snapshots" and "thoughtshots") created by writing instructor Barry Lane. Although I will be as detailed as possible with this vocabulary throughout the following assignment description, feel free to consult Lane's the formative source (cited bellow), as well as a wiki chapter regarding his work that a group and I created in our
CI 5461 writing method’s class.
Lane, Barry. After THE END: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 1993.Wiki chapter:
http://ci5461teachingwriting2009.pbworks.com/After-THE-END%3A-Teaching-and-Learning-Creative-Revision
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PREPARATION
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Lesson duration:
To account for adequate pre-writing, drafting, peer workshopping, and revision time, I recommend stretching out this activity over the course of 1 full week and really getting into it! However, feel free to adapt to your unique learning context.
Materials:
Some sort of handouts teaching the detail management vocabulary necessary for the lesson. Check out the example-laden handouts I found online as they should do just the trick!
Handout 1
Snapshot
Snapshots allow the reader to be drawn into the story and for the story to come to life. Snapshots are used when the writer zooms in and looks closely at details. It is especially important to pay attention to more than physical details. Students often focus only on sight, but remember that there are 5 senses which play a part in creating a scene or a mood in a story. Challenge your students to appeal to several of the reader's senses rather than focusing only on one. In the example below, look at how the mood is created by the details provided.
“I went inside. The smell of hot cocoa flowed throughout the house. The fire crackled in the small red and brown bricked fireplace. My mother was stirring the beef soup. My two year old brother was quietly playing with wooden blocks that had little letters carved in them. My father sat playing a slow, sad song on his beautiful country guitar. I took off my parka an hung it on the brass coat rack. My mother gave me a bowl of hot beef soup and cocoa. The broth felt warm running down my throat. The feeling of warmth spread all over me.”
Original URL - http://www.wku.edu/3kinds/rjpssrevise.html
Handout 2
Thoughtshots
Thoughtshots are another way to include detail in your writing. A thoughtshot allows the writer to pause and reflect on a particular event or a detail. For example, you could write
My mother always sat down in front of the television after dinner.
But a thoughtshot would be far more interesting to read. Here is an example:
“I don’t know why my mother always sat down in front of the television after dinner. Perhaps it was the only time she really had for herself. My sister and I always had to do the dishes. My step-father usually went out to the garage to work on the old Buick that he always thought he could get up and running someday. Maybe Mom just liked being alone with her game show. She always watched Jeopardy with Alex Trebeck. I think she thought Alex was handsome and smart. Maybe she dreamed that Alex would come into our living room one day and swoop her off to game show land. Mom knew a lot of the answers on Jeopardy, and she’d call them out to the television as if those contestants could hear her. “Where is China!” she’d yell. I always thought it was sort of dumb, and I remember one time my best friend Angela was over at my house. She heard my mother and looked at me like I was weird.”
Original URL - www.granadateachers.com/mason/docs/essays/thoughtshots.doc
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Procedure
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STEP 1: CREATE A WORKING DEFINITION OF "PLACE"
Begin with creating a working definition of what counts as a “place.” As students offer different places, write them down on the board, grouping them into categories such as macro (cities, states, countries, and so on) and micro (their rooms!) places. By the end of this step, come to a class understanding that a “place” can be…
A.) Far as well as near
B.) Big as well as small
C.) Natural as well as man-made
D.) New as well as old
And so on and so forth. For this activity, my only recommendation is that you confine “place” to the concrete / physical realm vs. abstract emotional states of being (at least for this step!).
STEP 2: PREWRITING
In their journals, have students list places that they have been, yearn to go to, love, hate, fear, and so on. Encourage students to cross and otherwise not be confined by the categories that you have created earlier. Also, require them to record ONE concrete / physical detail appealing to the 5 senses they associate with each place. If they get hung up on one place for more than a few seconds, tell them to move on and keep going (this is just an exercise to get the poetry juices flowing!).
Next, come back as a large group or break off into small groups and have each student pick ONE place with which to share…
a.) ONE concrete / physical detail associated with it
b.) how the place makes them feel
As students share their prewriting, record emerging patterns and relationships between the emotions associated with each place and associated sensory details. If all goes well here, you will be able to uncover some striking and fun associations between abstract reflections and the sensory details used to support / validate such reflections.
If this desired pattern doesn’t necessarily emerge, be sure to state the following concept:
“Poets carefully combine sensory detail and explicit reflection to build scenes and SHOW vs. TELL readers their understanding of people, places, and things.”
STEP 3: TEACH CONCEPTS OF SNAPSHOTS and THOUGHTSHOTS
After students are comfortable with the larger conceptual frameworks (see earlier handouts for your assistance), have each student choose ONE place that they have brainstormed either during or since the prewriting activity to “zoom in” on and write their "place poem" about.
Start the “zooming in” process with writing as many snapshots as possible. Again, emphasize mining ALL of the 5 senses! If you wish, create a sort of chart and / or graphic organizer to help students manage this process.
Then, continue to “zoom in” by writing as many thoughtshots as possible. Spark thoughtshots by asking questions such as…
-What does this place remind you of?
-When in your life were you exposed to this place?
-How does it make you feel?
-What did you do in this place?
-Where you alone in this place? Or was someone with you?
-If you were not alone, what was the other person’s relationship to you?
-How did they make you feel?
And so on. Really, the sky is the limit!
STEP 4: DRAFTING
And now to the fun part… After you have reviewed the handout examples (as well as other examples you find), have students begin to combine and re-combine snapshots and thoughtshots to create their “place poems.” For their first draft, don’t worry about purpose too much. Instead, just let them go!
STEP 5: WORKSHOPPING
After students have a draft (even if the draft is nothing more than a more thorough collection of disassociated snapshots and thoughtshots), put them into peer review groups and have them explore patterns that they “see” emerging. To assist groups, supply them with guiding questions such as…
-What is the main idea of the piece?
-What sensory details help build and support this idea?
-What is the tone of the piece?
-What sensory details help build and support this tone?
Whatever prompts you wish to use, come to the following class-wide understanding by the end of the workshop:
“As poets combine sensory detail and explicit reflection to illuminate a person, place, or thing, they DO NOT haphazardly through details and thoughts around; instead, the decisions they make about what details and commentary to include work to build and support a specific purpose! In other words, they carefully craft their details and thoughts to reveal something specific about a person, place, or thing!”
After your class is comfortable with this conceptual framework and have reviewed many textual examples of purposeful use of snapshots and thoughtshots, have students revise their poems around a specific purpose. For their next revision, have them “weed out” the snapshots and thoughtshots that do not help build / support a purpose, and further develop the snapshots and thoughtshots that do.
STEP 6: RE-WORKSHOPPING
In peer review groups, continue to have students identify their purposes and scrutinize the effectiveness and relevancy of their supporting snapshots and thoughtshots.
STEP 7: FINAL DRAFT
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat until you want students to submit a final draft demonstrating keen use of snapshots and thoughtshots to build / support a purposeful poem. For instructor assessment and student self-reflection purposes, consider requiring an “author’s statement” in which students articulate a.) their guiding purpose and b.) the specific decisions made re their use of snapshots and thoughtshots to support their guiding purpose.
