Do You Know This Poem?

As a secondary English teacher, one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of my job is the mountain of grading I often face at the end of any given day.  It's usually daunting, and on a final draft essay day the pile can reach a height of over a foot (that's a lot of paper).  It's days like that when I begin to wish I were a math teacher with a Scantron or a music teacher.  Then, I begin to read, and that all changes, because I am blessed.  I am blessed that students let me into their world through their words.  I get to watch them wrestle with draft after draft, struggling to find that perfect turn of phrase, and then I get to read that polished (hopefully) final draft - the one that belies the process that came before it.

I began thinking about all this as I was reading and scoring papers last night.  Because of honors summer work, I begin my year with a mountain rather than just easing my way in with a few small hills at first.  It's ok, though, because my students are awesome.  Yep.  I'm impressed already.

One of the first assignments I gave them this year was to write a mimic poem, something I often do when we study poetry, but this assignment's purpose was to help me get to know my students as unique individuals aside from the humdrum information sheet I make them fill out about contact information and goals for the year.  I was so excited when I came across this poem this summer.  I asked my students to read it closely and carefully, paying attention to all the vivid details and concrete imagery, and then tasked them with writing their own version.

They did some amazing work, full of anaphora and allusion, rhythm and rhyme, simile and metaphor, ingenious juxtaposition and vibrant images, and rich voice.  I could hear all of them imparting bits and pieces of themselves, entrusting me with their hopes, fears, and histories.

Last night grading, for me, was like one of those old Visa commercials: stack of papers: 2 inches; time spent grading and commenting on 60 papers: 3 1/2 hours; time spent calculating rubrics and entering grades: another half hour or so; reading some really phenomenal poems and gaining some valuable insights into my students and their worlds: PRICELESS.