Over the weekend, the wonderful Kate Messner extended a gentle invitation to the teachers who participated in Teachers Write over the summer.  School has started, time is filled with lesson to plan and papers to grade and parents to call, but Kate invites us to take time to write as well.  I needed the nudge to get back to writing, so I grabbed a pen and paper this afternoon to write.

Instead of following her invitation, I went totally off-topic to a poem I started writing alongside my students a few weeks ago. We read together Charles Bukowski’s poem about poems,  ”Defining the Magic.”  Inspired, I wrote the following poem to define the magic of a good book.

A good book is a kindred spirit 
a good book is a secret garden
where miracles occur 
A good book is a light
   on a dark and stormy night
a good book is a pot of honey
in the Hundred Acre Wood
a good book is a subtle knife
that cuts between worlds
a good book is a wardrobe
that leads to a lightpost in a snowy woods
a good book is a tesseract
through time and space
a good book is a wagon trail
across the prairie
a good book is an arrow
shot through a pig’s snout
a good book is money
to pass through a phantom tollbooth
a good book is a departure
from Platform 9 ¾
a good book is a Golden Ticket….
if you dare to open it.

How would you define the magic of a good book?  I’d love to hear in the comments below!

Yesterday I got to write with Ralph Fletcher at a conference sponsored by the IUS Writing Project.  I came away with pages of notes of ideas to think about and tips to try in my classroom.  Of course, I also came home with a few more books to read.  I can’t wait to dig into Fletcher’s books Mentor Author, Mentor Texts and Nonfiction Craft Lessons.  I even got my copy of Pyrotechnics on the Page (our study book for Advanced Institute) autographed.

One of our writings used Fletcher’s poem “The Good Old Days” as a mentor text.  Fletcher asked us to use his opening and closing stanza, but to write about our own memories in between.  I found it fascinating to see how different people in the room connected with different parts of the poem to copy in their poems.  I borrowed the beginning and ending stanzas (as we all did).  I also used the two-line stanzas, included lots of gerunds (though I kept thinking I was using too many), and adopted a nostalgic tone.  Other people focused on a memory involving their mother (as Fletcher’s did) or father.

It was a good reminder to trust my students to take away from a mentor text what they need for their own writing.  There are many lessons a single text can offer, not just the one I see.  I’ve had success in the past using mentor texts in getting students started with a piece of writing.  (Raise your hand if you’ve used George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From.”)  One of the things I like about such writing is that the structure allows students (and me) to get ideas down on paper in a way that makes us look good.  Here is what I came  up with yesterday in just a few minutes.  It brought up a memory I haven’t thought about in a long time.  I just might go back and keep working with it.

Sometimes I remember

the good old days,

 

rolling down the grassy hill

until the blue sky whirled above me.

 

I lay in the sun-soaked grass

feeling the earth tilt and spin beneath me.

 

I staggered to my feet,

grass tickling my toes

 

and raced my brother to the top

and paused before doing it again.

 

I still can’t imagine

anything better than that.

What do you like?  What still needs work?