Found Poems

One weekend last month my mom sent me this pin on Pinterest that she thought I'd like. Well, I didn't like it... I loved it! I immediately set about incorporating it into my lesson plans. My seniors had recently finished up a unit on Romanticism, and while they were slightly burned out reading and analyzing poems, I figured they would still be up for writing some. Or finding them!

"Seek reason for being,
explain the necessity of time."

I began with a brief PowerPoint introducing my students to the concept of found poetry. Found poetry is "a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and lines, or by adding or deleting text, thus imparting new meaning" (source: Wikipedia). I showed my students examples such as Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes, Ronald Johnson's Radi Os, Tom Phillips' A Humument, and Jen Bervin's Nets for inspiration. Once they started to see what it looked like (complete with a step-by-step guide I had created the day before, composing my own found poem in the process), they were ready to set to work! Luckily, I ALWAYS have book pages on hand for crafting, so I simply passed out pages at random and set them loose!

Before I show the finished results, here's the step-by-step process I gave my seniors to guide them:

Step One: Look at your page of prose – do any words stand out to you?

Step Two: Trace a logical path through the text with your words – a theme will emerge along the way.

 

Step Three: Treat the rest of the page in a way that emphasizes your “found poem.”

...BUBBLED!

Bubbling...

...Bubbling...

 So yeah, pretty cool, huh? After passing out the pages, they all settled in to work, and I was so pleased with what they came up with! Check 'em out!

(Click to Enlarge)

He was the only one to
try this technique - and
he worked meticulously!

A nonsensical poem,
sparked by the discovery
of the word "bear."

A few students opted to
incorporate visuals to go
along with their poems.

 

There was such a variety of techniques and color schemes that they employed!

 

And no, they weren't just "pretty" - check out how profound my students turned out to be! ;) 

"Philosophy is reckoned by me."

"God created worlds, planets and comets, found in immense
spaces and all qualities observable."

"Failed writings remain unknown..."

"The body remarkable
but judged by the lives of many."

"The great demonstrations of a Perfect Being,
the existence of God."

I was so proud, I HAD to display them after I laminated them  (probably one of my favorite aspects of working in a school - access to a laminator!!). Using the wall space between my room and my teacher-neighbor's, I created a "Found Poems" display. These pics only show my students' work (the ones who wanted their poems displayed) - my colleague followed suit the next week, adding her students' poems to the display. It has garnered lots of attention these past few weeks, which is AWESOME. :) Highly recommend.