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Dream Poem Writing Ideas
Dream Poems
When we ask students to write dream poems, we're
asking them to write about something that's very
broad, and approaching it may be a challenge. How can we
help them do this in the best way? . . .
There are a
number of resources on this site under
Create,
particularly the "Teaching
Ideas for a Short-But-Good Dream Flag Poem Writing
Unit", but here are some other ideas people have
used:
Brainstorming
In
some classrooms, they started with a discussion,
to help
the students see that Hughes is not writing
about the dreams we dream at night, but about
our wishes and hopes. Some of his poems area
bout dreams, (like “Dreams” or “The Dream
Keeper”) but others ARE dreams—poem about what
we hope for (like “Daybreak in Alabama” or
“Stars”). All are dream poems, and all are good
models for the kind of broad thinking that can go
into your own dream poem.
Here’s a
list of nine dream poems from the anthology
Dream Keeper and Other Poems:
-
“The
Dream Keeper” (page 2)
-
“Dreams” (page 4)
-
“Fairies” (page 10)
-
“Dream
Variation” (page 57)
-
“I, Too”
(page 63)
-
“Mother
to Son” (page 64)
-
“As I
Grew Older” (page 70)
-
“Stars”
(page 75)
-
“Daybreak in Alabama” (page 77)
To help
students begin to think about dreams, third
grade teachers
at one school lead a discussion of “The Dream Keeper.”
They talked about what the “too rough fingers of
the world” might mean. Students came up with
everything from segregation to a fight with your
friend to a war to homelessness. They also
discussed “Mother to Son” and talked about what
the tacks and splinters probably could have
been. In a sixth-grade classroom, students brought in
visual images, phrases, and newspaper headlines
to create a "too rough fingers of the world"
collage.
They
followed this by asking students to think about
a dream. It could be for the world or their
community or their family or their friends.
In a middle school classroom, the teacher wanted to
help the students think about dream poems and
think in metaphors. Students were asked to read
some of the Hughes dream poems, choose one, and
make an illustration that was a metaphor for the poem.
(This is a tough assignment, but everyone
succeeds if they try to think about the idea of
the poem, not just “what it says.”)
Writing
Here is a
series of dream poetry assignments. They are
intended to go from easy (structured) to hard
(unstructured), to help students think metaphorically, and to
help students get away from the idea that
rhyming defines poetry.
-
Write a
dream poem of eight lines or more in which
the first words of every line are “In my
dream . . .”
-
Think
of your dream and then think of five or more
metaphors that describe it. Write a poem of
five or more lines in which each line is “My
dream is. . .” followed by the metaphor. For
example, “My dream is an eagle.”
-
Write a
dream poem of eight lines or more in which
every other line rhymes. (This is difficulty
and may emphasize the difficulty or writing
meaningfully with rhyming.)
-
Write a
dream poem of eight lines or more with no
rhymes.
-
Write a dream poem that uses direct address,
just as Langston Hughes does in "Dream
Keeper." Think of who you address and
why. (idea of Joanne Sutton-Smith)
-
Write a
dream poem of any kind at all.
After the students wrote a
couple of dream poems, they
chose one for their Dream Flag. It's great to
help them think about the audience for this poem
by going to the web site and looking at all of
the schools on the
News page or by
playing the poetry part of the
video
of last year's Dream Flag Celebration for them
if you can. You might also want them to look at
Buddhist Prayer flags since they were the
original inspiration for Dream Flags.
Formatting
Last of
all, they need to format the poem, thinking
about line breaks, stanzas, and the fact that is
has to fit on an 81/2 by 11 in. piece of cloth.
If you want to teach about line breaks, stanzas,
and the way a poem's format is important, this
is a good chance to do it. Also, if students
will use something like a marker to write the
poem on cloth, you need to remember space
restrictions. It may be helpful to limit the
final poem to a certain number of lines.
Share Your Ideas on our Wiki Page
Everyone can view this page. You can get the
password to add information when you
register your school for this year. Email
dreamflags@agnesirwin.org to request it if
your registered and don't have it.
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