As I told the kids before his arrival, Jeff is kind of a big deal. He teaches at both the high school and college level, and is the literary arts director at the Neutral Zone. He is a published author, and just an amazing poet and performer/slammer.
He read several of his poems to the children - although "read" doesn't nearly do justice to what Jeff can do when sharing a poem. The children were delighted. One of his poems was about getting "inside" a sound. After he performed this poem, he asked Elaine to write down the children's ideas about different sounds they could hear. This is the list the first and second graders came up with:
Then Jeff asked them to choose one of these sounds, close their eyes, and go inside the sound. What do they see? Feel? What colors do they see? The room got very quiet.
When they opened their eyes, the students were ready to write. Here are just a few of their poems.
Inside a Whoosh
Inside a whoosh
I feel a great feeling of warmth
A great feeling of greatness
Inside a Buzz
Inside a buzz
I see a bee
Inside a bee
The bee is being a bee
Inside a Boom
I hear boom, boom, boom.
I feel destruction.
The destroyed walls
Fall all over me.
Inside a Purr
I, Samantha Pui, open a door to a purr.
I smell catnip and cat food.
I see kittens, cats, and felines.
I hear meow, purrs, and hssss.
I feel the warmth of a cat.
And that is what's inside a purr.
Inside a Laugh
Inside a laugh I see some flowers and
they are pretty colors.
I see a rainbow.
Inside a laugh some kittens.
I see a sun and I hear the wind blowing
and the soft sound of a laugh.
It makes me feel happy.
Inside a Snore
Inside a snore is a dream
A dream is happy and sad and mixed-up feelings
Some happy
Some sad
Inside an Explosion
Inside an explosion
I can see smoky flames
I can smell smoke and burnt wood.
I can feel sharp metal and wood.
I can see blurred shapes and figures
Outside of the explosion.
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