Lost and Found
I am a big fan of found poetry and have suggested it as an activity several times on this blog. On Wednesday I read Andrew Motion’s recent found poem An Equal Voice created from a variety of sources.
Found poetry allows us to magpie (I know it’s not really a verb!) words and phrases from other writers and to put them together in our own ways (usual words in unusual combinations). It is a very supportive way of creating powerful poetry with children whose own vocabulary might be limited. It allows them to roll the language over their tongues to see how it fits and eventually, if it is said and read enough, the words and phrases become their own.
Found poetry can be created from fiction and non-fiction texts equally well and can be derived from one source or across a range of sources and can therefore be cross-curricular. They can be created from speeches, letters, scientific and research papers, road signs, adverts, websites and picture books. In fact anything that has words can be used.
Here’s a found poem derived from this post.
Lost and Found
Magpie.
Rolling the language
To see how it fits.
Words and tongues
Creating a voice.
Poetry.
So how would you go about creating found poetry with children? One of the easiest ways to start is with a text that you are using somewhere in the curriculum. Allow the children to collect, on post-its or whiteboards, words and phrases that they like or think have an impact. Pool these so that there is a large bank which could be displayed on the working wall. Model selecting some of the post-its and trying them out in different combinations seeing which work and which don’t. Read them aloud. Take some out and add more in until you have something to share. Other ideas are to:-
- photocopy part of a text and allow children to highlight text that they want on it. Cut this out and rearrange.
- give children different texts based on a theme to collect words and phrases from and then pool them to create with.
- set up a display of words and phrases that children can create poems with. Record each of the poems created and explore the similarities and differences.
- the recording of the poems could be by photograph. Take a look at the Flickr Found Poetry group.
- How about Haiku from error messages?
- And why not have a blog of found poetry? Find the poems by clicking on the categories.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:12 am
I love this idea. It’s a little like “phoetry”. And it occurs to me that a similar one would be what I called dictagloss. Do you know this activity? I would read a poem once through while the kids listened. Then I would read it again at normal speed, and they would write down any key words or phrases they wanted. I would read it one more time, allowing the kids to add or modify. Then they would construct a new work, based on this.
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alijoy Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Hi Susan
That’s a great idea. I suppose it works on the idea of language that souunds ‘right’. I will have to give this a go next time I am in a classroom working on poetry. Many thanks.
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