In order to get my kids to focus on sensory details in poetry, I came up with a fun activity for them. I went to Google images, found a picture, and had my students create a visual inventory of the picture you see to the right. The first go-round I had them focus on basic description. Moving through the list we generated, I then asked for more specificity. After completing the visual inventory, they wrote a class poem. My 4th/5th block came up with the following: The hot-sauce racer slices
down to the finish line
on its peperoni wheels.
The poor Umpalumpa boy,
dressed in his button-popping tan,
chokes on his watermelon Pixie-Stix
and crashes onto the railed track
landing in loneliness.
This is the exact poem they came up with. They are my lunch class so excuse the food imagery. However, the images they came up with are definitely interesting. The only thing I did with the poem was determine the spacing; they did everything else. They really enjoyed the activity and wanted me to pull another picture for tomorrow. I found this one:
I think this is an interesting exercise not just for high school kids, but it would prove useful for college students as well. I will say though that I think your students did very well will the red car exercise. I can understand the food imagery, but I think it works quite well as it seems very surreal. I'm curious as to how your students might respond if you were to try to meld this calisthenic with the emo poetry idea. Hope that helps.
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