I am...
As I said in an earlier post, the fifth and sixth graders have been writing poetry. Each student was issued a poetry journal (a large sheet of construction paper folded in half with 10 pieces of lined loose-leaf paper stapled inside).
Because St. Mary's School turned 100 this year, we had a wonderful celebration. I wanted to have some student work on display, so I decided to have the fifth and sixth graders publish one of their poems. I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect! The pin took me to a wonderful blog called Runde's Room. The backgrounds for these poems were made in their art class with their art teacher.
They started out by using pencil to draw curved lines on a piece of thick paper. Then they filled in the lines they made with paint. Her focus was for them to mix and blend colors.
After painting in art class, they came to English class. In their poetry journals, the students made a list of adjectives - as many as they could think of. Next, they needed to rank their adjectives in order of significance.
Once the paintings were dry and flattened, the students took Sharpie markers and drew over the lines between colors. You can see on some of the finished products that some of the lines between colors were difficult to find because of the blended colors. I actually really liked that effect! Next I had the students write their adjectives on the lines. I told them the top of the letters should reach from the top to the bottom of the space, and that the most significant adjectives should have the biggest letters. I also encouraged them to use fancy writing to improve the aesthetics of the piece. I told them to write the top ranked adjectives first so that they would fit the most important ones on the poem.
Some of the students realized right away that they should write the words in pencil before they went over the words in Sharpie. If I do this project again (which I definitely think I will), I will make that a requirement. It also would have been nice to have a way to allow the students to create a rough draft. Then if the students were not following directions, I would have been able to redirect them more easily. As you know, Sharpies are called permanent markers for a reason!
As I said in an earlier post, the fifth and sixth graders have been writing poetry. Each student was issued a poetry journal (a large sheet of construction paper folded in half with 10 pieces of lined loose-leaf paper stapled inside). 
Because St. Mary's School turned 100 this year, we had a wonderful celebration. I wanted to have some student work on display, so I decided to have the fifth and sixth graders publish one of their poems. I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect! The pin took me to a wonderful blog called Runde's Room. The backgrounds for these poems were made in their art class with their art teacher. 
They started out by using pencil to draw curved lines on a piece of thick paper. Then they filled in the lines they made with paint. Her focus was for them to mix and blend colors. 
After painting in art class, they came to English class. In their poetry journals, the students made a list of adjectives - as many as they could think of. Next, they needed to rank their adjectives in order of significance. 
Once the paintings were dry and flattened, the students took Sharpie markers and drew over the lines between colors. You can see on some of the finished products that some of the lines between colors were difficult to find because of the blended colors. I actually really liked that effect! Next I had the students write their adjectives on the lines. I told them the top of the letters should reach from the top to the bottom of the space, and that the most significant adjectives should have the biggest letters. I also encouraged them to use fancy writing to improve the aesthetics of the piece. I told them to write the top ranked adjectives first so that they would fit the most important ones on the poem. 
Some of the students realized right away that they should write the words in pencil before they went over the words in Sharpie. If I do this project again (which I definitely think I will), I will make that a requirement. It also would have been nice to have a way to allow the students to create a rough draft. Then if the students were not following directions, I would have been able to redirect them more easily. As you know, Sharpies are called permanent markers for a reason! 
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