ACE Spectrum
ACE Spectrum
Ace Spectrum is about you — the ACE Learning Centers.
It’s a quick sharing of ideas, inspiration, opinions and best practices among our continuing education organizations.
Please join the conversation.
Distance Learning is the New Poetry for Students and Sometimes Poetry is Big Sighs
By Riley, ACE Poetry Contest Mascot, assisted by Martha Sessums, ACE President, still working on keeping her keyboard clean from pawprints
We’re grounded. That’s what this shelter-in-place feels like.
This shelter-in-place is like being grounded.
It’s like I got busted for having fun. Busted for going through the gate that John left open, exploring the hood, hanging out with my dog buddies and chasing a few squirrels. Now I’m stuck at home and my dog buddies aren’t even on Zoom.
But it’s hard for everyone, especially you students that have to stay at home and do distance learning. I’m proud to say that the schools that ACE is involved with have done an amazing job supporting the new school techniques, but it’s hard. Not only is it about curriculum, but about getting connected too.
The Oakland School District (that’s where Oakland International High School (OIHS) is a member) is working hard at supporting students. Sailaja Suresh, Senior Director, School Operations, said, “We’re trying to do what we can to support our students at this time . . . to make sure we can get Chromebooks and hotspots to all our students, in addition to financial assistance. It’s really becoming clearer each day how critical it was for our students to have a physical place to be each day with their community. I sincerely hope we find a way back to some kind of normal in the fall.”
Sharing poetry can be a community that may not be physical – that place to be each day, like school – but can be a personal place where feelings can be shared. It’s okay to share fears, worries, hardships, confusion, high stress. It’s okay to let it out, like I do when I jump up and down and bark. Arf, arf, arf.
It’s also okay to admit that all this change is making it hard to focus. In particular, it can be hard to stay focused on learning. I have it easy. I’m a dog and my lessons were “stay,” “sit,” “come.” Okay, mostly “no” which is still hard for me.
But poetry comes from inside and doesn’t have to rhyme. It’s just showing an intensity of feelings and ideas at your own rhythm. It’s a type of distance learning that you can get really close to.
Today’s poems are from the OIHS 12th Graders. Their teacher had students submit videos a couple of weeks ago expressing their feelings about sheltering in place and created a great video. Students talk about what we are all feeling – that our lives have changed and we are all dealing with it, but in the end we need to help each other and be better people. Check it out. It really is poetry, even the big sighs.
Next week is the last week of National Poetry Month and April 30 is Poem in Your Pocket Day where we share a favorite poem. We can’t share poems in person unless we social distance, but there will be some fun online sites I’ll share. Plus, ACE Poetry Contest Winners will start to be announced, so look for great poetry.
Have a great weekend everyone. And treat yourself to a poem.
Find Your Way with Poetry – Kinda Needed at This Time
By Riley, ACE Poetry Contest Mascot, assisted by Martha Sessums, ACE President, who hasn’t yet given up on keeping her keyboard clean from pawprints
Arf, arf. We’re still doing shelter-at-home and now every day seems a lot like the last one. Sounds like a dark poem topic to me.
From Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven . . .
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on
The floor
Shall be lifted–nevermore
. . . to Billie Eilish’s everything I wanted . . .
Coulda been a nightmare
But it felt like they were right there
And it feels like yesterday was a year ago
But I don’t wanna let anybody know
‘Cause everybody wants something from me now
And I don’t wanna let ’em down
. . . it’s a good time to write what we’re all feeling.
Joy Harjo is the U.S. Poet Laureate & Academy of American Poets Chancellor. She’s a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation and she says her poetry comes from her feelings. In her words, “Without poetry, we lose our way.”
Check out her poem Remember. It’s about family and each person’s place in the world. She wrote it by first looking up at the sky and looking for stories in the stars and the moon that were connected to her.
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
I look at the moon too, but usually I howl at her. Cause that’s what my family does. I’m a dog. That’s god spelled backward, by the way.
Check out Lucy’s feet. And do I look like I enjoy her pets?
With all that’s going on and all the new rules out there (wash your hands, wear a mask, social distance of six feet required with everybody, school time on a computer now) there’s a lot going on in our heads. This time is hard, and poetry is made for us to express ourselves in hard times like these. The sun is shining (well, sometimes) and I want to play in the park and run all over the grass and sniff the trees, but I can’t. John gives me plenty of walks, but all on a leash. New rules. New times. Time for new poetry about what you’re feeling to help keep you on track.
Here’s my doggerel about not losing my way and staying true.
Treat*
By Riley
The treat comes
on little Lucy feet.
She sits looking
at me small hand outstretched
giving silent loving pets
and then, moves on.
Hope your poems are coming along for the ACE Poetry Contest. Remember, winners win chedder, plus they are posted here – in the ACE Spectrum blog – for everyone to read and enjoy.
Arf. Stay well. Arf. Stay diligent. Arf, don’t lose your way. And, arf, treat yourself to a poem.
*Apologies to Carl Sandburg, but Martha says I was inspired by his poem Fog.
There’s Math in Poetry and Poetry in Math
By Riley, ACE Poetry Contest Mascot, assisted by Martha Sessums, ACE President, using a box of antiseptic wipes to clean paw prints off her keyboard
Math is everywhere, even in poetry.
To write some types of poems, they have to have a specific count per line. Haiku is a perfect example of that: three lines – the first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables and the third line is back to five syllables. You don’t follow that and it’s not traditional Haiku. Yes, untraditional Haiku is written, but there are still style rules.
Lucy is showing off her cinquains, her five toes, her special kind of poetry.
Then there are cinquains, or five-lined poems that are inspired by Haiku. Lots of variations in terms of style (one is even called a butterfly cinquain) but it must be five lines. (Martha says “cinq” means five in French. She studies French so she probably knows that.) Lucy likes to count the five toes on her foot, so that’s one line per toe.
Sonnets are 14-lined poems written in iambic pentameter, which is one short syllable word followed by a longer syllable word. It’s like John when he carefully steps around the mess on the floor I made when I knocked over Lucy’s dinner place – one step, two step. For example:
In learning, the computer is ultimate
Dogs’ ultimate is getting an embrace
Well, probably no embrace for me after I knocked over Lucy’s dinner.
But there’s poetry in math too. It must feel good to get that algebra problem correct ‘cause you followed the rules. Multiply the factors, group like terms then add up what ya got. Okay, it’s hard the first few times, but with practice the process makes sense and can be fun. Like Haiku – 5-7-5.
It’s time for a doggerel poem about math. I chose geometry because I like my own space, but Lucy always invades it and I have to share it. You know, cut the space in half or even in quarters. That’s okay. Lucy is the best to share with. Well, John too.
The Geometry Around Us
By Riley
The rectangle of your mobile phone screens
The point of your finger on the screen
The area of our room we sit in for distance learning
The distance between you and learning
The rows of squares full of friend faces on the screen
The parabolas of smiles on those faces
The triangles found in a window if sliced on a diagonal
The circular buttons on the TV remote
The two of us, the only even prime number
The polygon of family standing against at least three different walls
The touch of the right angle where the walls meet
The cylinder of the can of dog food opened for dinner
The rhombus of the baseball diamond
Where we’ll run and play after this corona is gone
Stay safe. Keep doing distance learning. And treat yourself to a poem.