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Explosions In The Sky - A 3rd Grade Poetry Project


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 I was going to put this in the poetry thread, but I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to have a separate thread.

 

I teach 3rd grade in a high poverty urban area. In my classroom I teach the kids the craft of poetry, even though it is not a part of our curriculum. I feel it’s an important avenue for them to express their views and to realize how powerful they can be with their words.  This allows even the lowest achieving students to realize success because the focus is on expression rather than mechanics or correct grammar.

One of the experiments I started doing was to play them music by Explosions In The Sky while they were writing. I’d give them the title and let them use the music to influence their writing. Through the years I have collected some good ones and decided to make an anthology of these titles to give to the band. This is the email I got from them:

 

Hey there,

 

This is Chris, the drummer from Explosions in the Sky. Sorry it's taken so long to send you a message, but we just got back from tour recently and there are always a million things to catch up on once we're home. Anyway, I just wanted to thank for giving us the copy of The Season of the Waterfall. We all read the poems and were deeply moved. Not even sure what to say other than that i'm glad that there are people like you helping out and doing things like this. Reading them was not easy. They were beautiful but also incredibly heartbreaking. If there is some way for us to help out, please let me know. Even if its something dumb like sending you a bunch of CDs or something to give to your class. I'm not really sure 3rd and 4th graders would have any interest in meandering, long winded instrumental rock music, but I can't really think of anything else.

 

A lot of people have given us stuff over the years but nothing has compared to this collection of poems. Not even close.

 

Thank you.

 

Sincerely,

Chris

explosions in the sky

 

 

Here are some of the poems. Please keep in mind that I teach them the craft, give them the tools, but this is 100% their writing. I wish I could take credit for what they write, even sometimes steal some of the lines for my own lyrics. I’ve had mothers and fathers in tears as they read their child’s poems.

It amazes me every time I read a new one. These are all using titles from EITS songs.

 

 

The Birth and Death of the Day

 

Death is in the sky and

Light is in the ground.

When people say be gone death

death stays.

It never went and now

it disappeared like fallen warriors.

Light has come back

to the sky.

 

-Jorge

 

 

Our Last Days As Children

 

We used to go to the park together then it was time

to grow up. You are a fashion designer and I

am a doctor. We get off work at 3:00 and see

each other at the buffet and eat and talk about when

we were little and remember times like

when we ate chocolate mint ice cream on Saturdays,

when we played with each other,

when we were friends forever

when we played Bratz and you used to be

Sasha and I would be Cloe,

when we went to each other’s houses and watched

Disney movies,

When we used to talk about ourselves and what

colors we liked. You liked red and I liked pink.

When we played dodgeball and we would be

on the same team and we would run or jump so

we wouldn’t get out, but we would catch the

ball and get other people out,

when we painted each other’s nails,

when we colored each other’s drawings.

when we played soccer and we would win,

during recess we would play four square and

you would be in the A square and I would be in B.

After we talk we start to cry. I miss those things.

 

-Lilibeth

 

 

The Only Moment We Were Alone

 

I feel dead

dead like nothing

People just pass by like

Nothing

Ghosts being nothing

Laying down being a jerk

Biting ghosts one at a time

Water from

God biting water forever.

-Juan

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this is really amazing. I had chills reading them. You put together an entire book of this? Is there any place we can see that?

Also it's absolutely wonderful that chris actually wrote you back and talked about how moved they were. good dudes.

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Thanks everyone! I am always floored by the stuff these 8-9 year olds write. Sometimes when they bring it up to me, it is difficult to hold the water back. These are all written in class, so there is no coaching at home. Most of the time it is the kids who are academically lowest who surprise me the most.

 

I was completely blown away by the email Chris wrote. I knew they would dig them, but never expected his response.Next time EITS tour I plan on asking them if they will stop by our school and visit, though if they agreed to play a short concert in our auditorium they would be treated like the biggest rock stars.

 

Every year I do an anthology that contains two poems from each student in my classroom. Listening to Explosions while writing is just one of the ways we work. Many times I will just write one to two word titles on the board and let them run with it. We study figurative language, repetition, personification, alliteration, and line breaks. The only constricted form we work on is haiku, so they understand the economy and impact of each word. I don't bother with rhyme because at this stage it only gets in the way of pure expression.

 

I do need to create a website that features the best of the best through the years. I will post some more next week when I get back to work if anyone is interested. These are really only the tip of the iceberg.

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Thanks everyone! I am always floored by the stuff these 8-9 year olds write. Sometimes when they bring it up to me, it is difficult to hold the water back. These are all written in class, so there is no coaching at home. Most of the time it is the kids who are academically lowest who surprise me the most.

 

I was completely blown away by the email Chris wrote. I knew they would dig them, but never expected his response.Next time EITS tour I plan on asking them if they will stop by our school and visit, though if they agreed to play a short concert in our auditorium they would be treated like the biggest rock stars.

 

Every year I do an anthology that contains two poems from each student in my classroom. Listening to Explosions while writing is just one of the ways we work. Many times I will just write one to two word titles on the board and let them run with it. We study figurative language, repetition, personification, alliteration, and line breaks. The only constricted form we work on is haiku, so they understand the economy and impact of each word. I don't bother with rhyme because at this stage it only gets in the way of pure expression.

 

I do need to create a website that features the best of the best through the years. I will post some more next week when I get back to work if anyone is interested. These are really only the tip of the iceberg.

 

get explosions to make an exclusive 7" to pair with a nice book of these poems, do a kickstarter, and use the money to buy all the kids savings bonds for college.

 

i'd totally buy one.

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get explosions to make an exclusive 7" to pair with a nice book of these poems, do a kickstarter, and use the money to buy all the kids savings bonds for college.

 

i'd totally buy one.

 

That idea is so genius it hurts my head

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get explosions to make an exclusive 7" to pair with a nice book of these poems, do a kickstarter, and use the money to buy all the kids savings bonds for college.

 

i'd totally buy one.

 

As would I.  And I think there should be a special place in hell for anyone who'd flip it.

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Yes. that is a perfect idea. Let me roll it around in my head. A Kickstarter might be good or maybe even working directly with TRL. I don't know what contractual obligations Explosions has and might be good to tie TRL in with the project anyway to promote their label. I'm sure there will be some sort of school district redtape to deal with. Well, let me start looking into it. Thanks for the great idea, Dreamover!

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The Only Moment We Were Alone

 

I feel dead

dead like nothing

People just pass by like

Nothing

Ghosts being nothing

Laying down being a jerk

Biting ghosts one at a time

Water from

God biting water forever.

-Juan

What the hell? Incredible that a 3rd grader wrote these. First off I laughed at "laying down being a jerk" because it's cute, and really good. But these last few lines had me sitting, staring, and thinking. So deep for such a young age. Do you teach at a public school? Also, I remember being a Freshman and doing one of those "what I want to accomplish" papers, and then it being given back to me upon graduation. When do these kids switch schools, 6th grade? You should keep hold onto them for a few years and give them back once they move on.

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I just wanted to applaud you and tell you how much I appreciate you doing something like this.  Very rarely do I hear about a teacher or professor or whatever doing something as original as this.  It seems like everywhere you go nowadays it's the same boring thing over and over and I think that's why kids hate school so much.  The monotony of it all gets to them, but something like this would make me want to actually show up to class everyday and I feel as if you give those kids that feeling as well.

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I wish I had a teacher like you when I was 8 years old. My teachers used to call interventions and shit for the poetry I would write. I wish I had held on to my book of poetry from that age range to about 12 years old. It's cool that they have a teacher like you who encourages self expression and feelings they couldn't verbalize elsewhere, I'm sure. Kids need an outlet for creativity. I'd pledge the heck out of a kickstarter. You should seriously consider it.

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I just wanted to applaud you and tell you how much I appreciate you doing something like this.  Very rarely do I hear about a teacher or professor or whatever doing something as original as this.  It seems like everywhere you go nowadays it's the same boring thing over and over and I think that's why kids hate school so much.  The monotony of it all gets to them, but something like this would make me want to actually show up to class everyday and I feel as if you give those kids that feeling as well.

 

 

I guarantee you that the teachers hate it just as much as the kids do, but are not allowed to go outside the school districts comfort zone without fear of being fired.

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