My Name Is...

Here's something for you to try in place of stale, awkward meet-and-greet activities.   If you don't want to wait until the beginning of the school year to try this activity, it will also work now.  

It's inspired from Susan G. Woolridge's book Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words.   (http://amzn.com/0609800981)   You will need magazines, scissors and glue.   This activity always seems to take longer than I think it should, but it's another example of tricking students into reading.

Ask the students to cut out 20 words that appeal to them from the magazines provided.   Their goal is to focus on adjectives on nouns.   Don't tell them what the activity is ahead of time as it will cut down on the fun.

Come closer, and I will tell you where all of this is going.

Once most of their words are found, they will copy the following incomplete lines of poetry into their journals.   Depending on the size of the words they have found, they may want to orient their paper sideways, or landscape.

Yesterday my name was...

In my dreams my name is...

My friends think my name is...

My mom/dad/brother/sister thinks my name is...

My teacher thinks my name is...

I know my name is...

Tomorrow my name will be...

You get the idea.   You can change up the prompts to fit your purposes.   Take the number of lines that you want students to use, double it and add six.   That's about how many words the students should cut from magazines in order to have enough choices to work from.  

Students will choose two words, usually an adjective and a noun, to paste at the end of each line.   And I don't let students trade or share words.   It's more fun trying to make their own words fit.   This is a little like Magnetic Poetry.   Students who thrive on worksheets and the comfort of one correct answer will tense up and try to make sense for a while.   They want to know that they are "doing it right."  

Once everyone relaxes and enjoys the silliness of the exercise, you will get some great poetry.   Also, writers will want to share it with their peers, in front of the whole class, even though it's the beginning of the year.   That's magic.

Please note: You will need to warn your students to keep their cut words tucked away under something heavy-ish until the glue comes out.   Kids will be breezing all over the classroom sharing supplies and magazines, and someone...at least one person...will sneeze their words all over the floor.  

Thank you to Christopher Newport University's Teacher Preparation Program for donating a copy of Poemcrazy to my new classroom!