Agenda de Instrucción Personal de Tráfico

I came to you at ________________

With silvery dew on sleeping lotus Sparkling in my gay hands

You put my flowers in the sun I danced to you at ________________

With bright raintree blooms Flaming in my ardent arms

You dropped my blossoms in the pond I crept to you at ________________

With pale lilac orchids

Trembling on my uncertain lips You shredded my petals in the sand I strode to you at ________________

With gravel hard and cold Clenched in my bitter fists

You offered me your hybrid orchids And _______________________________

Offerings by Hilary Tham

I came to you at sunrise

With silvery dew on sleeping lotus Sparkling in my gay hands

You put my flowers in the sun I danced to you at midday With bright raintree blooms Flaming in my ardent arms

You dropped my blossoms in the pond I crept to you at sunset

With pale lilac orchids

Trembling on my uncertain lips You shredded my petals in the sand I strode to you at midnight

With gravel hard and cold Clenched in my bitter fists

You offered me your hybrid orchids And I crushed them in my despair

When I was one-and-twenty by A.E. Housman

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say

‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.’

But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again,

‘The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain;

‘Tis paid with sighs aplenty And sold for endless rue.’

And I am two-and-twenty But I was one-and-twenty

No use to talk to me

Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away

When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again And I am two-and-twenty and oh, ‘tis true, ‘tis true Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain Tis paid with sighs aplenty and sold for endless rue When I was one-and-twenty Developing the Skills JIGSAW READING

Objective To explore the language of a poem for clues as to how it is structured Organisation Group work

Material “When I was one-and-twenty” cut up into strips (see below), one set per group sticky tape and pins to hang up the final versions

Remarks a) It may be useful to establish the meaning of “in vain”.

b) Most poems with a linguistically clearly discernible structure can be used here, as well as some songs (e.g. ‘Streets of London’ by Ralph McTell or Eric Bogle’s First World War song ‘The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda’).

1 Give the students the title ‘When I was one-and-twenty’ and ask them what this poem could be about.

2 Hand out the poem cut into strips to the groups and ask them to order the lines.

3 Get the groups to write down in note form on what they base their decisions for placing a line in the position they have.

4 The versions are stuck together and hung up around the room so the students can inspect them.

5 The class can then discuss the merits of the various versions and whether and where the poem has been divided into stanzas.

66 Creative Ways Starting to Teach Creative Writing in The English Language Classroom

SAYING IT TO THE WORST EFFECT

Objectives a) To see what makes a poetic line strong

b) In the course of the exercise to discover what elements poets use to create a variety of effects

Organisation Writing in pairs or groups followed by a plenary discussion Material A list of lines from poems or openings of narrative texts

Remarks a) This may seem somewhat iconoclastic, but with guidance from the teacher it sharpens students’ perception for poetic ‘tricks of the trade’.

b) One may need to point out to the students that the changes can be in the choice of vocabulary, in syntax, in punctuation, etc.

1 Hand out a number of poignant lines to the groups and ask them to make minimal changes to rob them of their poignancy.

2 In a plenary discussion analyse what the change for the trite can be ascribed to, i.e. where the words are no longer very apt, where momentum has been lost, where the focus of the line has shifted or become blurred, etc.

Examples

a Whose woods these are I think I know. (Robert Frost) b The tide rises, the tide falls

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) c I ne’er was struck before that hour

With love so sudden and so sweet(John Clare)

d The Red Death had long devastated the country. (Edgar Allan Poe) e The curfew tolls the knell of parting day... (Thomas Gray)

f No coward soul is mine… (Emily Brontë) g About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters... (W.H. Auden)

h The world is charged with the grandeur of God (Gerard Manley Hopkins) i They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do. (Philip Larkin)

j I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle (Marianne Moore) k She fears him and will always ask

What fated her to choose him(Edwin Arlington Robinson) l Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (William Shakespeare)

m The big steel tourist shield says maybe fifteen thousand got it here (Dave Smith) n I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made (William Butler Yeats)

FIRST DRAFTS

Objectives a) To study a (short) poetic text, focusing on its central elements b) To find other ways of saying the same thing

Organisation Pair work, or matched pairs, i.e. groups of two and two participants so that pairs of students read and write together

Material At least 2 suitable texts, it can be more, but there needs to be an even number.

Remarks a) This can be a way of breathing new life into dead texts

b) You may need to point out at the beginning that a first draft contains the basic ideas but not all the ideas are worked out yet.

1 Distribute the texts to the students making sure that pairs don’t have the same text.

The students read the text carefully and make a list of the ideas.

2 Next they can try to draw up a diagram of how the ideas are connected to each other.

3 The lists of ideas and the diagrams are swapped between the two partners.

4 On the basis of this material they attempt to write a first draft of the text (obviously without looking at the original)

5 Then they exchange the texts and compare the new version with the original one.

6 To round this off the students could be encouraged to discuss the differences between the versions and in what way they show parallels.

ENCAPSULATIONS

Objectives a) To concentrate on the central elements/ideas of a literary text b) To rewrite a text as a new text (explore intertextuality) Organisation Group work

Material Reasonably well-known texts or poems, perhaps classics, one copy per group Examples Any text in How to become ridiculously well-read in one evening

Remarks The result of this activity ideally should be another poetic form,

68 Creative Ways Starting to Teach Creative Writing in The English Language Classroom

On a stupendous leg of Granite,