You reach into a dark bag drawing out a chess piece, or awkwardly take out a vitamin C tablet container or an eloquent glass bottle filled with lavender-scented perfume. Whatever you receive, your next step is to write a poem that describes it, personifies it or places it in the context of your life. This is the task English 10 teacher Angel Dean gave to her students.
"I'm trying to get them to think outside the box," Dean said. "And trying to get them to see that they have the capacity to write and think creatively. And that they can do more than they think they can."
She gives her students three minutes to write their poems. What they were able to write surprised them.
"There were no expectations," sophomore Laney Goers said. "It allowed me to be creative and do what I wanted. I wrote something I was proud of, but after, I was thinking and had so many ideas of how I could change it and improve my poem. It gave me so many ideas."
Dean does this assignment every year to start to build crucial critical thinking.
"I'm showing kids how to generate ideas to help with the writing process," Dean said. "I'll have kids say I can't do this, I can't do that, but when I say 'you have three minutes, write a poem.' I have never had anyone fail to write one. And it's always cool to see them surprised and excited about what they created.
Credits:
Photos by Riley Vining