“Try having the kids rewrite their poems like a song!” our Staff Developer suggested as she rapped some sort of cool poem about what we were working on.
“Oh, what fun!” we all cooed. “The kids will love that!”
So my SOLC writing partner (She is a second grade teacher and I am a Literacy Coach.) decided we would give this one a try before asking the kids to give it a go.
OK…first…we need a song! A song that the kids will really love! I text my daughter to find out what my grandson (a kindergartener) likes in the way of music. “Imagine Dragons is his favorite band. He likes Thunder and Believer.” I jump on YouTube to see what those songs are all about. Hmmm…very cool songs, but maybe a bit too cool to share in our second grade classrooms. I text Jessica again. Does Cole have any other favorites? “Well he loves Bad by Michael Jackson (a kid after his grandma’s own heart!).” OK. Maybe I’ll look somewhere else. Cole is clearly too cool for school. So I turn to my memories of when the kids were really young. They used to sing all of the time. That’s when I remember how much one of the girls used to love Baa Baa Black Sheep (although she would sing, “Baa Baa Black Sheep, Penny Penny Woo….” That should work. Cute and appropriate for all!
So here goes my revision of The Writing Caddy.
The original:
The Writing Caddy
Once bright yellow,
Now stained with smudges and pencil marks.
A busy writing classroom.
Twistables, Pencils, Crayola Markers
Choice
The pencils need sharpening.
Hard Work
The revision (To the tune of Baa Baa Black Sheep)
The Writing Caddy
Writing Workshop
Have you any tools?
Yes sir, yes sir,
A writing caddy full.
One bright yellow bin
Looks like an egg case
Twistables and pencils and things to erase.
Writing Workshop
Are you working hard?
Yes, sir, yes sir
We’ll soon be named The Bard.
OK…This was hard, and I think maybe Michael Jackson’s lyrics, “I’m bad, I’m bad” are quite appropriate when applied to my poetry.
Well, that’s why I’m going to try to revise it again tomorrow!!!
Writing to Learn, Learning to Write 
Great job! So hard but satisfying at the end, right?
These are so fun to read! The kids are going to eat this work up! I can’t hope sit to hear how it goes in the classroom.
What a fun way to work on writing.
Hahaha – I love the way this turned out! And I really love that you are sharing your revisions with us. Revising *is* hard and a) I don’t love to do it b) I rarely share the process (hm… I probably should) and c) once I get started, I have trouble stopping. This is a neat technique – can’t wait to hear if your students like it.
I do think the kids will like it as one way to revise. I want them to see that music is often poetry too!
Love the process and the attempts. Poetry is a place where I’m working on my fixed mindset.
I’m working on my “I can’t write poetry” mindset too. You can see I’m not doing all that well.
I really like, “Twistables, and pencils, and things to erase.” I can’t help thinking that I would be really bad at this task. I think kids are generally more brave than we are, though. I’m just noticing how much time I need for my own writing. It works on weekends and snow days, but I’m not sure the 30 minutes of independent writing time that my kids typically get (after mini-lessons and before share), would be enough for me to write and revise.