2/9/24, 10:47 AM Springboard - Activity 2.

2: Finding Poetry in Prose

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Activity 2.2: Finding Poetry in Prose

Learning Targets

Analyze the use of pivotal words and phrases in a found poem.

Search a short story for examples of poetic language.

Write a found poem based on a familiar piece of prose.

Preview

In this activity, you will compare and contrast a found poem with a piece of prose 
and then create a found poem of your own. Help

Learning Strategies

Marking the Text, Skimming/Scanning

Exhibit A

Predator
Pored over
the bodies
of birds.

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Pondering
the softness
flesh
behind
feathers.

A
single
word
bobbing

bobbing

bobbing

about

in her mind:
predator.

Exhibit B
And another aspect of all the things to which she had now become sensitized was the
discovery of smells, a whole world of smells; she could find paths and trails purely by
smell; it was strange how she had never before noticed that everything has a smell: the
earth, the bark of trees, plants, leaves, and that every animal can be distinguished by its
own peculiar smell, a whole spectrum of smells that came to her on waves through the
air, and which she could draw together or separate out, sniffing the wind, imperceptibly
lifting her head. She suddenly became very interested in animals and found herself
leafing through encyclopedias, looking at the pictures—the hedgehog's pale, soft, tender
underbelly; the swift hare, of uncertain hue, leaping; she pored over the bodies of birds,
fascinated, pondering the softness of the flesh behind their feathers; and a single word
kept bobbing insistently about in her mind: predator.
Working from the Text
182 1. What makes Exhibit A poetic?

GK Exhibit A is poetic because it uses imagery and figurative language

to evoke emotions and paint pictures for the reader.

2. Who is the subject of Exhibit A? Which words act as telling details?

GK The main subject of Exhibit A is the predator. Words such as

bobbing and pored over can serve as key details for the predators
actions.

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3. Reread the final sentence from Exhibit B. What do you notice about the language?

GK The language provides a sense of relief and victory, showing that

the predator has executed all of its victims.

4. Now draw a line through every word from the final sentence of Exhibit B that the
poet omitted.

GK

She suddenly became very interested in animals and found herself

leafing through encyclopedias, looking at the pictures—the
hedgehog's pale, soft, tender underbelly; the swift hare, of uncertain
hue, leaping; she pored over the bodies of birds, fascinated,
pondering the softness of the flesh behind their feathers; and a
single word kept bobbing insistently about in her mind: predator.

5. What words did the poet leave out of Exhibit A and why?

GK Smell, plant, trees, leaves. These words were left out of Exhibit A
because the purpose of Exhibit A was too summarize the text with
only key words and the actions of the characters.

6. Follow these instructions to create your own found poem, based on the short
story “What Happened During the Ice Storm.” When you complete your poem,
write it in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
Reread: Return to “What Happened During the Ice Storm” from Unit 1 and
underline language that “shows” instead of “tells.”

Focus: Decide to focus on one aspect of the narrative for your found poem.

Copy: Find words, phrases, and lines from the story that relate to what you
want to write about. Copy them onto a fresh sheet of paper, leaving plenty of
room between lines, so that you can study the language easily. Or, cut apart
the words and phrases you've copied to form individual slips that you can
physically manipulate.

Cut: Eliminate any words that seem unnecessary, do not sound quite right, or
are distracting from your poem's focus.

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2/9/24, 10:47 AM Springboard - Activity 2.2: Finding Poetry in Prose

Don't:
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to see nottop
allowed to add
navigation bar!your own language; you have to work with
the words from the story.

Do: You have the freedom to repeat language, change punctuation, change
capitalization, change line breaks, and experiment with spacing.

Read aloud: Read aloud your found poem, pausing briefly at the line ends, line
breaks, and punctuation (commas, semicolons, periods). If something sounds
wrong, edit the line breaks, punctuation, or spacing.

183 Title: Give your found poem a title. “What Happened During the Ice Storm” is
already taken!

Finalize: Write the final version of your poem in the following space.

GK Value of the Ice Storm

One winter's freeze brought a freezing rain

The ice sparkled on trees

A stunning display formed on the outside windows

But relentless freezing rain took its toll.

Tree limbs shattered like glass

Windows obscured by thickening ice

Farmers safeguarded their livestock

Yet the pheasants weren't so fortunate

In icy rain, boys sought them out

Finding the birds blinded by frozen eyes

No clubs or sacks, just the boys, standing still,

Surrounded by the shimmering, dripping world

Breath turned to steam

choices hung in the icy air

Finally, one boy whispered,

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shedding
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to see your icy navigation
coat to shield
bar! the pheasants.

Others followed suit

Covering the helpless birds.

Rain soaked through shirts, freezing,

As they ran toward the warm lights of home.

7. Read your poem aloud to a partner and invite feedback. Focus the feedback
discussion on these questions:
Does the found poetry mirror the themes or tones of the original work?

Which words or phrases in the found poems are especially interesting or

vivid?

GK My partner (Siddharth) said my poem conveys the exact same main

idea of the one stated in the original. I provided some of the same
language, used the same tome, and added details about the
extremely cold setting. Also, the idea of the pheasants being
helpless and boys stepping up is conveyed again.

Some phrases and words found throughout the book that are
interesting or vivid, is the details of the setting (ex. birds were
frozen by the frigid silence), and also the boys acting differently
from the others. For example, the adults "some farmers came with
clubs", while the boys had a different approach of "one child
covered the pheasant with his coat". These words and details can
expand on the fact that the boys were more kind-hearted when
talking to the pheasants.

Vocabulary

Literary
A found poem is similar to a collage made of words.
Found poems consist of words, phrases, and lines that come directly from a different
piece of text (novels, short stories, news articles, speeches, or even other poems).

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Check Your Understanding

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What's

As you have observed, composing a found poem entails making a lot of decisions about
what words to cut and what words to keep. While constructing your found poem, which
words did you keep? Why did they seem important? What words did you cut, and why?
What other decisions did you make while constructing your found poem?

GK I kept words that kept the correct tone. For example the describing words
of the cold such as frigid and defenseless convey some of the key ideas of
the poem. They seemed important for my poem to keep the main ideas of
the original story. I cut the words of the environment being a gift. In my
opinion, the original story didn't talk much about the environment also
being a gift in a way, so I wanted to use more detailed and describing
words. Some other decision I made was to use themes of imagery and
figurative language when writing my poem because I believed the author
did a great job connecting the ideas to their figurative writing.

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