Poems are “published”

Kapka | K-2 | Literacy | Present: Students, teachers and myself | 1.5 hours field experience including
reflection time

In the last session I attended at Kapka I got to witness students putting their finished poems into cards and books that will be shared publicly. Specifically, their poems will end up in three places —

— a copy that goes into a card that is sent to one of the families that they will take Thanksgiving dinner to
— a copy that goes into a card that they take to their own families
— a copy that they decorate to become part of the Thanksgiving poems book

This manner of sharing work created by students made me think about the power and the nature of documenting student work. In many ways, the cards and the book are documentation that will live on beyond the singular instance of writing a poem. How much does the nature of the documentation, in this case cards that will be very meaningful to the recipients, inspire and motivate quality work from students? Do we use the documentation as a carrot to motivate students to create good work? Where in all of this is the room for students to do work because they themselves just come upon it, find it meaningful and cannot but help produce quality work?

While I have nothing but appreciation for the thoughtful nature of the Thanksgiving project at Kapka, I have failed in completely understanding how many of the pieces that make the project are student motivated. I should have dug in and tried to understand if the students asked to and chose to write the poems they wrote or has the poem writing become a piece that is just done, year after year, so each student group is handed down a 'tradition' they need to 'follow'. It is my guess that this is the way it is.

When 'it is the way it is', I cannot imagine that students are wholly motivated and inspired to create quality work without either putting themselves to work for it or being coaxed into it, even ever so gently. I make that sound way harsher than it actually is but I think a sensitive reader can get the drift of what I am saying. When the activity is not intrinsically motivated by student curiosity, we need external structures like documentation carrots to make the activity meaningful to them. What may you ask is wrong with that? Not much, might say many, including myself on a different day (because I am still seeking complete clarity on this). What it all comes down to is whether and how we want to pass on our own values to our children. Doing a kind act on Thanksgiving is a value we adults have that we are inculcating in the children. We inculcate all kinds of values in them all day, all the time. We are bound to do this because we are all value-laden beings. This is the nature of our existence but I think we can be aware of how these values are passed on. See, I don't think there is anything wrong at all in children writing poems to send to families. I am simply using it as an example to examine how we pass on our values to our children.

I believe that while we will pass on values to children, we need to be mindful in helping children understand the nature of the value, the fact that it is ours and does not need to be theirs, that if they choose to have the value, the need to find their own way of owning it. Overall, I am asking for greater awareness around values and their passage.

So, what could be different about writing poetry for families? I imagine the children could be given a basic framework of the Thanksgiving dinner idea and then asked to brainstorm all the pieces they want in it. Different groups might choose different pieces year after year. A few can remain the same from year to year to provide a starting framework but even those could change. I guess the fact that some kind of Thanksgiving gift giving will happen can be treated as a given, beyond that, I think each year, each group needs to create its own 'tradition' around it. This way, student will come to create, absorb and live out the values they think are critical to Thanksgiving and any other tradition. One year they might write poetry and another they might decide to sing songs. It won't be the same and nor should it because each moment, each child and each Thanksgiving is different.