Kortney Garrison

Homeschooling With Ease

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By Heart: The Art of Memorization

18 May 2017 by Kortney

Ann Kroeker has a new podcast episode out called Energize Your Writing by Memorizing Poems and it’s got me all kinds of excited!

At our place we are working on “O Captain, My Captain“ by Walt Whitman.  It’s the perfect capstone to our American history studies.  It’s also one of the poems that my very stern 8th grade teacher, Mrs. DeGraw, made us memorize.  And I’ve still got it more or less.

I’ve written it all out in my best formal handwriting, and my ten year old is copying a line out each day for copywork practice. But before I had it off to her each morning, I say the current stanza–with much feeling and drama!  There’s enough blood to keep even the raucous 4 year old interested.  And he can now answer with the second half of the line if I start him out.

But word-perfect memorization isn’t really my goal.  Even though I’ve got Mrs. DeGraw’s high standards to thank for almost all the poems I’ve learned by heart, that’s not what we aim for in our day to day encounters with poems.  I hadn’t really considered that there was another choice–that we could actively, skillfully, thoughtfully enjoy poems together without memorization drills.  The poems slowly work their way into our conversations and gently color our stories.  It’s slow and steady, and I feel like we’re winning the race.

A few other favorites on memorization…

Ann quotes from an article called A Year of Living Poetically–what a title!  The end of the article includes links to 10 or so poems to memorize.  They’re all great choices.  Each selection walks you through the structure and meaning of the poem and gives you hints for memorizing.  I think I might try the Yeats poem they include.

Sally Thomas has created a poetry course based around copywork.  It’s one of the things that I have on my own clipboard to work on while children are doing long division or some other laborious task where I need to be close by, but minding my own business.

Mystie’s article called On Not Being Word-Perfect: Taking the Long View of Memorization.  This is what turned on lights for me and revitalized our Morning Time.

George Plimpton interviewing Billy Collins.  So long.  And so good.  Collins talks about his mom reciting poems that she learned as a child, and how he makes all his students memorize 14 lines.

How do poems color your world?

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Poetry Friday :: Sally Thomas

6 January 2017 by Kortney

Looking for a little company in the kitchen while I made dinner, I happened upon a podcast interview with the poet Sally Thomas.  In the interview at The Mason Jar, Sally talks about introducing children to poetry–how it can happen and what it’s good for.

Seasonal HomeschoolingIt’s a terrific treat to hear how poetry works at her house and the inspiration for her latest collection, Richeldis of Walsingham.  At the end of the interview, she reads two poems.  The second one is just a show stopper!

She also mentions the poet Dana Gioia and his essay “Poetry as Enchantment.”  This was the second time in a week that some one had mentioned this new-to-me poet.  Guess I need to pay attention.  From the looks of it, Gioia is active on Twitter–a perfect platform for poetry!  It’s also where I first happened upon Sally Thomas!  One morning I opened up Twitter and found this question:

Question that struck me today: if you can have a Latin-centered curriculum, why couldn’t you have a poetry-centered one? How wd it look?

— Sally Thomas (@SallyThomasNC) September 18, 2014

Just about one of the most intriguing ideas ever!  Melissa Wiley, Sally, Lisa Toth Salinas, and I ended up talking about it for quite a while.  There are some excellent book recommendations included.  You can read the whole exchange right here.  And there’s more poetry goodness at Teacher Dance.

Poetry Friday

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Resolute

1 January 2017 by Kortney

The new year is here!  Fresh start, clean slate.  New plans and goals.  The gift of beginning again.

Ok, just two new goals!  I want to write more poetry this year–12 poems for the 12 moons.  From this vantage point, that seems doable.  But it is more than I wrote last year.  I think the measurable part will be helpful.  It’s easy to see where I am and where I need to be.  But really it’s a growth goal–that’s the direction I want to be moving in.

I brainstormed a whole list of related tasks that will be supporting this larger work:

  • Poetry Friday–such a wonderful group of writers!
  • Writer’s Almanac–it’s good for me to hear language and Garrison has impeccable taste
  • reading in the Norton Anthology–it’s what Billy Collins teaches from
  • researching Dorothy Wordsworth and Osip Mandelshtam
  • poetry teatime
  • personal copywork from the psalms
  • working through She Writes Wild

I also will be working through Adventures in Seeing: How the Camera Teaches you to Pause, Focus, and Connect with Life by Kim Manley Ort.  Last summer I took the course, and I got the book for Christmas.  It’s finely made and a joy to hold in my hands.  Almost every week there is a photo prompt.  I am notoriously bad at working with prompts, but Kim’s tend to be wide open and engaging.  So. 45 photographs and 12 poems.  A body of work in the new year.

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Reading Across the States

11 July 2016 by Kortney

Using inspiration from Cindy at Shining Dawn Books, we have started reading across the 50 States.  We are also using a blank printable map from Mr. Printables to color in each state as we read.

These are fiction stories for the most part…or historical stories told with a strong narrative focus instead of non-fiction books about each state.  It would have been fun to choose the states based on the order they became states, but that was another level of complication I couldn’t quite handle just yet! I will update every few days with the rest of our books.

f44163264b3bca61a5769e74ebfe0e5dAlabama–Annie and Helen by Deborah Hopkinson

Alaska–My Wilderness by Claudia McGehee

Arizona–Big Moon Tortilla by Joy Cowley

Arkansas–Priscilla and the Hollyhocks by Anne Broylas

California–Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi

Colorado–High as a Hawk by T.A. Barron

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