I just wanted to share this idea. It's not mine-- it's from Georgia Heard's wonderful book, Awakening the Heart.
In the book, Georgia struggled with getting the kids to write about things that were truly close to their hearts- something more than just "soccer" or "dogs". As a result, she asked kids to make a map of their heart- how ever they wished and to include all the things that really matter to them. While that might include soccer or dogs, she tried to move them beyond those, by asking these questions:
What has really affected you heart?
What people have been important to you?
What are some experiences or central events that you will never forget?
What happy or sad memories do you have?
What secrets have you kept in your heart?
What small things or objects are important to you?
(Page 110)
She doesn't then follow up immediately with a poetry lesson- that would be overkill. But they keep their hearts and refer to them later in the year when writing poetry. I feel like kids would really open up and respond to this activity once our classroom communities have been built.
I can't wait to try, and I thought you might want to too!
Georgia Heard, she must be one amazing lady! It sounds as though I need to buy her book!!!
What a great visual (the heart)! I don't think some kids realize what really pulls at their heartstrings. The questions you wrote are questions that really make you stop and think, even as adults. What really, truly, honestly matters to me? These are the things that we want to hear about. These are the topics that make great pieces of writing.
When you think about authors, you can tell who is truly, deeply passionate about what they are writing about. You can hear it in their words, you can see it, you can feel it. This is the kind of writing we want from children.
I will definately try this in my classroom after we get our year off to a wonderful start! I am really excited, I think this will really raise the level of writing in my classroom.
I actually read this book about three years ago in one of my graduate classes, and my professor had us all do the heart mapping activity. All I can say is WOW! It was so powerful and as our classmates were sharing, many of us ended up in tears...it opened up some doors for wonderful writing and poetry as well. Definitely a worthwhile activity!
Hey, BookMuncher,
As I was reading your post, I was thinking the heart mapping activity could be a meaningful strategy to use in writer's workshop even if you are not necessarily focusing on poetry at the moment. I often ask my students to write from their hearts. I even model writing about topics close to my own heart, but only a few students are able to do it. I think this heart mapping will be a way of getting them to focus on some really meaningful writing.
I'm going to put it on my list of WW strategies and make it work even though I know I HAVE to use a basal in all comm.arts areas.
The minute I read that in Awakening the Heart I knew it would be something I had to try in my classroom. I think it would be an activity that could be a springboard both as a poetry activity and a writing activity. Don't you think so?
Ok......the heart mapping is a go, but then I began to think of an activity we did in one of our PDs for WW last year. This could be very powerful, both in terms of poetry and writing. What we did is this: We were told to make a map of our neighborhood. Label the parts of the neighborhood which really were important to us. Label where our friends lived, or places we played....etc......This was to gain ideas for small moment stories, but I can see where it might be useful for ideas about what one might write in a poem as well.
My daughter did this in 4th grade (she is now going in 10th). It was really neat to see and yes the teacher then had them use it for ideas to write about. The first time I saw it was when my daughter proudly brought it out during her student led conference. I was amazed at the number of things she put on it- it was like a giant web.
Last year I taught 5th grade and I used heart maps during writing. It was one of the first writing lessons and the students had the heart to refer to all year long. The wonderful thing is that the map can be used for all types of writing.
I will be teaching 3rd grade this year but I am still going to use the heartmap idea.
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08-02-2007, 03:13 PM
HAVE 
