Students will create "found" poetry using primary source documents from the Holocaust. This lesson is designed to increase student interest and help them achieve satisfaction in their research, selection, and creative writing accomplishments.

LIBRARY MEDIA SKILLS OBJECTIVES
The student will:

• compare and contrast primary and secondary sources.
  
• use print and online sources to identify and locate literature appropriate  to information needed (Holocaust survivor story).
• discuss how historians use primary sources to understand and explain history.

CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES:
The student will:

• locate and select a primary source Holocaust survivor story.
• use appropriate nonfiction reading comprehension strategies.
• choose and group related ideas and analyze their choices for consistency and point of view.
• write a response to literature (a found poem).

MOTIVATIONAL OBJECTIVES:
The student will:

• become interested in the research process.
• understand the importance of information skills.
• experience increased confidence in research ability.
• achieve satisfaction in research accomplishments.

Resource List

Definition Worksheet
Found Poetry Instructions
Sample of Found Poetry

 

Credits:

Candace Shugar Adapted for SOS by Kori Gerbig School of Information Studies Syracuse University

Sources:

School Library Media Activities Monthly February 2003; 19:6: 12-15 http://www.schoollibrarymedia.com

 

INSTRUCTIONAL ROLES:

• The language arts teacher and the library media specialist team-teach this lesson. Background information about the Holocaust is discussed in language arts class. The library media specialist locates materials and Internet sites. The roles for explaining primary sources and how to write a found poem are interchangeable.
• During the eighth grade unit of study on the Holocaust, students read and discuss novels about the event in their language arts class. They discuss Jewish culture, have some knowledge of Yiddish terms, and learn the names of the German concentration camps and the horrors that happened there. The term “primary sources” will be defined and discussed, and students understand first person narrative writing and third person expository writing from their language arts class preparation for the writing portion of the state proficiency tests.
• Allow four class periods (two days/double periods) in the library media center for the explanation of primary/secondary sources and the creation of a found poem from a primary source.

ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES FOR COMPLETION:

• Many people-not just students-cringe at the thought of writing any kind of poetry. Found poetry is easier to write because the inspiration and words come from an actual text-you simply choose which words to use in what order. You do not have to “think up anything yourself, and, while found poetry does have a rhythm, it doesn't have to rhyme. Using primary sources as the inspiration for found poetry should help clarify and elaborate the students' understanding of the Holocaust. Since each student chooses his or her own survivor story, the individual reading level of each learner is addressed. The original idea for this activity was adapted from “Found Poetry and the American Life Histories Collection in the February 2002 American Memory Newsletter on the Library of Congress (LOC) American Memory website.
• The library media specialist provides both print and online primary sources on a variety of reading levels, supplementing where needed from the public library collection. Holocaust survivor story websites are bookmarked to speed online search and retrieval.
• Specific procedures to be followed when writing a found poem are located in Getting the Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises, by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford. The chapter “Found & Headline Poems (pages 3-23) gives directions for writing a found poem. The library media specialist lists the steps in a way the students will understand, and then tries them with a short survivor story in order to present a sample to students. When satisfied that the directions are explicit, they are photocopies so each student has one to follow.
• The LOC Learning Pages website provides many student lessons to explain what primary sources are. Most of the activities are geared to examining primary sources to gain insight as to how historians use them to understand history. The "Mindwalk" on the LOC Learning Page relates primary sources to the students' every-day teen-age lives.
• With the Mindwalk activity, students list as many activities as they can remember doing in the past twenty-four hours. Ask students to think about any evidence of their activities they created-a diary, notes or letter, e-mails, or telephone messages. Ask if traces of their activities appear in school records (attendance, grades, homework); in business records (using a check, debit or charge card); in a local newspaper, or in government records (driver's license or court date). Ask students to think about people who might be willing to offer testimony (oral history) of their activities. Have the students review their lists to see which activities would leave trace evidence behind, and what evidence, if any, would be preserved for the future. Discuss what might get left out of a historical record of their activities.
• Have students define primary sources of evidence that is recorded; photos, family Bibles, diaries, memoirs, family trees, vital records like birth and marriage certificates, business records, audio and videotapes, and personal and business letters and papers. Ask the class to think about a historical event like the Holocaust and the kinds of evidence this event left behind. Discuss how historians use a time and place rule to judge the quality of primary sources – the closer in time and place a source and its creator are to an event, the better evidence the source will be. Relate this rule to the primary sources they will be using, like Ann Frank and Night. Some primary sources, like Anne Frank's diary, were written as the event happened, and some sources, like Night, were written by someone who was there but din not write about the event until later. Both are examples of primary sources; both are narrative writing. Explain that in secondary sources people write about events they did not experience; they write about the event after it happened, and the writing style is expository.
• Display a page from the Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance online multimedia learning center (or other Holocaust survivor site) and have students identify text or graphic selections as either primary or secondary sources. Give students a sheet using the Thinking Works œconcept of a definition strategy to review the differences between primary and secondary sources. Distribute the written directions for writing a found poem and a highlighter. On the back of the Concept of a Definition worksheet, photocopy the survivor story used by the teacher/library media specialist for the created sample in order to model the steps for creating the found poem. Using a transparency of the same survivor story, read the selection together, and go through the directions step-by-step to create a found poem. Highlight words and phrases that are vivid images or strong language. Compare the list the class generates with the list the library media specialist/teacher chose for the sample-they should be almost identical.
• Show the students the found poem created from that model list. Point out where the word or phrase was on the list, how the order or tense may have been changed, or a phrase repeated for emphasis. As students if the found poem looks like a poem, and why. How does a poem look? Read the sample found poem again and ask the students if it sounds like a poem, and why. How does a poem sound? The library media specialist shows the students how the finished poem must give credit to the original source so we know where it was found.
• This may seem quite easy to students until they discover that choosing a survivor story is not easy-they are all interesting and compelling, and many are not short. The language arts teacher may suggest they only choose one or two pages of an entire book like Night or Anne Frank.
• When the selections are made, print from the computer or photocopy from the book. Students then follow the step-by-step directions to highlight words and create their found poems.
• On day two, students find their selections, highlight their words, and make the first word/phrase list. This may be fairly easy. What may be difficult is eliminating half of the words chosen and arranging them to make the actual poem. Most poems will need only minor editing to make them more poem-like. One-on-one editing with the classroom teacher or the library media specialist helps the students see the need for the poetic form and rhythm. Completed poems are retyped in a variety of fonts and shared with the class. Students are surprised at how moving their completed poems are, especially when they didn't write' them themselves  they just found them.

FOLLOW-UP:

• An unexpected benefit of this lesson was students wanting to check out the books they had used for their poems. The library media specialist may share with the students other autobiographies available in the library media center and suggest that if they liked reading first person accounts, any autobiography would be a good reading experience. Primary sources like autobiographies and memoirs also would be an interesting and enjoyable way to practice reading nonfiction for state proficiency tests.
• It would also benefit the students to teach primary sources through the eighth grade social studies classes at the beginning of the school year. The students then could look at the history being presented in the social studies textbooks and perhaps question from where the information came. One of the problems with many history books is that minority records were not kept or dismissed as unimportant, so most history books have a European perspective. This activity would work well with any primary source materials, and there are excellent websites and books with slave, immigrant, or veteran narratives. Using this activity with social studies teachers may encourage them to use more primary sources in their classroom.
• A final observation middle school students LOVE highlighters!

The student will select a primary source Holocaust survivor story, write a found poem based on the story, and can be graded for the poem using a poetry rubric.

School Library Media Activities Monthly
February 2003; 19:6: 12-15
http://www.schoollibrarymedia.com