Week 2: Name Colors

As we were reading "aeIou" by Victoria Heath, I wasn't sure if this poem was going to come across as well as I'd hoped. I realized as I was teaching that it was an ambitious assignment: I asked students to imagine that each of the letters of their name has a color--NOT necessarily associated with an object that begins with that letter--and to explore what the significance of that color might be, what came to mind visually with this letter. It was harder than I thought, and required a leap into some abstract thinking (and to fight against the tendency to write acrostic poems, which is not what I was going for). These are a few examples of students who I thought came up with some really interesting stuff. Notice how Giselle came up with a kind of form for her poem, Jacqueline associated her letters very freely, and Joel got caught up exploring just the color black.

I did this assignment with Mrs. Hamdan's class in B15.

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My Name… (excerpt)
Giselle H.

G for spring. G for green.
I for Illinois. I for pink.
S for summer days. S for yellow sun.
E for enormous. E for red.
L for love. L for red.
L for letter. L for white.
E for stars. E for gold...


Name
Jacqueline V.

Pink is J, is a pen.
J is like a butterfly in the sky.
A is clouds in the sky.
C is a paper to fold.
Q is a paint to paint.
U is a nice name.
E is for a plow.
L is for sunny days.
I for star.
N for apple.
E for birthday.


Black
Joel G.

Black is for a cat
that is in the night
black time. The pencils
are black that the cat
made. The chalkboard is
black that the cat draws.