2017-2018 Dream Keepers Successes

Dream Keepers Successes

by Rochelle Melander

2017-2018 Highlights

We've had a great year at Dream Keepers.

We've brought the program to two libraries, Capitol Drive Library and the brand new Historic Mitchell Street Library.
We once again brought Bing! Bang! Boom!, our program on noisy poetry, to the Dr. Seuss Day Celebration at Central Library.
We led a workshop on reading and writing poetry for the members of the Milwaukee Public Library Teen Advisory Board.

Bing! Bang! Boing!

I love teaching noisy poetry...and the students love writing it. Here are some of my favorite examples from this year's Dr. Seuss Day celebration!

Summer Writing

Join me this summer, right here at the blog, for Wednesday writing prompts. We'll try to make them fun...just for you.

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Six-word Scary Stories

We've done six-word memoirs. Tonight the Dream Keepers wrote six-word scary stories. Read and enjoy! (Then write and submit your own in the comment field!) A vampire destroys the city with power. —Tramonta Garner (pictured above) One virus. One town. No survivors. —Jaimee Bogard-LaMar, 14 One girl. Many monsters. What's next? —Jaimee Bogard-LaMar, 14 Big zombie eats eyeballs. City blind. —Elisha Branch, 14 One house. One family. Both gone. —Elisha Branch, 14 Knock, knock. Who's there? Killer mysterious. —Derranesha, 12 Baby cries. No answer. What happens? —Derranesha, 12 Ring, ring. "Hello." Please help me. —April, 12 The spooky monster ran towards me ... —Sonya, 17 The worm crawls into the brain. —Sierra The slippery, slimy monster grabs two. —Quintoya Eskridge

Long Titles, Short Poems

Tonight the Dream Keepers tried to write short poems with long titles, an assignment from Dawn DiPrince's wonderful book Yoga For the Brain . Here's the example I wrote: What Happened when John decided to Do His Laundry the Old-Fashioned Way: with a Bar of Soap, a Rock, and a River. Threadbare Underwear. The assignment is harder than it sounds, and the Dream Keepers had a tough time with it. But they still came up with some good samples. Read their work, and then try writing your own! By Elly: What Elly Was Left with After She Ate A big Juicy Hamburger in Two Bites. Yummy Tummy. By Leroi: What the Owner Said When He Took His Pet to Meet the New Vet, who Already Had Met a Dog, a Frog, and a Bunch of Cats. Oh No. By Daquan: What Happened When I Took A Bone from a Dog Who Had Had It a Long Time. Fight. Bite. By Tierra: The clock stopped at 11 O'Clock. Tick Tock?

Write Now: Collect Words

--> Collect Words by Rochelle Melander My 9th grade English teacher loved the word garage. I didn't get it. For me, the word garage conjured up images of oil spots and old tools. She kept saying, "Listen to the sound, to how the word rolls off your tongue: garage." This morning as I walked the dog, her words came back to me. I muttered to myself, "Garage, garage, garage." More "g" words came to me: Garage. Gasoline. Gawk. Gorgeous. Gorgonzola. I said them aloud to the dog. He sniffed at the ground, ignoring me. But I kept going—I was finally appreciating the sound of the words, noticing how they felt as they rolled off my tongue. In Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge 's book Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life WithWords , she dedicated a whole chapter to "collecting words and creating a wordpool." She says, "Words are lightweight, unbreakable, portable, and they're everywhere. You can even make them up. ... A w

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