As 10th-grade students entered the classroom of Upper School English Teacher Jennifer Sellenriek, they were greeted with a provocation that would lead to a poetry-inspired 3D sculpture.
“The provocation is an invitation for students to engage and delight in our poetry unit—to be curious and to take risks while examining the work of poets who have made intentional ‘moves’ like line breaks, rhyming, and figurative language, to bring story and emotion to life,” said Sellenriek.
Students paired up at tables with craft supplies splayed out, along with a copy of one of four name-themed poems: “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, “Her Name Was Name” by Matt Hart, “Choi Jeong Min” by Franny Choi, and “Names” by Teresa Mei Chuc.
At their tables, students first spent time reading and discussing the poem, noting the parts that stood out and made them pause. Then they answered two questions: How can you use the craft materials to build a representation of the poem? How will your sculpture represent both the meaning and the writing moves of the poet?
Students worked to build their responses out of paper, wire, pipe cleaners, bubble wrap, paper bags, and aluminum foil. Once finished, the students embarked on a small gallery walk to share their sculptures and learn from others, pointing out the “moves” they made to create meaning.
“Over the course of the unit, we’ll read and analyze lots of poems, and we will move from sculpting our response to a poem to writing a response,” said Sellenriek. “One of the responses students will write is called an ‘After Poem.’ They’ll carefully study a poem of their choice in order to write a poem in tribute to that original. This takes a careful study to, perhaps, imitate the style or answer the big question the poem asks. The final assessment for the unit will be an explication of a poem—a formal writing piece where the author carefully takes apart and puts back together a poem to examine how the poetry made meaning out of a few poetic lines.”
Sean Michael Farrington ’28 said, “The author of the poem ‘Choi Jeong Min,’ Franny Choi, expressed in her writing how in her past she experienced immense displeasure with her name, wanting to be named ‘Frances’ to assimilate into American culture instead of her given name.
“My sculpture represented the two sides of the author’s identity. One side represented Frances, being free and vibrant, while the other side represented the author’s original name, holding the author back and a constant thorn in their side.”
Tess Thompson ’28 appreciated the challenge to approach poetry in a new way. “We read the poem ‘Her Name Was Name’ by Matt Hart. We sculpted a person with a paper bag that said ‘Girl’ to represent how the girl was unnamed. It was pretty challenging to come up with an idea and how it connects to the poem. I really enjoyed the creativity we got to use in class; it felt like creative writing but more like an art class.”
“The poem I read was ‘Choi Jeong Min’ by Franny Choi,” said Mason Chambers ’28. “Our sculpture represented the struggles of dealing with duality. The most challenging part was probably starting the sculpture off. I liked being able to analyze a poem or a piece of writing without needing to write an essay.”
Rilyn Williams ’28 said, “I read ‘Her Name Was Name’ by Matt Hart. Our sculpture was based on the idea that the desire to own can destroy a person. My favorite part of this project was building the sculpture and seeing the poem’s ideas come to life. One thing that was challenging for my group was trying to figure out the best way to represent the poem. There were many different approaches to take, and we wanted to choose the one that represented the poem the best.”
Sellenriek added, “The provocation that begins the unit asks students to embrace ambiguity, to be vulnerable, to trust the process, and to approach a task with curiosity. These stances support the critical thinking necessary to study poetry. My hope is that they will take on the final assessment of the unit in much the same way they built a sculpture at the start of the unit.”