It is the last week of the Six week period. It’s do or die time. Students have to get all their make-up work into their teachers by the end of this week. Grades are in on Sunday. Report cards mail out Monday. There are six six weeks in a school year. Three a semester. And every 6th week is the same. What are they missing? Which ones are the major grades? Didn’t they already hand that in? I am sure that is in the back of my journal, could you check again, please?

This week, I decided to combine a makeup class with the potential for extra credit. I picked out four forms of poetry and two short story prompts and assigned each a certain number of points. I thought this will be fun, they will get a choice, they will have something to do while other students work on getting their previous work finished. I thought we can workshop this together. What fun!
Out of 42 students, 20 odd who didn’t have any makeup work, 6 attempted the prompts. The rest sat for an entire 90 minutes on their devices, staring into space, and sleeping.

I should have felt hesitation at the very shadow of that phrase – “What Fun.”
Fun to a teenager and fun to a teacher vary wildly. I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking, “man, I wish I had paid more attention in high school when we did x. I would have really loved that if only I had given it a try.” I then go on to think, “My students will love this if they are willing to give it a go too!” Only, I might as well have been trying to get teenage me to participate. It wouldn’t have worked then either.

I once organized a day where all we would be doing in class was playing board games. Now, these were cooperative board games, and the lesson in Interpersonal Studies was to illustrate how working together to tackle an issue is a good thing. I was so excited. I laid out the games and split the class in four groups – each with a game to unbox, then read the instructions and play. For the next 90 minutes, the majority of my class complained about how difficult it was, and how stupid it was, and why couldn’t they just read from a textbook instead! I spent the passing period in tears in my partner’s closed classroom.

In fairness to my students, when next we met, we had an open and honest discussion about what had happened the class before. I had felt hurt and frustrated, and they felt unsure and confused about trying new things. They feared looking foolish if they got it wrong. We spent the rest of the class actually playing the games, and it ended up a success on a couple of levels. But, it reminded me of a day I had forgotten.

I was a junior in high school. And my English Teacher, Mrs. Edwards, was going to be teaching us Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Raven. I walked into the classroom and she had transformed her desk into an old writer’s desk. There was a feather and ink well, large Iron candle holders with wide circular candles, and long white scroll, unfurled on the desk. And Mrs. Edwards? Well, she was dressed in all black, including a short black wig, and perched on her shoulder was a spraypainted, black, fake parrot.

I vividly remember thinking, “Oh my God, what is she thinking? This is so embarrassing.”

I vividly remember now thinking, “Oh my God, she was so desperate to get us engaged and I had mocked her internally.” For the first time, I felt shame for what I had put my teachers through. It all made so much sense to me now.

There are so many other things that a student wants to be doing with their time than sitting and listening to a teacher day in, day out. The odd time sure, it can be interesting, but what they really want is to be hanging out with each other and gossiping and listening to music, and experimenting with other adult things. I did not want to be experimenting with acrostics and villanelles. Even if my strangely-hyper-today teacher is telling me they are “fun.”

But honestly, they are fun. The Villanelle is a six-stanza poem with five stanzas of three and one of four. Like the triolet, the villanelles have repeating whole lines and a simple rhyme scheme. It looks like this: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2. So just to be clear capital letters indicate a repeat of the entire line, and matching letters rhyme regardless of the capitalization. “A” always rhymes with “a.” So it goes with all the letters.

When teaching them to my students, I begin, of course, with the Dylan Thomas example, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Goodnight.” There is a wonderful video of Thomas himself reading. It is an old recording that sparks and pops, so I am not sure how they feel about it. But they like the line about “Raging.” It is, to me, quite heartbreaking as it is about Thomas’ dying father, and it’s meaning, for me, now has changed. It’s no longer simply about dying old men, but about one in particular. I am sure that there a quite a few students who understand more once we have dissected and discussed. And then it is their turn.

I can usually sway them by saying they only have to come up with 13 lines instead of 19, due to the repeating nature of the lines. As they have already tackled sonnets, this should be a doddle. And though, many grumble that they would rather just free write, they soon settle down and explore the form. It is a real privilege to read their work. It is wonderful.

Now, for my own attempt. I actually really like Villanelles and have practiced them before. At least twice, so that’s a pretty good run for me. I was given the prompt to write about a combination of water, flow, and evolution. I kind of like this one, which may be a bad sign.

There is a spinning force which moves and lingers
I form into being slower than you might imagine
Splitting cells – separating yolks with your fingers

I curl inwards like an old man having fought many winters
The drum of my heart still visible through my skin
There is a spinning force which moves and lingers

This warm liquid hosts all the new thinkers
Yet few thoughts of mine appear through the din
Splitting cells – separating yolks with your fingers

Muffled and muted come sounds of the singers
From outside to inside I feel them push in
There is a spinning force which moves and lingers

I share these two, and, now, mostly I am hers
Yet opening eyes reveal parts that are him
Splitting cells – separating yolks with your fingers

With every divide the ancestry whispers
As I stretch out and strengthen each new limb
There is a spinning force which moves and lingers
Splitting cells – separating yolks with your fingers

Your Turn!

Lines: 5 triplets 1 Quatrain
Stanzas: 6
Rhyme: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2