• Teacher Guide Primary Source Set: Found Poetry

Teacher Guide
Primary Source Set: Found Poetry
[Walt Whitman, … as a young man, dressed in rural attire for frontispiece of Leaves of Grass]
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004678989/
Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.
--W.B. Yeats
Why Use Primary Sources?
The historical record is made up of factual evidence, but history becomes meaningful for students
only when they personally engage in determining what that evidence reveals. Primary sources
can help students perform the critical thinking necessary for them to develop a personal
understanding of the past.
Primary sources are the raw materials of history—the documents and objects left behind by the
eyewitnesses and participants in past events. Because they are incomplete and often come
without solid information about their historical context, they require that the student move from
making concrete observations to making inferences about the materials. Primary sources
encourage students to ask questions about point of view: What is the intent of the speaker, of the
photographer, of the musician? How does that color one’s interpretation or understanding of the
evidence?
It can be difficult for students to understand that we all participate in making history every day,
that each of us in the course of our lives leaves behind primary source documentation that
scholars years hence may examine as a record of the past. The immediacy of first-person
accounts of events is compelling to most students and can provide a link between the lives of
people who lived long ago and students’ own lives. Primary sources thus help students relate in a
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personal way to events of the past and come away with a deeper understanding of history as a
series of human events.
“Retelling” History
After you have engaged your students in analyzing and interpreting historical primary source
content, in synthesizing the information, and in making personal connections with history, ask
them to articulate their understanding. Retelling history from one’s own perspective can help
them make the learning their own. While there are many ways that students can “retell” history,
one very effective strategy is the writing of “found” poetry. Using rich primary source texts,
students select words that allow them to retell the historical content in poetic form.
Evocative images of an era, theme, or topic contribute to historical understanding and can spark
writing ideas. Careful observation and analysis of an image will provide historic details and
supportive information, and may even offer rich language for the found poem. Have your students
use the tools provided in this Primary Source Set for document analysis. Notations about
objective and subjective observations will be invaluable when they begin to retell history through
their own poems.
Creating Found Poetry
To create a found poem, students select words, phrases, lines, and sentences from one or more
written documents and combine them into a poem. Raw material for found poems can be
selected from newspaper articles, speeches, diaries, advertisements, letters, food menus,
brochures, short stories, manuscripts of plays, shopping lists, and even other poems. A set of
Library text resources written by well-known authors is provided in this Primary Source Set.
There is no single strategy for creating a found poem. The words and phrases selected to make
the poem depend upon the student’s initial purpose. Here are some strategies you may suggest
to your students:
• Analyze the source document(s) for understanding and retell the same story in poetic form.
• Focus on the underlying issues of the source(s), then create a found poem that discusses the
same issue but as it relates to today’s world.
• Focus on descriptive techniques by selecting words that bring vivid images to mind.
• Select words and phrases that contain poetic effects such as alliteration and consonance.
• Select words and phrases and use them creatively in any way that moves you.
When students have selected their words and phrases, they combine, arrange, and rearrange
them, considering not only the content and meaning of the emerging poem but also its rhythm
and line breaks. Because writing found poetry is a personal process, students will approach their
work in various ways. Some students will use pencil and paper. Others will cut out words and
phrases from the printed source document and physically arrange them on a desktop or blank
sheet of paper.
Suggestions for Teachers
Teachers may find these Library of Congress primary source documents of particular support to
interdisciplinary teaching. This set provides evidence of the writing process, as well as historical
evidence about persons, periods, and events.
• The letter written by Helen Keller will astound students with Helen’s ability to “see” the
World’s Columbian Exposition, despite her visual limitations. The image of this event will help
your students to “see” what Keller describes.
• Students can compare and contrast Walt Whitman’s first notebook (#80) with later notebooks
(#94 and #101). Students may consider how Whitman’s writing and thinking changed in the
years between the writing of these notebooks, and what might have caused these changes.
Teachers may find the Collection Connection, Poet at Work: Recovered Notebooks from the
Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection, a useful resource.
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• Alice Paul’s dedication to the cause of women’s suffrage is well documented in a newspaper
article, while an essay provides an opposing viewpoint and opportunity to consider this cause
from different perspectives.
• Langston Hughes’ poem offers students a chance to view the process of his writing, not just
the final product. Students can analyze Hughes’ edits, consider why these changes may have
been made, and think about what the poem would have said without these changes.
Students may wish to find out more about the life of Booker T. Washington, as well.
• Students can gain an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance through a selection from the
WPA Life Histories. Students may be surprised to learn that Zora Neale Hurston wrote for this
project.
• Zora Neale Hurston’s play settings and character lists are rich in descriptive language.
Students may wish to read Hurston’s entire play after this introduction.
Additional Online Resources
General Library of Congress Links
Song of America Tour: Found Poetry
http://www.loc.gov/creativity/hampson/workshop/found.html
Lyrical Legacy: 400 Years of American Song and Poetry
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/
Lesson Plans
Enhancing a Poetry Unit With American Memory (grades 7 – 9)
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/98/poetry/poem.html
Sea Changes: A New England Industry - Activity 5 (grades 7 – 10)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/00/sea/act5.html
The Source: Found Poetry and the American Life Histories Collection
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/community/am_newsletter/article.php?id=40&catname=teaching%20ideas
Links Outside the Library of Congress
Found Poems/Parallel Poems
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=33
A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=835
Found Poetry
http://www.manassas.k12.va.us/round/ClassWeb/Slough/Poetry/found.htm
Poetry Forge
http://www.poetryforge.org/teaching.htm
Metaforix: How Technologies are Changing Your World
http://www.metaforix.info/2004/03/found_poetry.html
Found Poetry in the Papers of Thomas A. Edison
http://www3.baylor.edu/BBR/HSB/EdisonPoetry.pdf
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Citations: Found Poetry
Teachers: Providing these primary source replicas without source clues may enhance the inquiry
experience for students. This list of citations (Chicago Manual of Style) is supplied for reference
purposes to you and your students.
Keller, Helen. Helen Keller to Mabel Hubbard Bell, August 20, 1893. Letter. From
Library of Congress, The Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers 1862-1939.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=magbell&fileName=124/12400303/bellpage.db&recNum=0
“Helen Keller.” Photograph. n.d. From the Library of Congress Prints and
Photographs Online Catalog. http://loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2005012514/
Johnston, Frances Benjamin. “[Exposition grounds, World's Columbian Exposition,
Chicago.]” Photograph. [1893.] From the Library of Congress Prints and
Photographs Online Catalog. http://loc.gov/pictures/item/92501035/
“[Walt Whitman, half-length portrait, seated, facing left, wearing hat and sweater,
holding butterfly.]” Photograph. Philadelphia: Phillips & Taylor, [1873.] From the
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
http://loc.gov/pictures/item/00650593/
“[Washington, D.C. Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital.]” Photograph.
[August 1865.] From the Library of Congress, Selected Civil War photographs, 1861-
1865. http://loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003000976/PP/
Whitman, Walt. Notebook LC #80 [Earliest and Most Important Notebook]. n.d.,
images 25-31. From the Library of Congress, Poet at Work: Walt Whitman Notebooks
1850s-1860s. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=whitman&fileName=wwhit080.data&recNum=0
Whitman, Walt. Notebook LC#94 [1862]. 1862, images 20, 24, 26, 40, 43b, 44a.
From the Library of Congress, Poet at Work: Walt Whitman Notebooks 1850s-1860s.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=whitman&fileName=wwhit094.data&recNum=0
Whitman, Walt. Notebook LC# 101 [Hospital Notebook]. n.d, images 2, 4, 6, 8, 12,
18. From the Library of Congress, Poet at Work: Walt Whitman Notebooks 1850s-
1860s. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=whitman&fileName=wwhit101.data&recNum=0
Philadelphia Tribune. Alice Paul Talks. January 1910. From the Library of Congress,
Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911, Scrapbook 1909-1910.
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbcmil.scrp6014202
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 “[Alice Paul, full-length portrait, standing, facing left, raising glass with right hand.]”
Photograph. Harris & Ewing, September 3, 1920. From the Library of Congress, By
Popular Demand: “Votes for Women” Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/query/r?ammem/suffrg:@field(NUMBER+@band(cph+3a21383))
Root, Elihu. Address, Hon. Elihu Root before New York Constitutional Convention,
1894. Pamphlet. New York: N.Y. State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage,
August 15, 1894. From the Library of Congress, Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks,
1897 –1911, Scrapbook 1908-1909. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbcmil.scrp5011401
Delano, Jack, photographer. “Chicago, Illinois. Good Sheperd Community Center. Mr.
Langston Hughes at a rehearsal at of his new play.” Photograph. April 1942. From
Library of Congress, America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs
from the FSA-OWI 1935-1945. http://loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001002986/PP/
Hughes, Langston. Drafts of Langston Hughes's poem "Ballad of Booker T.," 30 May-
1 June 1941. Manuscript. May 30 – June 1, 1941. From Library of Congress, Words
and Deed in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscripts
Division’s First 100 Years, Langston Hughes Collection. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=mcc&fileName=024/page.db&recNum=0
Hubert, Levi C. [The Whites Invade Harlem.] Manuscript. December 12, 1938. From
Library of Congress, Life Histories: WPA Federal Writers Project 1936-1940.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=wpa2&fileName=21/2107/21070806/wpa221070806.db&recNum=0
Hughes, Langston and Zora Neale Hurston. The Mule-Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
in Three Acts: Setting. Manuscript. January 1931, pages 3-4. From the Library of
Congress, The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress.
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mhurston.0103
“Zora Neale Hurston.” Photograph. [Between 1935 and 1943(?)]. From Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
http://loc.gov/pictures/item/2004672085/
Hurston, Zora Neale. Polk County: A Comedy of Negro Life on a Sawmill Camp with
Authentic Negro Music in Three Acts: Setting I-III. Manuscript. December, 1944,
images 6-8. From the Library of Congress, The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the
Library of Congress. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/mhurston.0301
Hurston, Zora Neale. Polk County: A Comedy of Negro Life on a Sawmill Camp with
Authentic Negro Music in Three Acts: Characters IV-VI. Manuscript. December, 1944,
images 9-11. From the Library of Congress, The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the
Library of Congress. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/mhurston.0301
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