Erasures

Found Poetry

Since our LSPI (Local School Improvement Plan) is all about writing, I decided to be a bit rebellious and teach my students about a few different forms of creative writing. After all, it wasn't until I discovered the poetry of ee cummings that any kind of writing really connected to me. Breaking grammar and sentence structure rules was enticing enough, but using capitalization and punctuation at my whim was fascinating (thank you Mrs. Evans). 

In a workshop I was teaching at SCAD Atlanta on Altered Books I decided to invite in a guest writer to help us artists prompt our writing. She hadn't invented this technique of Erasures, but it was the first I'd heard of it. It was actually Tom Phillips (an English born artist n. 1937) who altered the book The Human Document into his own work of art The Humument. 

 

 

My finished example is at the top and I will upload student samples soon. They did quite well and appreciated being told that all of the rules do not always apply. Someone has to break the rules in this day and age of standardized testing as the be all end all mode of assessing student knowledge and potential.