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TEACHING WITH TED:

Ideas Worth Sharing

in Your Classroom

Jen Ward

NWP Fellow | TED-ED Innovative Educator | High School English Teacher

@JenniferWard | jenniferward.org

#TEDed

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Make a list.

Be as specific, as concrete as possible. What are three things that you know to be true.

I know…
I know…
I know…

Sarah Kay’s “If I Should Have a Daughter” is one of my very favorite TED Talks. I use this talk toward the beginning of each year as one of my Writer’s Notebook prompts in my high school English classroom. This past summer, I had an opportunity to learn more about how Sarah Kay crafted this particular poem when I attended a poetry masterclass with Sarah Kay at the TED Summit in Banff, Alberta.

Sarah Kay's poetry masterclass workshop focused on the inclusion of sensory and figurative details in the craft of poetry performance. She started her workshop with a prompt which had us creating a list. Why a list? Well, most people don't spend hours each day crafting poems, especially poems for performance. It can be an overwhelming task to ask of students, or in our case, a crowded room of adults. But a list, a list is something we all know how to do. We don't need instructions on how to create a list.

We listed out three things we knew to be true, an activity she used to craft the piece she performed for her 2011 TED Talk titled "If I Should Have a Daughter." As we created our lists, Sarah asked us to be as literal as possible, adding in concrete details to help listeners understand the particulars of our truths.

So, we’ll begin today with a similar exercise. Make a list. Be as specific, as concrete as possible. What are three things that you know to be true.

I know…
I know…
I know…

After sharing our favorite truths, Sarah walked us through why this type of list works so well as a starting point for poetry. Lists, whether they are about three things we know to be true or 10 things I should have learned by now, help us access and illuminate all that stuff that is just floating around in our brains. It is being able to toss a baited hook into our conscience and come back with potential writing ideas. Without that starting point, we're standing on the shore and simply hoping an idea will jump out at us. Writing rarely works like this. A list gives writers a starting point.