Listen for "Sizzling Pickles"

I have enjoyed using Bill Moyers' Power of the Word videos in my poetry class. While students are watching each video, I have them listen for and record striking language and ideas in their notebooks from authors such as Li-Young Lee, Joy Harjo, Galway Kinnell, and Octavio Paz. Many students successfully snag well over forty favorites from one video. They select lines with luminous language, provocative ideas, fresh figures of speech, or scintillating sounds. One of my students, Nate, coined the phrase "sizzling pickles," and we have come to use it as our quick reference for this activity: "Listen for 'sizzling pickles.'"

When the video is over, I have students select three of their favorite lines and we share these out loud up and down each row, one at a time. I tell them not to worry if someone ahead of them "takes" the one they were going to say; they get to (and must!) proclaim it again.

Likewise, I will stop at several points along the way when I hear a real "winner," and poll the class to see if anyone else has chosen that particular one. When students look around and see 10-20 waving hands all affirming their own selection, they begin to have confidence in their own ability to recognize quality in language. The repetition, auditory and visual, works magic!

Soon students realize that most people do have a capacity to recognize quality when they see it, or in this case, hear it. A class "standard" for quality begins to emerge -- and proves invaluable later on when students and I begin to assess each other's writing. We have a better understanding of why one poem might be appraised as "adequate" or "okay," while another is definitely "high-quality" or "great." We all feel less tortured about the process of "rating" a poem.

When students are ready to start sharing some of their own work out loud in class, I have them return to their notebooks, record the names of their peers, and once again, listen for and write down two or three examples of fine writing from each poem they hear.

When the presenter has finished reciting his or her poem, I ask a different row of students each time to tell us all what they wrote down. It's a wonderful opportunity for the writer to receive feedback; it helps hone listening skills; it reinforces the teaching of poetic devices; it builds community and fellowship; and once again, hearing the repeated selection of good writing speaks to upholding a standard for quality.

We also use these phrases which students record for another assignment called "Borrowing a Line." Students select a favorite from their video choices or from their peers' poems and use it as the catalyst for a poem of their own. It can show up anywhere in their own poem: the title, the first or last line, a refrain, etc.

This assignment provides an excellent opportunity to teach documentation skills as well. Students must always credit their sources of inspiration. What an absolute joy it is to watch the face of a student who hears his well-crafted words surface in the brand-new poem of a fellow student.

Patricia Mosco Holloway
Douglas County High School, Castle Rock, Colorado

This teaching idea was originally published in Classroom Notes Plus (January 2002).