Media Hub

Eighth Graders Make Poetry out of Prose

Blackout poetry is made when the majority of the words on a page of text, often from a newspaper or magazine, are blacked out. The few select words left behind, alter the narrative of the original text and transform it into a work of poetry.

To celebrate National Poetry Month in April, Jon Aaron and Stasha Gibbs tasked their eighth grade Insight into Identity classes with creating their own blackout poems. Along with creating traditional blackout poems from found text, students were offered an additional, unique challenge. 

First, they were asked to discover a visually interesting spot in nature, around their home, and to take a series of three photographs that moved in closer and closer to the subject. Then, they were asked to write detailed descriptions of each scene. Finally, they combined the three perspective into one paragraph and used the blackout method to discover a poem within the original text. Their new creations were sometimes moving, sometimes haunting, and always inspiring.