What do you love? And can you express that love in a poem? In this session, students will create a heart map with drawings and words about the things that they love (including sensory loves, rituals, nature, objects, nonhuman companions, etc). Then, their visuals will become words of wonder when they turn their heart maps into a single poem about the things that make their hearts sing.
TEACHING ARTIST SESSION
Heart Maps (1-6)
Margaret Simon
Margaret Simon, who served as an elementary educator for 38 years before retiring, lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. Her first book of children’s poetry, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape, was published in 2018 by UL Press. Her latest book, also from UL Press, is Were You There: A Biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet. In this book co-authored by Dr. Phebe Hayes, Margaret wrote poems in Emma’s voice reflecting Emma’s emotions through the trials and tribulations of Reconstruction and a Jim Crow South as she became the first African American woman in the state of Louisiana to receive a medical degree. Margaret’s poems have appeared in anthologies including The Poetry of US by National Geographic. Margaret writes a blog regularly at http://reflectionsontheteche.com.
