Erasure Poems, Mary Shelley, and a Creative Writing Class

Last week, I saw a poster about an event on the glass of my classroom/office building.  I thought about how it would be perfect for my Creative Writing class--a pumpkin patch with pumpkin decorating, autumn drinks, and some sort of photo opportunity.  And in a pleasant surprise, I not only saw the poster before the event happened, but it's happening on the day that my Creative Writing class meets.  So, my plan is good to go for class on Thursday, October 16.

My Blackout Poem with pages from Mary Shelley's journal

That still left me yesterday to plan.  So I decided to experiment with blackout/erasure poetry and collage.  I had planned to do this with my British Literature class, and I still might.

Here is a close up of the words I selected, and I do think they sort of work as a poem:

I photocopied some pages from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, along with a selection of entries from her journal, including the passage about her dreams of her dead baby.  Each student got three sheets, with 6 pages total.  I had a variety of markers, both colored and black, fine tipped and thicker.

I also had a variety of popular magazines and old crafting magazines.  They were on tables, but first, we did the blacking out.  I explained the process and then showed them what I had done with the pages from Mary Shelley's journal.  Then we sank into the work.

Some students never did the collage part, and that was fine with me.  

Some students took the images with them, and I do wonder if they'll return to it.

I was impressed by what they created, but I'm not going to post all of them.  Here's a sample:

Here is a student's page before collage:

And after the student added images:

Here is another finished creation:

They all seemed to enjoy it, both the ones who zipped through it, and the ones who spent all of their time carefully blacking out lines.

I enjoyed watching them work, and I liked the opportunity that I had to try it too.  Now, should I take this project to my Brit Lit class?  Stay tuned!