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Lesson Plans for Writing about Water and the Environment

The "We Are Water" Poetry Workshops Included Experiential Learning Strategies


The "We Are Water" Poetry Workshops had four goals: 1) to increase public awareness of the Poetry Pathway Project and encourage people to enter the poetry contest, 2) to increase participants' understanding of the importance of wetlands in stormwater management and the rich biodiversity that thrives in such areas, 3) to demonstrate optional strategies for approaching the task of writing about nature, and 4) to provide the writers with a rich experience of a wetlands so they could draw upon their own observations in their writing.

To make these goals attainable:

  • the workshops were held outdoors in a wetlands area,
  • participants were invited to explore their environment, observe carefully, take detailed notes on what they were observing, and include their observations in their writing,
  • workshops included basic information about water science and an opportunity to observe living organisms from a wetlands water sample through a microscope.
In addition, writers were given a series of optional writing strategies for collecting information and organizing their writing, including but not limited to:
  1. Spend time walking through the Tollgate Drain Wetlands, notebook in hand, recording what you see, hear, smell, and taste in the world around you. Then spend some time with your notes: how does being around water, being in the wetlands, shape or change your language? What kind of poem can you write here that you can’t write anywhere else? Try to channel that experience of transformation and possibility in a brief poem that draws upon the language of your notebook.
  2. Explore the importance of clean water. What does water nourish? What does it make possible? Who benefits? Be as concrete as possible.
  3. Where does the water in Tollgate come from? Where is it going? How does the water change while it is at Tollgate? How can you describe this transformation in poetic terms? Be as specific as possible.
  4. Write a poem in which you compare your life to the water cycle. What parts of your life resemble this cycle? How does thinking about water help you see yourself and your journey more clearly?
  5. What kinds of wildlife come to Tollgate? Where do they hang out? What are they doing? Why do you think they are drawn to Tollgate?
  6. What draws you to Tollgate? What do you gain from visiting this place? What can you do/experience here that you don’t experience elsewhere in the City?
  7. Or create your own prompt! Let the water take you where you will. 

 

To view and download the six writing strategy handouts provided in the workshops,

click here.

 

Poetry Pathway Project