What Do You Do Dream?
Submitted by: jae
My favorite bulletin board last year was called WHAT DO YOU DREAM? It was just before New Years when I came upon a poem called Dream 2000. The author escapes me and of course my copy is at school but if anyone wants it I will send it at the end of August. The poem moved me and I began to wonder what students would dream for the world so I asked them. We brainstormed and I shared several other dream poems such as Langston Hughes and of course, Martin Luther King.
They wrote many beautiful poems. I wanted to share them so we began a bulletin board in the hall. We printed them on cloud stationery and I had students look through magazines to find things that would illustrate the ideas we came up with. Things included were pictures of homeless people on the street (taken from a newspaper), starving children (taken from a UNICEF calendar, GUNS from magazine articles on gun control, dried up streams, etc. Then I assigned students to find photographs of all the authors who wrote the poems we examined and we added their poems and photographs to the board.
Finally we added the question What do you dream? The result was very powerful - especially the pictures - you couldn't help but be moved by the student's reactions and the photographs that they chose. This would also be a good bulletin board for February and Martin Luther King's birthday.
Here is my favorite student's poem to inspire you:
My Wish 2000
I know it sounds a little funny,
but in the world I wish for no money.
Money makes people greedy,
some are homeless, some are needy.
It takes away all the fun.
It takes away your life just like a gun.
That is my wish 2000,
that everything would be free.
It would work so perfectly...for me.