March 14 Newspaper Cut-ups

This week I borrowed a lesson from Danielle Aquiline, fellow poet in residence. In this assignment we examined the poem "Rock Singer Dies Onstage After Acrobatic Leap Gone Wrong" by Christine DeSimone. We discussed how the title of the poem was taken from a newspaper headline and then looked closely at the language to discover what parts might have been lifted from the article itself. Additionally we talked about how one might use an existing text to spur an original idea for narrative. Here is a sampling of what they wrote:

Ms. Jaurigue

Fresh Kills
Elizabeth P.

They are the young guns and at the end of
a winter they spent showing off their skills they
are all the rage. But why do they call themself
“fresh kills?” How are they special?

The Three Piggies Move Out
Ivan P.

The three not
so little piggies
move out of a
center.

A woman moves out of her $3.3 million colonial-
style mansion
because of financial
problems.

The reason
the piggies moved
out of the center
was because

they were noisy
smelly and dangerous.

Retro Rap
Karina B.

Cool kids say “You
judging me dawg?
You shop at the mall?”

They are too slow and
they have steady flows
and their beat that
doesn’t sound nice.

Fat boys, Run DMC, a Tribe
Called Quest, De la Soul, EPMD,
and 2-Live Crew walked the earth
pretty cool, huh?

But, for now they remain one
of the more promising groups
that emerge.


Mr. Stasiak

Good-Bye Wolves
by Kashmere J.

These beautiful
dogs will no longer be
protected.
Why are they becoming
extinct now? I mean
they have been protected
since 1973.
Hunters are now able
to hunt wolves it’s not
right.
Can we afford extinction
with wolves, global warming
is already happening!


**
Andrea M.

Two rival groups in Kenya reached an important
peace agreement, why rival, when thy lord
brought natural peace in the world in Feb-
ruary after more than 1,500 people were killed
in violence when the love can surround the
air all day every day.


Peace Signs Birthday
Edgar T.

Oh peace sign, peace sign, turned out to
be 50 years old.

The peace was out February 21, developed by a
British man.

His name was Gerald Holton. He designed
this flag with the combination

of the letters N and D (nuclear disarmament)

Peace sign, peace sign, it’s your birthday
you were used in protest against

weapons and spread around the world.


Ms. Mays

Where is the Money?
Alicia H.

What would it be like if you
were born and lived someplace
else in the world?

Half of the world’s population,
3 billion people, are considered
poor.

How much do you need to be
among the world’s wealthiest?

They might even be very poor.

There is great inequality in
wealth and resources in the
world.


Shooting Satellites
Richard D.

Their are spy that
use spy satellites but
we saw that so we
were shooting it down
with a missile and bombs.
Then it was destroyed.
Now we will get better
weapons to keep so we
destroyed many evil
things.

What’s in that bottle?
Joey B.

Given that reality, it might seem like a
good idea to hit the bottle--as in bottled water--
instead.

The bottle had its own standards but the
bottled has its own thing to do.

But there’s a catch, the federal standards
for acceptable levels.