Where I am from...

In my TE 402 class, we have been working on the topic of Poetry and how to incorporate it into our classrooms. As an introduction to this topic we had to write a poem about where we are from and who we are. This brought me back to the very first assignment in this class and how I wanted to focus my new piece of poetry. The main difference that I wanted to focus on was making it very specific to my life; whereas my first poem was a very broad part of me, without specific details. I wanted to write a post about this because by writing these two different pieces I was able to gain a sense of who am I in a multitude of ways. Here are my two pieces:

TE 448
I am just a small town girl without much of the stereotypes.
I am surrounded by farmland without the overall jeans.
I am very sheltered without living in an extreme bubble.
I am a sister to more people than just my 2 brothers.
I am someone who has been born and raised in the same town without getting caught up in the "norms".
I am a mother without bearing a child.
I am educated with certain limitations.
I am naive while realizing there is much more out there.
I am a hypocrite without being a discriminator.
I am a leader without being too demanding.
I am a follower without having to exactly follow.
I am a teacher without having a classroom.
I am a survivor who has dealt with my own sense of pain.
I am not excessively happy, I am really just that happy.
I am not overly nice, I really care that much.
I am not spontaneous, I just live up to my own expectations.
I am a daughter, girlfriend, and most importantly a friend.
I am what I am, and all I can be is me.

TE 402:
I am from the small town “where everybody knows your name”
Where Friday nights are reserved to going to high school events
The boardwalk is known for the place to meet
And a coffeehouse is a new, exciting establishment in town.

I am from the house that always has that “home” feeling.
I went from being raised in “jungle town” to moving into River Ridge subdivision.
No matter where we are my mom always knows how to add those warming touches,
While filling the house with pictures and memories that take us through our lives.

I am from a family that has a mom, dad, two boys, a girl, and always a dog.
I am 18 months younger and about 18 years older then my brothers.
I am the middle child that reaped all the benefits of being the youngest.
We are a family that loves to watch home-videos and play sports indoors.

I am from the “as long as you do your best”
And “your family will always support you”
To the “you can’t leave the table until everything is gone from your plate”
And the “loves ya” not love you from my dad.

I am from traditions that surround food.
Thursdays are always spaghetti night,
Thanksgiving is always the time where we make homemade perogies,
And our birthdays are when we get our favorite dinner and dessert made just for us.

I am from the trying to vacation type family.
From our annual trips to Silver Lake when we were little,
To the Las Vegas, love to gamble type tradition.
A vacation is the time we spend together, regardless if we leave our town or not.

I am from the memories that will never die.
From being a tom-boy and private school attendee
To being the busy body with sporting events and practices galore
But have been lucky enough to have supporting family and friends the entire way.

I am very honored to say this is where I am from
And where I am from has shaped me to be who I am.


With these very different pieces of poetry I still found that they hit who I am to a tee but in very different ways. I wanted to share these as a way to show that no matter how different poetry is, you still are able to gain different perspectives of who a person is through their descriptions, both being vague or very specific. Through these two different assignments it really showed me how important poetry is and how easily it can be overlooked throughout curriculum but by including it you can bring out many apsects of a child that you never knew existed.