It's All Greek to Me (Delphi)

On our 6th grade class trip to Greece, the students kept amazing journals depicting their daily events and making connections. At night we reflected on things learned. They did sketches, wrote notes, poems and answered prompts. Upon our return, they printed pictures they took and placed those into the journals while finalizing most of the entries. This created an amazing artifact for the students to keep.

In writing workshop, we went back through the journals and "mined for gold." That is, we extracted the memories, images and poetic lines that were golden from the journals and wrote those into extended images.

Since my journal was digital, we modeled this activity together with my thoughts, mining for golden lines to post on the blog. It should give a glimpse into our world as we spent a week touring history.

Delphi

The belly button of the Greek world smiled upon 

us as the sun broke through the columns.

The Treasury of Athens pays thanks to the Oracle.

Praise to Apollo, chariot riding through the sky-

Doric columned doughnuts piled high.

Ancient Greek pilgrimages for questions answered
and festivals celebrated,

The sounds in the secret passage were fearful giggles. 

Stumbling from the dark I was reborn under Zeus.

My feet on their feet, 2400 years later:
historical empathy pulsing through
my tired toes.

The track was preserved but rocks had rolled onto the running space,

 

broken columns racing through the artifact rituals of time.

Oracles whispering through Ionic columns

and shouting from the mountains: This is GREECE!