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Tuesday 24 March 2015

Colours - workshop idea for KS2/3

I recently happened upon the poem 'Just Like' Me' by Lawan Mitchell, a 16-year-old African  American. The poem begins 'black describes me', and goes on to elaborate how. It is presumably partly about race, but it need not be read only in this way: perhaps there are lots of colours that could each describe different aspects of personality.

In the light of this poem, I wrote a piece, 'Colours', reproduced below. In the poem I thought more broadly about the different things colours can represent. With both of these poems in mind, students could think about which colours best represent them, and why.



Colours
Green describes me.
It is fresh and bright and vibrant.
It is a colour that breathes oxygen
into the universe.
Green is replete with the dawning
of possibilities.
It’s a new-born idea springing into life;
it’s the feeling of wet grass
in summertime.

Red describes me.
It is angry, bitter, bubbling.
It is a colour that flashes a frown
and gnashes its teeth.
Red is fighting to escape its skin,
desperate to punch, kick and maim.
It’s a wild tiger in a tiny cage;
it’s a toddler screaming
on a supermarket floor.

Yellow describes me.
It is pale, sickly, withering.
It is a colour that remains
when the spirit has left.
Yellow is a patient
in a hospital bed.
It’s the slow decay of blunted teeth;
it’s your clothes coming out the dryer,
ruined.