Poetry Friday: Facts vs. Opinions vs. Robots

Hi, Poetry Friday friends. Are you ready for a robot invasion?I have a new robot friend. Its name is Po-M. Po-M Bot is helping me with this week's post.We recently received a book from a robot-loving friend, author-illustrator Michael Rex. It's called FACTS VS. OPINIONS VS. ROBOTS.As an educator, I love this book!One of the poetry workshops I run with young writers is a persona poem. (Instructions on how to run the workshop are at Today's Little Ditty).I give each poet an image of a person to start with. Then we use a t-chart and record the FACTS we can observe about the image on one side, and the things we imagine about that person (OPINIONS) on the other.  Mike uses robots to show readers the difference between a fact -- "there are three robots on this page" -- and an opinion "the red robot is the most fun." (Po-M Bot agrees with that opinion.)This is a useful skill for children, especially today. Being able to discern a fact from an opinion sets a foundation for how kids interact with social media, news, and infotainment.Speaking of facts, I read an article about robots recently and it inspired a poem."If You Want a Robot to Learn Better, Be  Jerk to It"Matt Simon, Wired Magazine, 11-6-2019(Article is here)Robots aren't peopletheir feelings don't get hurtwhen someone takes their ice cream coneor mocks their new plaid shirt.Wait ... Robots don't wear plaid.They're metal, bolts, and brainsfollowing computer codes.Who cares if they're called names?And they don't eat ice cream.Not Mint or Rainbow Cream.I must have seen an ice cream-eatingplaid-bot in a dream.Originally, this poem had the robots eating donuts, but after Po-M Bot and I read Mike's book, we made a small revision.FACTS VS. OPINIONS VS. ROBOTS is a fun, informative book to add to your elementary classroom or home library. Maybe it will inspire your young poets to write some robot poems of their own.