We’re on a Mission 🚀 Help Support Poetry Programs for over 2,500 students! As we head towards the end of the calendar year, and launch our annual campaign, the Chicago Poetry Center team is […]

Students talked about and then wrote poems about emotions using personification. Lesson Note: “Developing creativity in students is not a luxury.” How Social-Emotional Imagination Facilitates Deep Learning and Creativity in the Classroom  Gotlieb, Jahner, […]

The weather outside school walls happened to be warm and springlike, contrasting with the scene set in Robert Frost’s famous poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Arguably, the opposite environment intensified its […]

Spring definitely made an appearance in Springfield last Monday on March 11th. The sun was shining, the weather was warm and breezy, the ideal day for the Poetry Out Loud 2024 Illinois State Competition. […]

We took a look at Richard Blanco’s prose/mix/hybrid poem about missed destinations, We Are Not Going to Malta. Students were then given travel brochures exhibiting lush locales (decidedly not always depicting reality), and asked to […]

Hamline 6th graders traveled back in time for their third week of poetry. We explored how to use our five senses (touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight) to recall memories. I showed students photos […]

Swift students continued with more out-of-the-box thinking, turning to cooking-up recipes for everything but food! Despite being tired from testing and being ready for the weekend to begin, students still managed to read and […]

This week the young vikings explored blackout poems and centos. They read excerpts from Austin Klein’s Newspaper Blackouts and Chicago poet Simone Muench’s “Wolf Cento.” The students were then given back issues of Chicago […]

When we worked on thinking out-of-the-box and “Swan of Bees” poems a few weeks ago, I was so impressed by how students worked that it was difficult to choose only a few poems to […]

Have you ever woken up from a dream and scratched your head in complete confusion? This week we talked about all the strange and whimsical things that happen behind our eyes when we drift […]

During our final two sessions, first graders selected one of their class poems to revisit and recreate. Ms. Cooley’s class agreed to focus on their color poem, which tied into other projects they’ve been […]

During our final two sessions, first graders selected one of their class poems to revisit and recreate. Ms. Armand’s class agreed to focus on their bravery poem, inspired by Maya Angelou. Students used markers […]

Students made the old-school paper in-class pass time called a ‘Cootie Catcher,’ which is a form of origami used in children’s games. Parts of the catcher are labeled with words that serve as options […]

In honor of the fact that we’ve had every season all at one time in Chicago this week, we talked about our favorite seasons. We read Nikki Giovanni’s “Knoxville, TN” and talked about what […]

This week we read Fatimah Asghar’s Microaggression Bingo and discussed how each detail built up to a larger and more overwhelming whole. The students discussed how weird it felt for there not to be […]

  Hello hello! Last week, Waters students explored the ever-relevant epistolary poem. Epistolary poems are poems in letter form. We read “Another Night at Sea Level” by Meg Day, a poem rich with imagery […]

For our 8th sessions at Swift, we read “Honey, I Love” by Eloise Greenfield. We counted the poem’s stanzas, looked for all of the rhymes, and talked about our favorite sections. We brainstormed lists […]

Last week, Sayre’s 8th graders took a detour from their ick poems to write about people and things that they love. After watching Rudy Fransisco’s performance of “If I Was A Love Poet,” students […]

After some schedule changes and a week off, we were back at Perez to finish off our personification poems. There were so many great pieces written this week, some to the universe, the ocean, […]

What are the ingredients that makeup who you are? A gallon of sassyness, infinite bowls of Kung-fu kicks, 10 cups of fortnite and snacks. This week in Ms. Murray’s 4th grade class we talked […]

Students found all the constituent elements of similes on their worksheets. The class made tin foil hearts. We read “Papaya Tree” by Thanha Lai, and students looked at how similes are constructed. Students wrote […]

Students read Gwendolyn Brook’s poem about superstar singer and activist, ‘Paul Robeson’ and then wrote about community and fame from their viewpoint. Paul Robeson by Gwendolyn Brooks That timewe all heard it,cool and clear,cutting […]

My first week with Grissom’s middle school students could not have been more welcoming. Student poets did not hesitate introducing themselves and sharing what they already know about poetry. Together, we read “This Body […]

Last week at South Loop Poetry Club, we read Austin Kleon’s “Newspaper Blackout.” Some students were already familiar with the form, so we talked about how the source of a blackout poem can affect […]

Students read Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Metaphors’ and then wrote their own metaphor-based poems. They also did some free writing around the topic of Values that you will see here. Lesson Note: Mrs. McClain, 7th […]

Cats jumping on us from out of nowhere, dandelions, bottle caps, and more are some of the things that the speaker in Dean Young’s “Quiet Grass, Green Stone” describes, confessing, “Me who wants to […]

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TESTIMONIALS

“Writing poetry makes me feel like I can see myself, like I can see my reflection, but not in a mirror, in the world. I write and I know I can be reflected.”
-Oscar S.

“Writing poetry makes me feel free.”
-Buenda D.

“Writing poetry is like your best friend.”
-Jessica M.

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