All posts in Em Beckert

I am King but not a Lion

The 8th graders at Sayre Language Academy kicked off their residency with some powerful introductions, see for yourself! We watched I Am Limitless by Lina Abojaradeh and took inspiration from how she defines herself. […]

Love Letters

For our final poem of the residency, the 4th graders at Smyser tackled love poems, but not your ordinary love poem. We read “Love Letter” by Nathalie Handal and analyzed the form she used […]

Visual Poems are Worth 1,000 Words

This week the 4th graders at Smyer wowed me with their visual poems. See for yourself! Ms. Erzumly’s Class: Audrey, Raven, Santiago, Maya, Anonymous   Ms. Edward’s Class: Samuel, Daniel, Erica, Tara, Grace

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Butterflies Cannot Lie

This week, Smyser’s 4th graders and I wondered how it might feel to step into someone or something else’s shoes for a day. We read Advice from a Raindrop by Kim Stafford and then […]

Ode to all the little things!

Our first week back after the break, the Smyser 4th graders and I took some time to be grateful for the little things, and practice more descriptive language with our odes! We read Ode […]

4th Graders and their 5 Senses

This week at Smyser Elementary the talented 4th graders take you on a journey of the senses! Enjoy their fantastical and realistic places of peace, and all the sights, smells, tastes, and sounds that […]

Hopes for the Holidays (Kind-of Concrete Poems)

For my final lesson with Ms. Wilson’s 4th graders at Dulles Elementary, we dove right into visual poetry. We read Whenever You See a Tree by Padma Venkatraman and learned that sometimes poetry is […]

Butterfly Doors (Haiku!)

To start my final week with the 4th graders at Dulles, I thought we would try our hand at some Haiku. We read translations of Issa Kobayashi and discussed how Haiku are based on […]

Big Ideas

At the start of the week, we were thinking small; later in the week, we were thinking big! The 4th graders read Before the Rains by Kim Stafford and then wrote poems envisioning the […]

The Little Things!

At the start of this week, the 4th graders at Dulles Elementary took some time to appreciate the little things, with Ode to Marbles by Max Mendelsohn. We talked about some examples of small […]

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I’M FROM THE CITY LIGHTS / STREAMING OUT IN THE NIGHT / AND HUGE SKYSCRAPERS / TOWERING OVER THE LAKE – MELISSA E., 7TH GRADE POET