All posts in Madison Mae Parker

“Believe it!” Power of Repetition

This past week at Smyser Elementary, we learned about the power of repetition with the poem “When to Write” by Sophia Thakur. Students were challenged to write their own poem about a favorite activity […]

Dear Chicago

This last week at Henry, we watched and read Ariana Brown’s poem “Ode to the City Bus.” Poets spent the day learning about extended metaphors and reviewed what an ode is. Each student was […]

Editing our Favorites!

There was a school wide celebration last weekend at Social Justice High School with an hour dedicated to the students reading their work from the Poetry Society! To help the poets prepare, we talked […]

Lessons in Joy

Last week at Smyser Elementary, we read Ross Gay’s poem “Sorrow is Not My Name.” Students challenged themselves to write their own poems about joy or a difficult experience utilizing metaphors and similes. Check […]

Ode to the Artist

At Social Justice High School, we read and watched Hanif Abdurraqib’s poem “Ode to Biggie Smalls Ending in Gold.” We discussed odes, musicians/artists and their larger cultural impact, and spent time writing our own […]

Dear Artist…

This week at Henry Elementary, we watched and read Joshua Bennett’s poem “Dear Stevie.” We learned about epistle poetry and wrote poems in letter form to our favorite musicians (or authors or sports teams)! […]

Differing Perspectives

This week at Social Justice High School, we looked at Aziza “Z” Barnes’ poem “Aunt Jemima.” We both listened and read the poem and talked about how you can show various viewpoints or voices […]

A poem for those we admire

This week at Smyser Elementary, we learned about performance poetry and watched a poem by Sarah Kay titled “Mrs. Ribeiro.” Students learned about similes and practiced writing our own while thinking about a person […]

“Joy is half love and half regret”

This week at Henry Elementary, we looked at a poem by Melissa Lozada-Oliva titled “My Spanish.” We discussed personification and repetition, and how these can change or strengthen a poem. We shared how it […]

Our Favorite Objects

At Smyser Elementary in our 4th grade classrooms, we looked at the poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo. Students learned about personification and used word bubbles or word maps to help […]

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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