All posts in Poems

‘This world placed into a small wooden board called/ a table’: Joy Harjo-inspired Poems

A common household object became the focus of this lesson  while studying Joy Harjo’s poem, Perhaps The World Ends Here.  The poet James Merrill once commented, ‘we understand history from the family around the table.’ […]

Self-Portraits in Poetry

In our first class meeting, Waters 6th and 7th graders read “Self-Portrait with my hijab” by Noora S. a 7th grader at Peterson Elementary. In class students discussed the use emotion and the idea […]

“a cake filled with planets”

After not meeting last week because of Parent-Teacher Conferences and Election Day, it was good to return to Twain 3rd grade classrooms this week! The key term this week was imagery, which many students […]

Things To Do If You Are a Poet

For their sixth week of poetry Twain 4th graders learned about making a “To Do” list. This type of list helps someone keep track of all the tasks they have to complete. I asked […]

What’s Your Name?

This past Monday kicked off Lawndale Community Academy’s Poetry Residency with Ms. Barker’s 6th and 8th grade ELA classes. Our first session was an opportunity to get to know each other; thus, the day’s […]

Getting Started

Week 1 Blog  I’m so excited to be back at Perez Elementary again. This year our residency will be with Ms. Murray’s and Ms. Caplan’s 6th graders. We started off our first session by […]

‘wrapped in a dress of seaweed..’ Simply Exquisite!

Students crafted visual and then poetic Exquisite Corpses! It’s a great way to work with one line at a time, which was the goal! Afterward, they were challenged to create a clay figure of […]

“The ball spins round and round the rim until… Swish!”

Things got louder and noisier for Twain 4th graders during their fifth week of poetry. Students discovered Onomatopoeia, when poets use words that imitate sounds from everyday life. I had shown examples of onomatopoeia […]

“My dream is as fluffy as a cloud”

Week 4 of our 3rd grade residency was during the final week of October, and many students were looking forward to overflows of Halloween treats! We warmed up by verbally creating similes that were […]

Spells that rhyme for Halloween time

This week is Halloween! To celebrate, on Tuesday, Twain 4th graders learned how rhymes can be magical. I asked students, “If you could create a magic spell, what would you use it for? Students […]

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“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.”
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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