All posts in Poems

Erasure Poems!

This week at Henry Elementary, we learned about erasure poems and blackout poetry as an extension of this! We looked at examples from Austin Kleon and Tracy K. Smith’s “Declaration.” Poets were tasked with […]

Juxtaposition in Poetry

This last week at Social Justice, we read and watched a portion of Ross Gay’s “Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude.” We learned about juxtaposition and how to implement this into our writing. Check out this […]

The Perfect Day

The 7th week of poetry for 5th graders involved imagining an ideal day for themselves. I asked students, “What does the perfect day look like to you?” Some students responded with ideas such as […]

Cutting Up! Collage Poems

Students used magazines and created cut-up poems! They used ‘found language’ and images to create new meaning.  Lesson Note: Creative Artist guru Julia Cameron says the part of us who create art is about […]

Fade to Black: Blackout Poems

Blackout Poetry: A blackout poem is created when a poet takes a marker (usually a black marker) to already established text, like that from a newspaper, and starts redacting words until a poem or […]

Food Memories

Many of our 5 senses are deeply connected to memory. This week the 7th graders of Nettelhorst reflected on their favorite foods and the people, places, and things connected to them. After reading “The […]

I am…

Metaphors allow us to transform ourselves, if just for a moment. The students of MLA asked themselves what they could become after we read “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee” by N. Scott Momaday. Upon […]

Concrete Poetry (7th Grade)

Sometimes words are not enough to convey what we are trying to say. The 7th graders of Clinton thought about what objects, animals, or ideas meant a lot to them before reading “Our Tree’s […]

Concrete Poetry (8th grade)

Sometimes words are not enough to convey what we are trying to say. The 8th graders of Clinton thought about what objects, animals, or ideas meant a lot to them before reading “Our Tree’s […]

Introduction to “The Blues”

Last week Brennemann 5th graders talked about the blues as a feeling of sadness, and as a musical form created by African-Americans in the late 1800s. We watched video of our example blues song, […]

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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