All posts in Swift

Yum! Poems about Food

In Ms. Reed’s class, we wrote poems about food! We thought about how food can be connected with memory and people we love. We read a poem from Kwame Alexander about fried chicken and […]

“It’s really easy to get a pet…”

Last week at Swift – rather than introducing a new lesson – I asked students to look through their folders to select a poem that they would like to spend more time on. Many […]

Bravery Poems

In Ms. Reed’s third grade class, we read Maya Angelou’s “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me at All.” We talked about how bravery doesn’t mean that you’re never afraid, it just means that you figure out […]

Similes!

Today, we experimented with writing similes for ordinary things that we experience. It was a lot of fun to be as strange and silly as we could be! Peanut Noodles–XioPeanut noodles smell like hot […]

What if we lived in a world without color?

Swift 2nd graders pondered this question, and then came up with responses such as “It would be boring,” “It would be sad,” and “Artists wouldn’t be able to have any fun!” In Ms. Pendola’s […]

Do you love sour pickles?

Valentines Day landed on my most recent sessions with Swift 2nd graders, so we read Eloise Greenfield’s poem, “Honey, I Love.” Students enjoyed lines in which the poet said she LOVED “a flying pool” […]

Would you like to see…?

As usual, when working with 2nd graders – many of whom have never had a creative writing practice – the first 5 sessions are meant to introduce students to how poems look on the […]

A Rainbow of Memories and Feelings

Today, we read “Green” by a 4th grade student named Malik. We thought about how colors can remind us of memories and experiences and feelings. The kids were full of energy and enthusiasm and […]

Poetry as Play

Today in Ms. Reed’s 3rd grade, we talked about play and surprise. We talked about how poetry can give us tools to express some of our deepest emotions and thoughts, while also giving us a […]

Daydreaming…

My fourth session with Swift 2nd graders was dreamy. We talked about many kinds of dreams and nightmares. Then we read the poem “D is for Daydreaming,” which ends with the following stanza:“Try to […]

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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