2020 Tattle-Tale Truths Where have you been lately? Home cookies story hour A briefly noted breakthrough What are your symptoms? Untrue advice: A subtle silence A war of persuasion What tests should you expect? Action equities fire Next-level knowledge The might-have-been modern world A week ago, I started collecting about 100 words to make aContinue reading “Headline poetry: capture 2020 with found words”
Tag Archives: Poetry
Headline poetry: At a loss for words? Let the words find you
Ever feel that words don’t exist to describe summer 2020? Ever feel as if words simply don’t exist to describe the summer of 2020? Here’s an idea: search through magazines, newspapers, mail, anything, and… let the words find you. I started this headline poem last night. I’m on step 1… searching and clipping. I haveContinue reading “Headline poetry: At a loss for words? Let the words find you”
“Where I’m From” Poems: download these mentor texts written by students
This post shares Where I’m From poem mentor texts written by students.
Corona Virus Acrostic Poems Perk Up Distance Learning (updated 2021)
Students create acrostic poems to document Covid-19 My students learned at home from March 17 through May 14, 2020 when the school year officially ended. As part of their distance learning back then, I asked students to write a couple of paragraphs every other day or so for a “Life in the Time of Corona”Continue reading “Corona Virus Acrostic Poems Perk Up Distance Learning (updated 2021)”
Mending Wall: Writing Prompt
Something there is that doesn’t love a pandemic Holed up at home at my dining room table, I’m continuing with my lesson planning as scheduled during our two-week school closing. After our recent Ernest Hemingway unit concluded last week, my plan was to introduce my juniors to Robert Frost. Lucky them. Frost’s poetry is poignant,Continue reading “Mending Wall: Writing Prompt”
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
Happy Friday Eve! This is a quick pic of Austin Kleon’s book,Steal Like An Artist. In this book, Kleon, the inventor of black-out poetry, discusses creativity, the values of unplugging from technology to create, and tips for producing more. He offers up some solid ideas that I found particularly helpful. Here are two: Don’t throwContinue reading “Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon”
Sometimes Poetry Can Teach Better than I Can
Take word choice, for example Last December, when I read a student’s second draft of their Treasured Object poem and saw that it contained the word “get” four times, I thought Really? Get? Four times? It surprised me because I thought I had taught not only sentence variety, but word variety as well. It’s goodContinue reading “Sometimes Poetry Can Teach Better than I Can”
Chisholm Trail Heritage Center Cowboy Youth Poetry Contest
Plus: past winning poems to use as mentor texts Do you have any students who live on farms or ranches, own livestock, or love rodeos? If so, bookmark this post about a new poetry contest designed to celebrate the spirit of ranching life and the American West: the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center’s Cowboy Youth PoetryContinue reading “Chisholm Trail Heritage Center Cowboy Youth Poetry Contest”
9/11 Poetry Lesson Plan: The stories the artifacts tell
Artifacts link the 9/11 attacks to the loss of a single human life I believe in teaching students about the September 11th terrorist attacks. It seems that up until a few years ago, students had an intrinsic desire to understand it better. Still, it seems that their desire to learn about 9/11 is waning, especiallyContinue reading “9/11 Poetry Lesson Plan: The stories the artifacts tell”
When Anxious, Depressed Students Stare into Space
Don’t assume they aren’t listening Last spring in my middle school language arts classes, I taught the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave for the eighth year. It’s the autobiography of Douglass, who was born into slavery. In his formative years, he experienced an epiphany: literacy equaled freedom. As a result,Continue reading “When Anxious, Depressed Students Stare into Space”