In our most recent class, the students and I read the poem On Turning Ten, by Billy Collins. I was excited to bring this poem to the writers, as it's one that honors the memories we already have of our lives while we are still young people. It is a poem that praises the history we already possess, and considers how a child's past informs and shapes who he or she is now.

Welcome back!  This week at Alcott, we continued to explore the power of descriptive detail to evoke emotion and relate the mood of a place and time. We read an excerpt of T.S. Elliot's Poem Preludes, which conveys the mood of a dreary neighborhood in the rain at lamp-lighting time. Without ever saying "the neighborhood was sad" or "lonely", Elliot communicates the emotion of the place by sharing a series of images: "...the burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps of withered leaves about your feet...".

Welcome back!  During our most recent poetry class, the students and I read an excerpt from the poem Flare, by the great Mary Oliver. In her poem, Oliver recalls the sights, sounds, smells and general feeling of an empty barn on her grandfather's farm; a place where she liked to be alone. She also placed the memory in the hands of the reader by speaking directly to us as though the memory was ours. I invited the students to write poems that welcome the reader into their own alone place...

Welcome back! This week at Alcott, we read a poem rich in sensory detail, From Blossoms, by Li-Young Lee, about a memory of a joyful day when he ate peaches bought from a road-side stand. We examined the author's use of specific images and detailed description to evoke emotion and relate a memory. We also listened to the voice of the poem, which is more narrative-- and in some ways like story-telling-- than others we have read so far. I invited students to write a poem about a food memory that they have...

Thanks for coming back! This week, the 6th grade writers read The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee, by Navarre Scott Momaday, which is a breathless and jubilant meditation on the connectedness of things. We looked at this poem as an example of someone using metaphor to communicate the essence or feeling of something. A step beyond simile or comparison, metaphor lets a writer relate an essential quality of something by saying that it IS something else.

Welcome back! My apologies to 6th grade poets in room 308! Their poems were left under a folder in their classroom the week they were written, and so are being posted one week behind those from room 305. But here they are, in all their glory! Here, again, is a description of that week's lesson: The students wrote "Quality" poems this week, following a discussion about the use of simile, or comparison, in poetry.

Welcome back! The Alcott 6th graders wrote wonderful poems this week, following a discussion about the use of simile, or comparison, in poetry. The day's poem was the very vivid Sweet Like a Crow, by Michael Ondaatje, in which the author plainly conveys the character and quality of a person's voice without ever using adjectives to describe it. He does this by comparing it to a series of very specific, detailed images and situations... "Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed through a glass tube...".

Welcome back! On our second day of poetry class, the 6th grade students and I shared what we know about poetry. We talked about it as an indefinable thing, and considered the freedom it offers us as creative writers. We used two-time national Poet Laureate, Billy Collins', poem Introduction to Poetry as a point of departure for talking about both the broader notions of playfulness and freedom inside of poetry writing, and also some practical tools we can use to give our ideas form.

This past week at Alcott marked our last assignment in the 3rd Grade Class. I will be moving to the 6th grade classroom to work with the older students for the remaining 10 weeks of the session, and while I am very excited to meet and work with these new young writers, I am also sad to say goodbye to the 3rd graders. Mrs. McAuliff and Mrs. Pinter's students are people of great wisdom, imagination and kindness, and writers of tremendous enthusiasm and talent. I am grateful for our time together, and hope very much that they will continue writing poems.

Alcott school switches their poetry program mid-year this year, and after bidding a very fond farewell to the amazing writers in the 3rd grade, I am tremendously excited to begin working with the 6th grade classes. I am, frankly, dazzled by the work these young writers did with their very first Hands on Stanzas poetry assignment, and was impresed and delighted by their kindness and respect for one another.