All posts in Leslie Reese

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 […]

Daydreaming…

My fourth session with Swift 3rd 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 […]

“big kids sound like brown bears roaring”

For our 3rd sessions Swift 2nd graders talked about comparisons. We tried to look at pairs of very different things to find similarities in color, texture, shape, size, and feeling. After examining similes written […]

“crackly” and “crunchy”

For my second meeting with Swift 2nd graders, we discussed things we experience using our sense(s) of sight, taste, smell, sound, and touch. We also talked about the seasons, and some of the changes […]

First Poem

Happy New Year Greetings!Being invited to return to Swift for my 6th year brings me feelings of joy and humility. This year I have the pleasure of joining Ms. Pendola’s and Ms. Brist’s 2nd […]

What is Poetry?

This is the question that Twain 3rd graders were asked to think about during the final session of our generative residency. This was also Holiday Spirit Week at Twain and many students showed-off their […]

“If kindness was a creature…”

This week Twain 3rd graders considered many kinds of emotions such as embarrassment, shyness, sadness, and anger. We looked at the poem “J is for Jealousy” and talked about what it feels like to […]

“EL Mundo Para Niños”

Back from the break for Thanksgiving, Twain 3rd graders sat with me and thought of whimsical and serious ideas for the kind of world they would like to live in. We read and discussed […]

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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