All posts in Ola Faleti

Dear _______,

​For our 6th session with Waters 7th Graders, we explored the epistolary poem (ie, a poem in letter form). Our mentor text was “Dear P” by Victoria Chang. We talked about who P might […]

I am from life

We are all composed of the many places, people, things, and experiences that make us who we are. Which is why I love the George Ella Lyons poem “Where I’m From” and subsequent variations […]

If the world was pink

For our last session before the winter break and new year, 7th graders thought about ideal worlds. We discussed the fact that poetry can be a powerful tool for envisioning the world you want […]

Sorrow is not our names

Before the break and subsequent new year, Waters 6th graders had an opportunity to consider the power of imagery. Ross Gay is a great poet in that respect, one who combines optimism with vivid […]

as man as pink

For our 4th week with Waters, we revisited the simile. I say revisited since I worked with most of these students last year, and we’ve reviewed the simile before. This time, I was inspired […]

How to Sneak Like a Snake

For our 4th session with Waters 6th graders, we delved into the wonderful world of similes. Like metaphor, similes are all around us, especially in music. We saw similes in action when we watched […]

There May Be a Reason Why

This week, the world lost the poetry giant and phenom that is Nikki Giovanni. Fittingly, last week’s 7th graders explored bravado and bragadoccio in her iconic poem “Ego Trippin (there may be a reason […]

The World Is A Home Run

For our 3rd session with Waters 6th graders, we dove into the wonderful world of metaphors. They’re all around us, like in the Katy Perry song “Firework” (which we listened to and watched the […]

50% Terrible, 50% Amazing

I was back for another week with Waters 7th graders, this time talking about the stanza. Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” was our poem for the day, a poem particularly prominent around the time that […]

Who Our People Are!

Greetings greetings! For our second week with Waters 6th graders, we talked about our commonalities: each student table came up with the longest possible list of things they have in common (such as being […]

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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