All posts in Rachel Javellana

A Certain Age

Glimpsing into the complicated world of a 14-year-old girl, “Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde articulates the thoughts and worries of a teenager on the brink. Our students chose a particular age and wrote a […]

Ode to Joy

In celebration of the imminent summer and great summer food, we read “Oda al tomate” or “Ode to the Tomato” by Pablo Neruda. We followed his example and wrote poems of high praise for […]

Doing Less

Reading “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound, we noticed the tiny size of the poem, and the way it uses white space by moving text around on the page. Students created […]

My Kind of Town

In “The Republic of Poetry,” poet Martín Espada describes a kind of poetry utopia. That made me interested in what my students would include in their own utopias: what constitutes paradise for you? Room […]

Huh?

Pablo Neruda wrote an entire book of untitled poems based on questions, many of which don’t seem to have rational answers. We wrote our own question poems which dig into mystery. Room 314 The […]

In Color

Taking a cue from my colleague Larry O’Dean, I shared “Colors passing through us” by Marge Piercy. The students wrote such glorious meditations on color that it was hard to narrow down for this […]

Legacies

“Legacies” by Nikki Giovanni describes an interaction between a grandmother, who wants to teach a lesson, and a granddaughter, who is reluctant to learn from her elder for more complicated reasons than she is […]

Quatrains

We took a look at a selection of the quatrains of Rumi–four-line untitled poems by the 13th-century Persian poet of immense popularity around the world. I gave the students a limitation of four lines […]

I want comida

We read English and Spanish versions of “Good Hotdogs,” a very Chicago poem by Chicago-born writer, Sandra Cisneros. We reflected on favorite special foods and the sense-memories of eating them. Room 322 <b>Red Tamales […]

Talking Objects

In “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath, a mirror speaks up about its experiences. Each student chose an inanimate object that can be found at their own home, then wrote a poem in the persona of […]

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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