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Hello?: Telephone Poems

After reading Donna Masini’s short but multi-layered/ overheard conversation ‘telephone poem’, Woman On Cell Phone Dragging an Empty Cart Through Washington Square Park, students created their own phone poems and were encouraged to record […]

Fractured Fables: Irony & Satire in Poetry

Students created as well as performed their own group pieces of fractured fables and fairy tales after reading aesop revised by archy by don marquis. Lesson Note: ‘…in an era when human impact on […]

A Star is Born! Celestial Poems & Then Some

Students read Choose Something Like A Star by Robert Frost and listened to a choral arrangement of the same poem, before trying their hands at their own poems addressing something… bigger than themselves. Lesson […]

Hats Off!

After reading James Tate’s viciously, sly poem, The List of Famous Hats, students crafted their own poems about clothing and historical figures! Lesson Note: Tate’s poems have been described as tragedic, comic, absurdist, ironic, […]

Say What?: Found Language/Captured Talk Poems

Students were instructed to walk to the classroom bookshelf, grab a book, then trade with another student, or to walk around the room and listen to conversations, look at signage, read some Shakespeare and […]

‘I feel the heat of the spotlight on me.’ Sports & Fame Culture Poems

Students talked about fame, culture, and sport and even watched an Oprah interview where cyclist Lance Armstrong offered up a confession. This led us to a reading of a poem from Erratic Fire, Erratic […]

‘drumming out of lime.’ : Lousy Language

Students played word games that centered around sound and creative syntax, before delving into Kevin Young’s poem of altered cliché’s, Errata. ‘Errata’ means an error in a written text. ‘Syntax is identity,’ says poet […]

‘And that they treat you this way.’: By Executive Order!

From Executive Order 13841 of June 20th, 2018. ‘…any person, not a citizen or national of the United States who has not been admitted into, or is not authorized to enter or remain in, […]

‘When people say my name I look up.’ What’s In A Name?

‘I celebrate and sing myself…’-Walt Whitman Students explored names through a series of prompts which began with a reading of’ Name That Means Holy in Greek’ by Kim Addonizio. What occurs in the naming […]

‘He’ll be safe in our land’: Poems inspired by ‘Pictures From Around The World…’

Students selected a picture that ‘spoke to them’ from a photo bank entitled: Pictures From Around The World That Will Make You Hopeful Again. The students were then led through a series of prompts […]

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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