All posts in Taft

Carnival of the Animals Featured Poems: Taft

In collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on March 20 and 21, students from the Hands on Stanzas program will participate in a presentation of Carnival of the Animals. This special concert designed for […]

Beastly

Writing persona poems in the voices of animals is always one of my favorite workshops not just because the students all have personal and interesting relationships with animals but also because the personas can […]

Dance Like Only 8th Graders are Watching

“Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde is all about being 14 and therefore I love teaching it to 14 year olds to get their reflections on her reflections – and to also show them that […]

Talk To Me

This was the first of my ten weeks with all the 8th graders at Taft. I already miss the 7th graders but I suppose the 8th graders aren’t evil either. So we looked at […]

Bug Off! (pt. 2)

This was my last day with the 7th graders and I’m going to miss them. I was dreading teaching 7th grade because I remember how horrible MY 7th grade inner and outer life was. […]

Bug Off! (pt. 1)

Once again, I brought in the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener’s Insect Petting Zoo to teach bug facts through poetry. I had some giant African millipedes, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and Rosie, the rose-haired […]

Totes Awk (pt. 2)

Mrs. Asvos 7th Grade, 6th Period “Cake” A poem by Claudia M. Me and cake, we go way back. To my very first birthday. I can’t look at you, because if I do, I […]

Totes Awk (pt. 1)

This week found us reading Sarah Kay’s poem “On the Discomfort of Being in the Same Room as the Boy You Like” and looking at the times we were uncomfortable. In order to help […]

Roadkill Choices (pt. 2)

The students were so very sure they could save the dead baby deer – one promised me over break she would write a sequel to “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” called “If […]

Roadkill Choices (pt. 1)

This class before winter break we were looking at William Stafford’s “Traveling Through the Dark” – a poem about someone who has come across a dead deer on a narrow mountain road. He has […]

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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