All posts in Taft

‘Fold the gown/remember them.’: Graduation (first and last)

8th grade students reflected before writing their own poems about the act of ‘putting away’ and ‘looking forward’ as the speakers do in the poems, ‘the first graduation’ and ‘the last graduation.’ by Nate […]

‘Lucy means light’: The Name Game

Students explored their own or other’s 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 of someone […]

‘Where did the time go?’: Question Poems

Students explored and discussed Tracy K. Smith’s question poem, The United States Welcomes You. Who is the speaker? Where is the speaker? What is at stake? What is the result of the telling? All […]

‘eventually the river will stop flowing’: Meditation Poems

Students participated in a 10- minute creative writing meditation and breathing exercise. After the meditation, they were asked to write whatever came to mind. Classwork was conducted in silence. Daydreaming and even boredom were […]

‘I want to stay in this moment.’ Words Worth…Repeating

We explored the powerful device of Repetition in Phil Kaye’s poem of the same name. Some poems in our workshop are ‘after’ Kaye’s work. Lesson Note: Writer/Performer Anna Deavere Smith who interviews people and […]

Table Service

A common household object became the focus for this lesson, while studying Joy Harjo’s poem, Perhaps The World Ends Here. Lesson Note: Harjo once commented, “I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to […]

Blackout!

This week we explore examples of student’s Blackout Poetry! A blackout poem is when a poet takes a marker (usually black marker) to already established text–like in a newspaper–and starts redacting words until a […]

‘I ponder over the peach’: Food & Memory

A discussion of food and memory began our class in preparation to study Gary Soto’s Narrative Style poem, Oranges. Nostalgia and feelings came up a lot in our talks. What emotions are attached to […]

The Giving Tree

We dug right in to examine William Carlos William’s minimalist Imagist style poem, The Locust Tree In Flower This poem is inspired by William’s interest in minimal / abstract art of the day (1930s). […]

Taking Flight: An Addendum

For our closing 7th Grade activity, students fashioned paper airplanes that took to the wind as a symbolic act in honor of poet, Ruth Stone’s quote about how a poem ‘thundered through her,’ from […]

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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