All posts in Taft

‘If the bird is being blue or singing,’ Shakespearean Sonnets at Taft

A long time ago , in a galaxy, NOT so far away…Shakespeare! This was our week to wrestle with The Bard, and it was a bold crew of pre-Spring Break and exhausted- from- testing […]

Why? Because.

Because of testing some classes ran long and some short, but that didn’t stop Taft 8th Graders from penning their own ‘Because’ poem using Yannis Ritsos’ List Poem, ‘Because’ as a jumping off point. […]

‘/unhappy with tranquility/’: Emily Dickenson visits Taft

For a first poem with rhyme, Ms. Taylor’s 8th Graders took a look at ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’ by Emily Dickenson. We talked about the internal rhyme, to whom and of whom the […]

‘Like a coconut in a bank vault’ : Group Similes at Taft

To address Simile (made up of the Tenor and the Vehicle) and the senses, I read the 8th Graders, Sweet Like A Crow by Michael Ondaatje. Before that, students took a stab at putting […]

‘Deep Dish Love’: Food & Memory at Taft

My second poetry workshop with Ms. Taylor’s 8th Grade class, had us busy, busy, busy. We read the Narrative Poem, Oranges by Mexican-American, poet, Gary Soto, then discussed the poem’s wonderful metaphors, sense images, […]

M&Ms and Imagist Poems at Taft

On my first week with them, Ms. Taylor’s 8th Grade class dove right into creating Imagist-style poems, patterned after The Locust Tree In Flower by country doctor and poet, William Carlos Williams. We talked […]

Are You Smarter Than A 7th Grader? Parting Words at Taft (#1)

Believe it or not, we wrapped it up, last Tuesday for Ms. Munoz’s 7th Grade classroom in our exploration of: “Writer Who Are You: Identity Through Poetry.” Over the past 10 weeks we indeed […]

“Good thing love can make you happy and heard”: Shakespearean Sonnets at Taft

“This one goes out to you, babe,” exclaimed one 7th Grade Sonneteer in Ms. Munoz’s Language Arts Class as she dedicated her poem to a close friend. This week we dove into Shakespeare via […]

A Planet Full of Channing Tatums: Your Missed Destination Is Poetry

“All aboard!!!” (or not) in this 7th week of poetry at Taft. Ms, Munoz’s 7th Grade class looked at the poem, We Are Not Going To Malta by Latino poet, Richard Blanco. In this […]

This Book Smells Like Bees: Writing Yourself Into A Corner

This week at Taft, we looked at a truncated version of the Long Form poem, ‘Library’ by writer and toy collector, Albert Goldbarth. We took a look at its density and repetition and what […]

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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