All posts in Waters

Fear and Big Words

This week we read “HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSEQUIPPEDALIOPHOBIA” by Aimee Nezhukumatahil. We discussed how we approach long words, how to write about what we’re afraid of, and irony in poetry. Students used a map to connect the […]

as man as pink

For our 4th week with Waters, we revisited the simile. I say revisited since I worked with most of these students last year, and we’ve reviewed the simile before. This time, I was inspired […]

How to Sneak Like a Snake

For our 4th session with Waters 6th graders, we delved into the wonderful world of similes. Like metaphor, similes are all around us, especially in music. We saw similes in action when we watched […]

“In response to the season of winter” Responding with poetry

This week students explored what it means to respond through poems. We started class by exchanging some short letters. We read “Way Opposite” by Harryette Mullen which was also a response to the poem […]

There May Be a Reason Why

This week, the world lost the poetry giant and phenom that is Nikki Giovanni. Fittingly, last week’s 7th graders explored bravado and bragadoccio in her iconic poem “Ego Trippin (there may be a reason […]

The World Is A Home Run

For our 3rd session with Waters 6th graders, we dove into the wonderful world of metaphors. They’re all around us, like in the Katy Perry song “Firework” (which we listened to and watched the […]

Opposite Poems

This week students at Waters wrote poems about opposites! In class we, fittingly, read “Some Opposites” by Robert Wilbur and talked about the confusing process of defining an opposite and making up our own. […]

‘Griffins, changelings, alicorns, unicorns, pegasus’ and ‘It/ made us feel like/ movie stars’: Children’s Television Poems

What TV shows did we cherish when we were young? What did we learn from them? What makes a hero (both real or imagined), and how can we learn from them (even the villains) […]

50% Terrible, 50% Amazing

I was back for another week with Waters 7th graders, this time talking about the stanza. Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” was our poem for the day, a poem particularly prominent around the time that […]

Who Our People Are!

Greetings greetings! For our second week with Waters 6th graders, we talked about our commonalities: each student table came up with the longest possible list of things they have in common (such as being […]

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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