All posts in Waters

“My voice is disruptive like an intercom announcement.”: Voice-Themed Slam-Style Performance Poems

Students read and then created short group performance pieces of spoken word pieces, some with choreography, after watching a student poetry slam team perform on the importance of one’s voice. Lesson Note: “Do stuff. […]

“Phillip/ Philips/ Philippians”: Short Name Poems

‘I celebrate and sing myself…’-Walt Whitman Students explored names through a series of prompts which began with a reading of a girl named jack by Jaqueline Woodson, What occurs in the naming of someone […]

Riddles of Value

During our last class of April at Waters, homerooms 301 and 302 created riddle poems inspired by Sylvia Plath’s poem “Metaphor” which begins, “I’m a riddle in nine syllables.” Students guessed at Plath’s riddle, […]

“And my hair as long as Rapunzel’s”: Self Portrait Poems

Students read Instructions to the Artist by Billy Collins before crafting their own portrait-inspired poems. Lesson Note: According to findings by the leading researcher on the power of writing and journaling for healing purposes, […]

To Wish Upon a Star

Last week with Mr. Raman’s 7th and 8th graders at Waters Elementary we thought about the practice of wishing on a star, and wrote a poem to something much larger than our own lives […]

“singing various Taylor Swift songs”: Memory Poems

Students conjured up memories from school and elsewhere to place in a short-form poem. How can our memories, with all their details, fit so nicely into a minimalist poem? Check out the student’s work […]

In the Classroom and Beyond: Transforming Objects with Similes

This past week at Waters Elementary, Mr. Raman’s 8th graders used similes to imaginatively transform everyday classroom objects into things outside the classroom: hair clips became plants, water bottles—mountains, paper—the wind, and desks became […]

“You sizzle and burn out but you never fold from the pressure.” Star Search

Students read a student poem that used personification to talk to a star before trying their hands at their own poems addressing something… bigger than themselves while using words from legendary poet/teacher Kim Addonizio’s […]

“devastating or joyful”: Table Talk

A common household object became the focus for this lesson, while studying Joy Harjo’s poem, Perhaps The World Ends Here. The poet James Merrill once commented that ‘we understand history from the family around […]

Don’t go into the Waters part 2

As promised here are the scary poems/stories from the 7th and 8th grade poets from Waters Elementary!   James R. And Zoe R. It was a cold and stormy night as the high school […]

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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