All posts in Waters

“I won’t get up/ I can’t/ I won’t get dressed/ I can’t”: Repetition & Routine Poems

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: “Repetition can make magic happen-repeat a word or […]

Riddle Our Fears

This time in poetry class at Waters, homeroom 305 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, then had a […]

“and I don’t know when I’ll be”: Meditation Poems and Free Writes

Students participated in a short meditation and breathing exercise. I read them I Close My Eyes by David Ignatow. After the meditation, they were asked to write whatever came to mind. Classwork was conducted […]

Gwendolyn Brooks – Into Music

These past weeks students from Waters focused on including rhythm and rhyme in their poetry, gaining inspiration from Gwendolyn Brooks’ iconic poem “We Real Cool.” Our prompt was to write a poem about others’ […]

“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 […]

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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