All posts in Skinner West

Food for Thought

Before Thanksgiving break, we read Elizabeth Alexander‘s “Butter.” The first thing I asked was how many times did the speaker in the poem use the title word? We counted fourteen, so I asked why, […]

Day for Night

The recent conclusion of daylight savings time inspired this week’s poem for discussion, “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas. After reading it aloud, students noticed the repetition of not […]

Mirror, Mirror

This week’s poem was “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath. After reading it, I asked who was speaking in the poem, and a majority of students thought it was the mirror in the title. I told […]

Scary as…

Before reading and discussing this week’s poem by Richard Brautigan, I spoke to students about simile, a figure of speech that compares two things, using like or as, and said to be on the […]

Feeling Antsy

This week we read Tim Seibles‘ poem, “Magnifying Glass.” Many students initially thought it was confusing, but even if that was the case they still liked the poem, and as we discussed it certain […]

The Title of This Poem Is…

This week I am back at Skinner West, for a residency in all the 2nd grade classrooms. It was great to meet the new students and get (re)acquainted with the teachers; everyone was excited […]

Aloha, Poetry Superstars!

In the Hawaiian language, aloha can mean hello or goodbye; it also means love or affection. Today we had the last poetry classes of this year’s residency. It’s never easy to reach the conclusion, […]

Alone Again, Or

For our penultimate classes this week, we read Rainer Maria Rilke‘s “I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone.” I asked the students if they could ever be “too alone,” and […]

Weather or Not

This weekend marks the beginning of spring, so our poem this time was “Spring is like a perhaps hand” by E. E. Cummings. The poet is renowned for messing around with grammar, syntax, and […]

Q&A

This week’s poem was “Some Questions about the Storm” by Hilda Raz. In it, two speakers are talking about a storm, asking such questions as “was it bad?” “What did you see?” and “Was […]

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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