All posts in Skinner West

Farewell, 4th Grade!

Our 10 weeks of poetry flew by far too quickly, and yesterday marked our final 4th grade classes. It’s never easy ending a residency, but we did so the best we could. I brought […]

Tinted Winter

For our penultimate 4th grade class, we traveled back a few months in time for “Very Strong February” by Bernadette Mayer. Now that spring has finally (?) sprung, this quite snowy poem was a […]

Sayonara, 2nd Grade!

After twenty inspirational, insightful, incredible, incisive, illuminating, impassioned, and often improvisational weeks of poetry, we had our final 2nd grade classes this week. It’s never easy ending a residency, but we did so the […]

Always Be Composing, Dude

“A Poem for S.” by Jessica Greenbaum was this week’s selection. After hearing it read aloud by two student volunteers, there were many opening comments regarding the fact that almost every line in the […]

No Pane, No Gain

Last week at Skinner West, we read James Dickey‘s lengthy poem, “The Hospital Window.” I began our conversation by noting that there are multiple ways of interpreting this work, and that my own views […]

Carnival of the Animals Featured Poems: Skinner West

In collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on March 20 and 21, students from the Hands on Stanzas program will participate in a presentation of Carnival of the Animals. This special concert designed for […]

Stop, Look, Listen…

Daylight saving time began this past weekend, so to commemorate the occasion we read William Stafford‘s “Next Time.” Though the poem’s language is relatively straightforward, I asked the 2nd and 4th graders about a […]

If…

Sometimes, stories can be poetic. This week, we read and talked about Stephen Dunn‘s “If a Clown,” which is an example of the opposite—a poem that tells a story. Dunn’s narrative describes the odd […]

Word Play

The approach to this week’s poem was a bit different. Two students from each class were asked to read Wallace Stevens‘ “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm,” and the discussion began […]

Hues Calling

Once again, we had an appropriately wintry poem this week: Bernadette Mayer‘s “Very Strong February.” Unlike recent poems we have read, this one is longer and more narratively difficult. One of my first questions […]

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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