All posts in Skinner West

A Walk Across Dimensions

For a change of pace, after two shorter poems, this week I brought in Elizabeth Bishop’s lengthy and detailed “The End of March,” which is also appropriate since April has just begun. Bishop’s narrative […]

Centos & Farewells

For our final week of 2nd grade classes, students picked their favorite poems written this year, and from those, their favorite lines. I then asked them to queue up randomly, and recorded the lines […]

Write the Seasons

For our second week of classes, I brought in “Spring in New Hampshire,” by Jamaican-American poet, Claude McKay. Last week was the first day of spring, so this seemed like a good choice, even […]

Haiku You

Last week, we read nine haiku by the famous 18th-19th century Japanese poet, Kobayashi Issa, as translated by Robert Hass. Some students were familiar with the form, but since most were not, after reading […]

Autopsychography

Last month I had my first visits with the three 4th grade classrooms at Skinner. I introduced myself, passed out folders for the students’ poetry, spoke a bit and took questions about the program. […]

Color(s) My World

Marge Piercy’s “Colors passing through us” was the focus of our classes this week at Skinner West. After reading the poem aloud, I asked the 2nd graders what colors the poet mentions in the […]

Space Cadets

This week at Skinner we read “Theories of Time and Space” by US Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey. Students thought the poem was about following directions, being on a trip or traveling, since in the […]

Table for — Twenty?

Last week at Skinner, we read Turkish poet Edip Cansever‘s “Table.” In the poem, Cansever talks about a man who piles a number of ‘things’ on a table. First, we counted how many items […]

Mirror, Mirror…

Amazingly, we are halfway done with the 2nd grade residencies! The students have come very far in only five weeks, analyzing and dissecting, while also enjoying the work of some very difficult writers. This […]

Love, Skinner-style

In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, for our fourth class we read “love is more thicker than forget” by E. E. Cummings. I asked the 2nd graders if the poem looked unusual at all, and […]

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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