All posts in Skinner West

Last week we read “Chateau If” by Peter Gizzi. After hearing it, the students’ initial reaction was “that’s a lot of ifs!” so I asked them to count how many are in the poem. […]

Rhyme is one of the most immediately recognizable features of “The Armadillo,” by Elizabeth Bishop, we discussed this week. Not all of its rhymes are perfect, and I asked how that affected our appreciation […]

“Paradoxes and Oxymorons” is the title of this week’s poem, by the late American poet John Ashbery. After hearing it read aloud by student volunteers, we considered how it was different from the other […]

This week’s classes were structured a little differently. First, I made sure the students had their paper prepared with proper headings for the writing they’d do later; I then asked them to flip the […]

For the second week of our residency—the first handing out, reading and responding to a poem—I brought in Philip Levine‘s “A Story.” First thing, I asked the students to number the lines; since it’s […]

This week, I began my residency with the 4th graders. I had a majority of these students back when they were in 2nd grade, and it was amazing to see what a difference two […]

Last week was our final (!?) classes for the 4th grade poetry residency. To celebrate, I brought in “The Republic of Poetry” by Martín Espada, and five different students from each classroom read one […]

Last week, we read and discussed Carrie Fountain‘s “Theory of Perfection.” One of the first things we did was define theory; I then asked if it was really possible to be ‘perfect’? Most likely, […]

This week, we read Jack Spicer‘s poem, “Any fool can get into an ocean…” It begins: Any fool can get into an ocean But it takes a Goddess To get out of one. Many […]

“Life, friends, is boring.” So begins John Berryman‘s “Dream Song 14,” which was the focus of our poetry classes this week. My initial question was “who is speaking?” and while some students felt it […]

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