All posts in Skinner West

Yes Ifs

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. […]

Elemental

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 […]

Uncommon Sense

“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 […]

Pangramming

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 […]

Does Everyone Love a Story?

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 […]

Random Is as Random Does

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 […]

Ars Republica

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 […]

Perfekshun

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, […]

Get Back

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 […]

All a Bored

“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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I’M FROM THE CITY LIGHTS / STREAMING OUT IN THE NIGHT / AND HUGE SKYSCRAPERS / TOWERING OVER THE LAKE – MELISSA E., 7TH GRADE POET