I love The Slowdown Podcast with US Poet Laureate Tracy K Smith. Listening to it has become part of my morning routine. If you’ve never listened before, it’s a five-minute long podcast in which Smith introduces a poem with an anecdote, personal story, historical or current event, or some explanation that eventually leads in to what the poem she is…
Want to #TeachLivingPoets but feel like you don’t know where to start? Or where to find good poems? Then this post is for you. Here, you will find all kinds of resources to help you feel more knowledgeable and comfortable with teaching contemporary poetry in your classroom. How to find poets For a list of poets to follow, click here….
Earlier this week, the third installment of the #TeachLivingPoets Twitter chat dropped. The August 28th chat was hosted by Susan Barber, who teaches in Atlanta public schools. Clint Smith’s poem “There Is a Lake Here,” which is the last poem in his collection Counting Descent (Write Bloody, 2016), was our focus as the common text for the chat. There were so many innovative…
Quick — think of a polysyllabic word that starts with R. How about a word starting with C? Okay, now think of four words in a row (in a phrase that makes sense) that all start with W. This post is all about playing with letters using the Abecedarian form, lipograms, and alliteration poems, along with fun mentor texts by…
End goal: Students will write a poem about or inspired by color. DAY ONE Step 1: Pre-write Activity – Shades of Green Across the top of my front board, I hung a row of sheets of paper of different shades of one color. I got the sheets at my local craft store in the scrap booking section for a dime each. It…