• Poetry Blog Exchange

    Student choice. Genuine investment. Low-stakes writing practice. Poetry analysis. Digital citizenship. Personal engagement. Empowering student voice.  A few years ago in the nascence of #TeachLivingPoets, I (Melissa) was brainstorming ways to get students invested in not just poetry, but poets. Reading individual poems wasn’t offering the kind of long-term appreciation I was hoping to nurture. At the time, I was starting my…

  • Shoe Design as Poetry Analysis

    When I get an out-of-the box idea for a poetry analysis lesson, chances are it’s inspired by my son, like this basketball-NASCAR mash-up with a Hanif Abdurraqib poem. The other day, my son asked for a pair of “nice shoes” for his birthday, and we got to talking about what he would want them to look like. Two things came…