This post is written by Dana Huff and originally appeared on her website, huffenglish.com. Learn more about Dana here. Reading Teach Living Poets (affiliate link) by Lindsay Illich and Melissa Alter Smith inspired a lesson plan pairing “She Walks in Beauty” by George Gordon, Lord Byron with “To the Girl Who Works at Starbucks, Down the Street from My House on Del…
My personal education goal this year is to incorporate more creative writing opportunities into my core English classes. In American Literature, my juniors had just learned about the symbolism of the green light so the timing was perfect to pause for a moment of creative expression. This activity can be done with ANY color and with any book that uses…
This lesson was created by Jessica Salfia and Karla Hilliard from Spring Mills High School, Martinsburg West Virginia. Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate, is the award-winning author of Perfect Black, The Birds of Opulence , Water Street and Blackberries, Blackberries. She is the recipient of a 2021 O. Henry Prize, a 2020 USA Artists Fellowship, and a 2016 Ernest J….
This post is by guest author Kristin Runyon, who shares her passion for literature and poetry in the Charleston High School Library as the librarian for her remaining few years before retirement. March 2020–schools shut down and we all scrambled to figure out how to teach remotely. And we had a #TeachLivingPoets chat scheduled for March 31st. Leila Chatti’s “Tea”…
I am so excited to share this COMPLETE UNIT for José Olivarez’s Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books, 2018) created by my colleagues Tiffany Cavicchia and Melissa Scire. Click on the image to access a Google Slides that will guide you and your students through the book, with links to videos, assignments, and more! Unit preview More unit plans and ideas for…
Connect your students with other classes nationwide to learn together and discuss this history-making poem by U.S. Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. Here’s what you need to know to make it happen. When: Friday, Jan. 29 Start time: 8am EST / 7am CST Moderator: @MelAlterSmith This will be a slow chat. We will have students active at different times of…
On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris were sworn into office. At the Inauguration ceremony, U.S. Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman made history in being the youngest Inaugural poet. Here are several lessons, all shared with their creators’ permission, to help you teach Amanda Gorman’s poem and inauguration poetry with your students. Thank you Carrie Mattern,…
Today’s post comes from guest author Kelly Lawlor. Kelly is a high school English teacher with 10 years experience teaching grades 7-12. She started her career in Pennsylvania where she graduated from college. Currently, she lives in Massachusetts with her family and 75lb. boxer. Kelly does her best to support, encourage, and challenge students through different hands-on learning opportunities. She…
Today’s lesson is by guest author Dominique James, daughter of Chicago and Southside sweetheart, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Howard University. She has completed research fellowships at the University of California-Riverside and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. After graduation, she was a TRIALS Fellow at Harvard Law School and a University of Chicago HBCU Bridge Scholar. She…
ORDER NOW! Teach Living Poets opens up the flourishing world of contemporary poetry to secondary teachers, giving advice on discovering new poets and reading contemporary poetry, as well as sharing sample lessons, writing prompts, and ways to become an engaged member of a professional learning community. This approach offers rich opportunities for students to improve critical reading and writing, opportunities for…
To celebrate Black History Month, I start class off everyday with a poem by a Black poet. Here’s my Playlist if you want to use it in your classroom. Sometimes we talk about the poem afterwards, sometimes we free-write or journal, sometimes we just let the poem be. It depends on the poem and our agenda for the day. This…
Today’s post is by guest author Jessica Salfia. Jessica is the Co-Director of WVCTE and a teacher, writer, and activist. Her writing has appeared in the Charleston-Gazette Mail, West Virginia Living Magazine’s Blog, the WVCTE Best Practices Blog, and multiple volumes of the Anthology of Appalachian Writers. She was the winner of 2016 and 2019 West Virginia Fiction Competition and…
Family names, nicknames, going by your middle name, common names, cherished names, meaning of names, unique names–these were all up for consideration as students drafted a poem about their name. Pre-writing Students wrote their full legal name at the top of a blank sheet of paper and spent a couple minutes making a list of all the names they are…
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…