poetry workshop

SZA Workshop Series

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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 is a teaching artist at Young Chicago Authors and creates word-based multimedia projects and is a recipient of the 2020 Chicago Artists Coalition Spark Grant and a 2018 Propeller Fund grant from Gallery 400, Threewalls, and The Andy Warhol Foundation. Whether as an event host, performer, or teaching artist, Dominique seeks to inspire celebration and share joy.  
(Photo by Reese Amaru) Visit Dominique’s blog here.

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Making Poetry Connections Beyond the Classroom

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This week, my Creative Writing students are in serious drafting mode. We’re working on crafting partner slam poems, an assignment given to us by Terry Creech, artist educator and Executive Director and founder of BreatheInk. Watching my students workshop with Mr. Creech and getting messy playing with language, sounds, and performance ideas are the inspirations for this post.

In this post, I am going to share various ways I have extended my students’ learning beyond the classroom or beyond my own direct instruction. I have found that my students’ most meaningful poetry moments rarely involve me as a teacher. I’m just the one who leads them to the door. Continue reading →