Articles, essays, editorials, and meditations on T&W’s mission, “educating the imagination.”
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In this article, teacher Brittny Ray Crowell brings the poem, “I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store,” by Eve Ewing to “help students see that poetry can offer a means of reckoning with history and trauma, and to show them that there is power, and perhaps even beauty, in the process of artistic re-envisioning.”
Teacher Andrew DeBella shares how he uses Pulitzer Prize winning artist Kendrick Lamar’s music to create a visceral experience of poetry in his classes. We are reminded here that to connect to poetry’s deeper meanings, we have to first feel it awaken within ourselves. Here is how Andrew creates this experience in his classroom:
In this article from the T&W archive, educator Bill Zavatsky teaches his students to create free-verse dream poems, using dream poems as an opportunity for students to create visual art pieces from their dream poems.
T&W writer Libby Mislan reflects on the healing nature of processing emotion through poetry. To meet the perceived needs of students, she created the “Poetry as Processing” workshop where students learned SEL skills and wrote from their experience of this telling 2020 year.
Teacher Ben Berman reflects on the challenges and opportunities for deeper care and connection with students, brought on by the pandemic and virtual learning. Read how creative writing continues to serve an essential purpose through COVID.
Teacher, Elizabeth Jorgensen helps students engage in the creative writing process by giving them an opportunity to publish or gain recognition for their work. Read how her students express themselves through the sijo and find success in The Sejong Cultural Society’s annual poetry competition.
Laura Wheatman Hill shares ideas to intrigue students with E. E. Cummings’ poem “l(a…(a leaf falls on loneliness)” and teaches students how a poems’ subject matter can often inform its structure.
Read about how teaching artist Peter Markus encourages students to step outside themselves and into the “Poetry Portal” and continues to encourage his student poets to write during a pandemic.
This article discusses how teaching artist Matthew Brailas teaches fourth grade students a wide range of literary devices through a fun activity called the “Third Eye Experiment.”
Read this article by a teacher who reflects on her years of working with migrant students from Central America on a local farm, doing hands-on learning and English-language education, using T&W poetry writing exercises.