Writing a contrapuntal poem: tools gathered from even-odd project elevators
Poet and teaching artist Trace DePass riffs on the contrapuntal as a poetic form and a way of looking at the world.
The Backward Prompt: Using Great First Lines from Literature to Invent Your Own Way Forward
The following article was originally published in the lesson plan archive. by Kim Stafford As Donald Graves once said, if you want students to write literature, read them beautiful things and simply ask them to write. They will make the connections and write under the spell of what they have heard. Once upon a time,…
The Stories We Save May Include Our Own
Content warning: this article contains references to suicide, death and depression. An earlier version of this essay originally appeared in Iron City Magazine. photo credit for the featured image: Alvin Shim by Matt Malyon I. BirdwatchingLate night on Watson Bridge—a span across the Skagit River in Northern Washington—a trumpeter swan flies into a light pole….
T&W CHATSPACE: An Interview with Glynn Pogue
T&W CHATSPACE with MATTMATT RAYBEAM and guest Glynn Pogue Where can teachers discuss the ins-and-outs of their daily classroom adventures? Do you know a watercooler surrounded by teachers that also write? How about some place where teacher-writers can share tactics without tones hushed considering student ears? T&W ChatSpace is for us. This discussion series is…
My Self-portrait / My Secret Self-portrait
lesson by Sheila Maldonado as told to Azka Anwar There are some lessons that I rely on as a teacher for their success with students at many different levels, usually with minimal adaptation required. The lesson below is one of them; students take to the prompt quickly and with little resistance, possibly because the prompt…
The Parent Poem Project: Using Photographs to Take a Closer Look at Our Parents and Ourselves
By Vince Puzick One of my favorite writing exercises is to have students create poems inspired by photographs. I find that working with these images allows them to observe a moment in time, focusing on small details while also exploring the broader context of the photo, extending and speculating beyond what the camera captures. For…
Building a Queer Canon
the featured image is from electricliterature.com by Annabel Paulsen “[Queerness] is not something to be ashamed of, and I’m coming from a place of privilege because I was not ashamed. I want [my students] to feel the same freedom, and that’s why in my teaching, in my writing, in the artists I have picked for…
Writing Our Names
by Madison Stuart Teachers are keepers of names. Some corner of my brain is cluttered with Alexanders and Amanis and Keanus and Kylies. That first day of school, working down the roster, teachers wield a great appellative power; how many Pomaikaimaikekukunaokalamekahos who go by Po, Zhijias who go by Roy, Shar’lynnruths who go by Shari?…
Life, Death, and Twine
Writer Suzy Rigdon shares how using technology as part of storytelling “presents a radical shift in thinking about how language can tell a story.” Students use a program called Twine and find new possibilities to writing non-linear or multi-linear pieces.
Black Nikes in Red Weather: A Lesson Plan for “Dream Poems”
T&W writer Matthew Burgess brings us a new poetry activity which uses the poems “Black Nikes” by Harryette Mullen and “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” by Wallace Stevens as mentor texts that encourage wordplay, imaginative leaps, and experimentation with form.