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.
Tagged Poetry
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?…
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.
Season of Virus: Poems Written During the Pandemic
The following poems were written during our year in quarantine, from 2020-2021, by older adults in virtual creating aging programs through Teachers & Writers Collaborative and our partners. The first set is from participants in the oral history and storytelling program with Visions Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a workshop led by Dave Johnson…
Teaching Whitman in High School
The following article was originally published in print by Teachers & Writers Magazine. by Bill Zavatsky My first sustained reading of Whitman took place in the fall of 1965 or the spring of 1966. It was his “Song of Myself,” a good chunk of which I read while sitting in a lobby at the New…
Voices in the Dark
2021 Bechtel Prize Runner-up Sue Granzella’s elementary school students became enthusiastic poets and wrote their feelings about the pandemic with profound depth.
30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing Prompts for National Poetry Month
30 for 30: This April, find writing workshop prompts for every day of National Poetry Month.