Mentor Text: My Honest Poem by Rudy Francisco Techniques: Writing About Oneself Writing Poetry Background: In a recent planning session, I mentioned that I lean on poetry pretty hard in Grade 10. My colleague Rachelle replied that I lean pretty hard on poetry in all my courses. I can’t help it. There’s something about the expression […]
Today’s guest post from Kristen Bond (@readwritemore) is PERFECT for the beginning-of-the-school-year wading into writing that most of us do with our students! Why not start the year with a poem and beautiful reading of it? Here’s a bit about Kristen: My name is Kristin Bond and I work at the American Community School of Abu […]
Mentor Text: Poetry from Memoir Mixtapes Techniques: Writing Memoir Making Personal Connections Analyzing Music Responding to Music Background – As I shared in my last Mentor Text Wednesday post, I found a great journal that encompasses two of my favorite things, memoir and music. I shared a couple of prose pieces in that post, and said […]
Though I read All American Boys a couple of years ago, I was weirdly late to the writing of Jason Reynolds. I read his Miles Morales novel this winter, and when I saw it being lauded so strongly in my Twitter feed, I picked up a copy of Long Way Down. If you’ve read it, […]
Mentor Text: forge by Leslie Anne Mcilroy Techniques: Constructing meaning Poetic form Background: This week, I’d like to share another gem of a poem that came through my Twitter feed. One that lets me bring two things that I love into my class. With a 5 year old and a 7 year old, I get […]
Mentor Text: What Were Giraffes? by Amaan Hyder Techniques: Descriptive writing Social commentary Tone Poetic form Background: As I said last week, my Twitter feed has become a pretty important source of poetry for me. I follow poets, teachers and poetry journals, and they all dump lots of great poems onto my screen. (Sometimes it […]
As I traditionally do in April, National Poetry Month, I’m dedicating my space here at Moving Writers to talking about poetry for the next few weeks. A couple of years ago, I made a decision to become a better teacher of poetry. I felt I was a good poetry teacher, but I had a handful […]
Recently, I was wandering around a Target while my daughter was at Girl Scouts, and I was amazed to find six (six!) collections of poetry in the book section! Poetry! At Target! I was so moved that I took a picture and Tweeted, I suppose what moves me is that I don’t think it’s coincidental […]
Pretty much every trip my family takes to the city finds us in a bookstore. Not a surprise, I know. Recently, as I walked past the teen section, dragging my kids out of the children’s section, a book, of course, caught my eye. I picked up Get Lit Rising, and flipped through it. And headed […]
Mentor Text: Parents by Julius Lester Techniques: Poetic Form Background: Last April, my co-worker Ashley and I went to see Penny Kittle speak. As is standard, we walked away inspired, full of ideas to try, and thoughts on how we could improve the program that we offer to our students. Penny is the best kind of […]
