2021 Post #29 -- Dive Into Unfathomable Life

 by Stacey Smith

In 1996, Wislawa Syzmborska won the Nobel Prize in Literature for her ability to ask existential questions of the world around her with deep empathy and untangled language. In a world currently shrouded by the unknown, Szymborska’s poem “Utopia” is a fitting dive into how a perfect place does not exist, and we should not only face, but embrace the reality of our now—and find meaning in the experiences we’ve had during this uniquely trying year.

It is easy for us and our students to focus on the what ifs, the ideals of what could be, the way the world was before the pandemic. In reading “Utopia”, we have the ability to both explore those ideals that we want to map out on our island, but also to address them as potentially unrealistic and detrimental to our real growth as people, as learners, and as a community. Sometimes our ideals crush our hopes because we have created a world that isn’t reachable.

We want Szymborska’s poem to allow students to explore their “unfathomable life”—What did we have to let go of in the pandemic? During quarantine? As virtual learners vs. in person learners? What freedoms did we have to give up and how did that sacrifice pay off?

Start by reading “Utopia” out loud once through. Deliberately.

Then, read it again, and as you are reading, have the students think about what they had to let go of that existed pre-2020 (the “Trees of Understanding” and “Caves where Meaning Lies”).

Have students read the poem again on their own. Once they have finished reading, ask them to write in their journal some individual hopes they found in Post-2020 life (and potentially model your own version for them as well)—What have you left behind and how it has maybe made life better? How have you had to slow down? What have you seen by doing this? Have you become closer to people without the distractions of the world? Have you learned to communicate better? What freedoms did we have to give up and how did that sacrifice pay off?

Szymborska’s poem does not end in despair, but rather reminds us that hope is not lost— in the words of researcher Brené Brown, we have to be “bravely vulnerable” and accept that life is flawed, but we can find our own meaning and purpose beyond the safe, yet false utopias our imagination sometimes creates.

Further Reading:



Stacey Smith is a Freshman English teacher at Lenape Middle School in Doylestown, PA. When she’s not encouraging her students to be bravely vulnerable, she thrives on new experiences with food and travel and discovering the stories of anything vintage. You can find her occasionally on IG @ihatetoread

2021 Post #28 -- Musings On Mother's Hands

by Nawal Qarooni 

A creator’s ability to hone in on one object, item or body part and describe its weight, meaning and importance is a skill that student writers, too, can replicate in their craft. It’s one that can lead to homages and odes, broadening gratitude for things that might go unnoticed without a keen writer’s eye. In its simplest form, it can lead to emotional musings about individualized objects that beg for reflection.

Nate Marshall, in his poem titled "my mother’s hands" from his latest poetry book, Finna, brings alive descriptions of hands as a salve in hardship, outlining childhood memories in a small slice of time.

In the classroom, we might share this poem and ask students:

• How does his mother’s hands care for him?
• What message does he glean from his mother’s massage?
• How does he use repetition in the poem?

Once students have had time to digest and discuss the poem, we might ask them to generate their own lists of items, objects or body parts that are especially meaningful, and carry emotion or story. When I feel stuck generating ideas, I close my eyes and recall moments where I cried or felt like screaming; where I was worried or scared. In a simple T-chart, model brainstorming like this aloud.

For example, I would include:

my daughter’s slim wrists → carries emotions about my last daughter.
my grandmother’s headscarf → flashbacks to memories of her laughter and everyday smiles.
my father’s handlebar mustache→ and how it represents, for me, what he wanted but didn’t achieve in life.

These body and item connections evoke strong emotion and memory that support the creation of poetry similar to Nate Marshall’s. Once students brainstorm lists, set a timer and ask that they try their hand at a poem- perhaps weaving in repetition, perhaps never sharing it. I leave it up to students whether or not they choose to share. Yes, there’s power in having an audience and writers are fueled by feedback but at the same time, some writing is personal, cathartic, and for the creator alone.


Further reading:




Nawal Qarooni is an educator, writer and literacy coach based out of Chicago, IL. She designs learning experiences alongside teachers and is mother to four multilingual, multiethnic kids, who very much shape the way she understands learning. You can read more about her work at NQCLiteracy.com and follow her on Twitter @NQCLiteracy.

2021 Post #11 -- Discovering Juxtaposition

by John Waite

The poem “The Laughing Heart” by Charles Bukowski features simple language but enough linguistic flourishes and ambiguities to put it in the sweet spot for high school students. His theme or message is stated immediately, so students should not have difficulty locating that.

In teaching poetry, my goal is to give students strategies that they can use as they approach any poem. Here are some of the strategies they would use as they worked with the poem.

Have students look for juxtaposition. For instance, the use of “dank” and “darkness” juxtaposed with the instances of “light” in the poem. Another instance would be the idea that you “can’t beat death but / you can beat death in life.” How does juxtaposition help Bukowski create meaning?

Have students debate which word in the poem is the “most important” to the poem’s meaning. They could choose their own word to argue, or you could give them options like “sometimes,” “delight,” and “life.”

Have students look for repetition (of ideas, words, images, forms, etc.) What in the poem repeats? What is the effect of that repetition?

Before giving the poem to students, the teacher replaces some of the important words in the poem with blank spaces (a strategy related to what is called “cloze reading”). Have students predict what words go in the blanks. Then have students compare and contrast their choices with the actual words, considering why the poet made the choices they made.

If you don’t want to do cloze reading as detailed above, have students try to replace words in the poem after they have read it. Why do different words not have the same effect as the ones the author chose?

Have the students mark the poem for lines or images that seem positive, negative, ambiguous, or neutral. What trends do they see? What do these trends tell them about how the poem works?

Possible discussion/investigatory questions specific to this poem include:

1. What does the word “dank” mean? Why did he choose that specific word? Over, say, “Dark.”
2. What do you think the author means by “light” in line 5? What different types of light could there be?
3. What do you think the author means in line 13? Why do you think he includes the word “sometimes”?
4. How do you relate the tone of the title with the rest of the poem? Why does he not repeat the word “laughing” elsewhere in the poem?

Further Reading:

John Waite is a teacher at Downers Grove North High School in Downers Grove, Il. He is a licensed Reading Specialist and National Board Certified Teacher. Reach John at jwaite@csd99.org.

2021 Post #4 -- I Don't Like Poetry

 by Matthew Johnson

This morning I was reading introductory letters from my new group of students, and I was struck by how several students, as they always do, went out of their way to tell me the same four words that I’ve heard from scores of students over the course of my career: I don’t like poetry.

In my early years I struggled with how to respond to the inevitable and often vocal poetry critics that come into my classes each year, but a few years ago, I recalled a lesson from my youth that has since helped me to proactively win over a surprising number of these skeptics and detractors.

What I do now is that I, before we dive into our first poems of the year, lean forward and in hushed tones that denote a secret, I tell them my—to borrow a concept from comics—my origin story with poetry. I start by letting them know the truth, which was that when I sat in their position, I was anti-poetry myself. To me, poetry was something akin to a doily. It was nice enough for people who were into that kind of thing, but to me, it seemed frilly, fussy, and essentially useless.

I then jump to my junior year of college, when my professor, likely anticipating some resistant poets in the audience, dropped the Billy Collins’ poem "Introduction to Poetry" on our desks and asked for our thoughts on it. As I say this, I also drop this poem onto their desks and tell them that for some reason this poem grabbed me in that moment like none before. The language was so distinctly not fussy, the images felt crisp and clear, and the subversive tone very much appealed to the 20 year old me.

Lastly, I tell them that in that moment I understood both that I could like poetry and why I’d always disliked it before. Poetry is human existence condensed into, as Langston Hughes calls them, “atomic words.” Like any condensed flavor, if one dislikes the original flavor, the condensed version will be even less appealing, but when one comes across the condensed flavor of something one already loves, the taste can be like Nirvana.

To conclude the lesson, I tell students to go and find that flavor that works for them. Their Nirvana. It can be a slam poet, a pop song, another Billy Collins poem, or even Shel Silverstein. And the result, beyond students bringing a lot of great poems the next class, is that while plenty of beginning of the year letters mention not liking poetry, the ones at the end of the year never do!

Further Reading:

Matthew Johnson is an English teacher from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also a husband and father, and over the last decade he has read, thought, and written about how teachers can balance teaching with all of the other important roles they play in their lives. His work has been published by Principal Leadership, Edutopia, ASCD, The National Writing Project, and the National Council of Teachers of English, and his weekly thoughts on how to be a better teacher of writing in less time can be found on his website www.matthewmjohnson.com. When not teaching, reading, or writing, he can often be found in the kitchen, his garden, or out on a run through the gently rolling hills of Southeast Michigan.

2020 Post #28 -- Toi Derricotte's "Cherry Blossoms"

by Brett Vogelsinger

I recently asked students what they noticed they had more time to do during the days of our state's stay-at-home order. One student told me, "I'm taking long bike rides again," and then added after a slight, shy pause, "and I'm noticing flowers a lot more."  

There is a vulnerability in 21st century teens acknowledging that they look at flowers.  

You have likely noticed that this great pause we are taking tears down some of the walls that prevent us from sharing that kind of vulnerability.  Teachers unabashedly confess their love of their classes and their chagrin at being torn unexpectedly from their students.  Students express what they miss about school, and the strange new discoveries they are making in confinement, pulling out old crates of Legos, watching backyard birds.  

The poem "Cherry blossoms" by Toi Derricotte, is about pausing to take notice of flowers.  It is also about togetherness, and the common bonds we enjoy during warmer seasons and our shared interactions with beauty.  While our shared interactions may be on hold right now, our common bonds are not, beauty is not.  

The first and last stanzas of the poem seems to resonate more than ever right now: our desire to "mingle our breath" and our simultaneous need to be "patient" with social distancing. The crux of the poem creates tableaux of the kind of moments we are craving to return to again.  

There is no special assignment to go along with this poem.  If you use a poem of the day with your class, it is important to have days where there is no writing, no analysis, no wisdom nugget you specifically hope to impart.  Just enjoy the poem. Share it.  Marvel at it's beauty, it's relevance, it's heart. 

And for the fascinating story behind "the friendship of the cherry trees" in Washington D.C. see the National Park Department's page here.  

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past ten years. He is the creator of the Go Poems blog and the author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Writing in All Genres.   Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2020 Post #24 -- A Diamond-Shaped Puzzle

by John Waite

Layli Long Soldier’s “Obligations 2” comes from her first full-length collection, 2017’s Whereas. It is an amazing poem that will challenge students on a couple levels. While the language is very simple, the structure is a puzzle with many answers. I can imagine students engaging with this poem both in terms of its content and its form. Possible discussion questions include:

1. What is the subject of this poem?

2. What is Soldier’s attitude toward grief?

3. How different are the different readings based on how you choose to progress through the poem? Is it possible for them to be contradictory?

4. Why would an author give the reader so much freedom in how to read a poem?

5. Since each reader can have a different experience, can the poem really be said to mean anything for certain?

6. What choices does Soldier make for the reader, and why?

7. How does Soldier’s choice of verbs help create complexity?

8. How does repetition function in the poem?

9. What word might you replace the word “grief” with?

Another possible exercise would be to have students try to create a similar poem, though possibly shorter.

Further Reading:

John Waite an English teacher at Downers Grove High School in Illinois.

2020 Post #4 -- Beautiful Words and A Call to Write

by Molly Rickert

This activity is used to discuss word choice and tone. It can also be used as a warm-up to get students to write…anything…to begin class.

I read the poem "Drum Dream Girl" by Margarita Engle aloud to students and ask students to make a list of the beautiful words and phrases they hear. When we finish reading, we discuss the main idea of the poem: Who is Drum Dream Girl? How would you describe her and why?

Then, we compile a class list of our beautiful words. We notice the use of verbs and discuss how the use of verbs carries the main idea of the poem and the tone of the poem.

Students then respond to the poem. They are encouraged to respond in any way they would like (stream of consciousness, poem, narrative, etc.) I give them a few writing ideas/options:

• Choose a line and write about it in any way. 
• Create a poem about something you are passionate about, using the collected words and phrases where possible.
• Write about a time you were told you were told you couldn’t do something but persevered.
• Write about a dream you have and what you would do to accomplish this dream.

Further Reading:

Molly Rickert is a seventh grade English teacher in Bucks County. Follow her on Twitter @mrickertCB

2019 Post #30 -- The Poetry of Prose

by Travis Crowder

One of the beautiful things about poetry is that is touches all other genres. Poetry dwells within prose, both fiction and nonfiction, sometimes subtle and other times striking, but always trying to nudge us past the ostensible. Authors use poetic language to move their writing and to help us see the world through their eyes. Words, the molecules of ideas, envelope us, nudging us to think deeply about their function. Sometimes they seem to rest in the palm of an open hand, inviting us to use and to lean on them, to pull them into our own way of writing and speaking. This part of author’s craft is majestic, and I love introducing students to how authors use words to convey meaning.

Just a few days ago, conversations about author’s craft centered around the use of short sentences in prose. I mentioned to students how powerful short sentences could be, but like many things in reading and writing, showing works better than telling. During independent reading, I asked them to collect short sentences (usually 1-4 words) form their books on sticky notes. I came to class with my own collection of short sentences from my book, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, pictured here:





Under the document camera, I began arranging the sentences into the form of a poem, paying attention to the meanings of lines, of how fractured sentences could be fused into new ones, of how meaning changes when lines are extracted from context and blended with something else. As I arranged the sentences, I thought aloud, telling students that adding or removing words from the original sentences was acceptable.

After a few minutes of crafting in front of them, I invited them to do the same. Students worked for about ten minutes with the sentences from their independent reading. During this time, I asked them to mold them into the shape and feel of a poem, read it aloud to themselves, then revise their original poem by swapping lines, interspersing their own lines of original thought, isolating words on a single line to draw attention to them, and so on.

After collecting short sentences from Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow, Levi wrote:

I am alone.

In the house.

I let them pull me in.

Deep down.

Black as night.

Nothing in my mind.

I turn it off.

I stare at the computer.

Years goes by.

But I am not.

....... died.

In my mind.

I feel free.

But in my heart.

I am gone

The arrangement of sentences—filled with haunting lyricism—mesmerized me and his other readers.

Brittany, while reading Flawed by Cecilia Ahern, found this poem of sentences:

A light goes on for me.

I have people.

My hearing is this afternoon.

She makes a face.

I smile at her in thanks.

And then we are inside.

He tips his hat.

¨Do you agree?¨

I silently fume, then think hard.

¨Absolutely.¨

The room erupts.

I jump up.

I pass out.

The blend of dialogue gives her poem a different edge. Characters’ names were in the original version, but I encouraged her to remove them so the reader could create the voices and names. 

Finally, students shared their poems with a classmate and posted it on a class Padlet. I also shared mine.

Grief was different.

an ocean of dark

I could not read.

I had resisted,

but soon said yes,

and felt the rush

of numbing waves.

Grief has no distance

until the morning,

when streams of light

streak the sky.

Stretching Their Thinking

Creativity exploded with this activity. I wanted students to deepen their awareness of the utility of short sentences while also appreciating author’s craft. After students posted their poems on the Padlet, I gave them time to read their classmates’ poems, identifying the one they were drawn to the most. Inside their notebooks, they copied the poem and wrote their why: What caused them to choose this poem? What word or line stands out the most to them? How does this poem make you feel? Time was provided to share poems that resonated and to celebrate their craft.
I asked students to tell me how their thinking had changed about short sentences. They answered, “We had no idea short sentences could be so powerful.”

And now, they have beautiful poems and a method of reflection that they can return to again and again.

Further Reading:

Travis Crowder is a 7th grade ELA teacher in Hiddenite, NC, teaching ten years in both middle and high school settings. His main goal is to inspire a passion for reading and writing in students. You can follow his work on Twitter (@teachermantrav) and his blog: www.teachermantrav.com/blog.

2019 Post #5 -- Snow Day Revolution

by Brett Vogelsinger

If you live in a region that gets the occasional snow day, you know how exciting they can be for students and teachers alike. Snow days offer an unexpected period of found time, the opportunity to slow down, push back a deadline, and catch your breath.

Billy Collins' poem "Snow Day" captures how it feels to be a "willing prisoner" to the snow. I love to share this poem with my students when we return from a snow day.  After our first reading, I ask students to keep an eye on something during our second read.

Collins mentions "a revolution of snow" in his poem.  Where do we see the language of revolution threaded through this poem?  How does he subtly build on this idea elsewhere with his imagery and diction?  Like tracking animal footprints into the woods, students enjoy the challenge of following the words that suggest revolution: white flag, government buildings smothered, anarchic cause, a riot afoot, a queen about to fall.

I should mention here that Billy Collins' exceptional Poetry 180 project advocates sharing poetry without much commentary or analysis at all, and this poem is ideal to share in that way as well.  It is the perfect invitation back to school after the welcome but unexpected interruption of a snowstorm.  And everyone loves that list of nursery school names at the end!


Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past six years and is the creator of the Go Poems blog to share poetry reading and writing ideas with teachers around the world. Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2018 Poem #21 -- Comfort Food

by Brett Vogelsinger

Everybody has their favorite comfort food. An omelette with bacon, macaroni and cheese, wonton soup, chocolate cake with vanilla icing, and a full box of Triscuits -- these are a few of my personal favorites.  

In the poem "Everybody Made Soups," poet Lisa Coffman takes an artistic eye to a favorite winter comfort food, and since winter does  not seem to want to let go of us here in Pennsylvania this year, it seems strangely apropos right now.  After a first read of the poem, I ask students to answer a single question.  What words or phrases do you find here that are most surprising to find in a poem about soup?


Everybody Made Soups
by Lisa Coffman

After it all, the events of the holidays,
the dinner tables passing like great ships,
everybody made soups for a while.
Cooked and cooked until the broth kept
the story of the onion, the weeping meat.
It was over, the year was spent, the new one
had yet to make its demands on us,
each day lay in the dark like a folded letter.
Then out of it all we made one final thing
out of the bounty that had not always filled us,
out of the ruined cathedral carcass of the turkey,
the limp celery chopped back into plenty,
the fish head, the spine. Out of the rejected,
the passed over, never the object of love.
It was as if all the pageantry had been for this:
the quiet after, the simmered light,
the soothing shapes our mouths made as we tasted.

Words and phrases like "great ships," "the story of the onion," "weeping," "cathedral," and "pageantry" consistently surprise my students.  We often end up discussing the fun choice of ending the poem with the image of "the soothing shapes our mouths made as we tasted."  I even ask them to pantomime what it looks like to eat a spoonful of soup. 

A follow-up question can help us go deeper and inspire writing: Why does the writer use words that seem almost too profound or intense for the topic?  How does this help strengthen the poem? 

For five minutes, students can write in their notebooks about a favorite comfort food, perhaps even using language that is a bit over-the-top to intensify the effect on readers.  Writing with them in my notebook under the document camera, I might zoom in on the "lava flows" when I slice open my omelette or capture the feeling of "base jumping" off the "cliff" of a three-layered chocolate cake slice.  These subtle hyperboles can make the mundane become extraordinary, and often that is the ambition of a poem in the first place. 

Further Reading: 

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past ten years. He is the creator of the Go Poems blog and the author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Writing in All Genres.   Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2018 Poem #17 -- Save Favorite Words

by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

I collect words.  And I keep lists of these collections in my notebooks. When I listen to people speak, read books, or think, I pause to consider the sounds and meanings of lovable and interesting words.  Just this week I've been enchanted by Albuquerque and resonant.  Last week I fell in love with seagull and periwinkle.  

We are changed when we pay attention to words, and while collecting words focuses our attention on language-music, word collections also offer writing ideas. 

Begin a list of favorite words in your own notebook.  Think about words you loved as a little child, words that call up fabric names and kitchen words.  Consider nature words or magical words.  Write these down. 

A sample favorite word list with connections.

Once you have a list, consider connecting pairs of words in surprising ways by drawing random lines between them.  If you desire, share your list with friends or colleagues, each of you saving each other's favorite words as you wish. Or simply choose one word, place it atop a page, and write from it.  You may find that the lines you have drawn will invite a curious connection that brings you somewhere new, as I did in the poem "Word Collection." 

"Word Collection" by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Allow yourself to be surprised.

Collect words always.  Words are the bricks of writing. 

I am grateful to Rebecca Kai Dotlich for teaching me to make and share my favorite word lists as she learned from Myra Cohn Livingston.  Pass it on.  Pass it on. 

Buy Amy's book Read! Read! Read! here

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is author of books including FOREST HAS A SONG, EVERY DAY BIRDS, READ! READ! READ!, DREAMING OF YOU, WITH MY HANDS, and POEMS ARE TEACHERS.  Amy lives in Holland, NY with her family, blogs for young writers at The Poem Farm and Sharing Our Notebooks and posts on Twitter and Instagram as @amylvpoemfarm. 

Enter our giveaway to win a free copy of Amy's book Read! Read! Read! by leaving a comment on any 2018 Go Poems post by 8:30AM on Saturday, April 6.  Many thanks to Boyds Mills Press for sponsoring this giveaway.  

2018 Poem #8 -- The Power of Poetry

by Travis Crowder

So often, I find that students have a tenuous relationship with poetry. I expose students all year to poems, showing them how to unpack, create, and write about the things that are meaningful to them, the things that interest them. Most often, I find that students will grapple with more difficult poems if they have been given the opportunity to write their own.

Writing their own poetry, though, requires patience and guidance, especially if you work with reluctant readers and writers. I find that many students love writing in non-traditional formats, especially concrete poetry. I introduce nontraditional poetry early in the year, and as the year progresses, I give students chances to write poems that break traditional forms. I love using Allan Wolf’s writing as a starting point because he is an accessible poet, but he also deconstructs traditional forms to engage readers.  

I ask students to jot down these questions…

1. What do I see?
2. What do I hear?
3. What do I feel?
4. What do I smell?
5. What do I think?

...and begin adding their thinking.

Afterward, I display "Don't Be Afraid" by Allan Wolf. It is a segment from Immersed in Verse, a beautiful book of lyricism that invites any writer into the world of writing poetry.

Image taken from Allan Wolf's website, linked above. 

For a few minutes, we discuss how Wolf modifies font size, style, and spacing to match topics and ideas within his poems. Students are always mesmerized by the variations in style and are eager to create their own.

So I let them. And they use the things they saw, heard, felt, smelled, and thought as the foundation for their poems.   

I give them time to play with language, with style, with spacing, and with imagery, much like the poem from Allan Wolf. It is here that students begin to understand purpose, tone, and how poetry can push us past the ostensible. Give them a chance to create. And be prepared to stand in awe of their creations, such as the examples below:

Further Reading:

Travis Crowder is a 7th grade ELA teacher in Hiddenite, NC, teaching ten years in both middle and high school settings. His main goal is to inspire a passion for reading and writing in students. You can follow his work on Twitter (@teachermantrav) and his blog: www.teachermantrav.com/blog.

2018 Poem #7 -- A Poem as a Word Bank

by Brett Vogelsinger

Some student writers struggle to access their full vocabulary while in the frenzy of a first draft or the more attentive work of revision.  Since poems are filled with strong diction and fresh uses for familiar words, a poem can actually be sourced as a bank full of powerful language.

The poem "The Last Movie" by Rachel Hadas is more than just a poem about a movie.  It is poem about coping with impending loss.  After a first read, of this piece, it is vital to ask students, "In addition to a movie, what else is this poem about?" before trying to mine the language from these powerful stanzas.  

Recently, before watching the trial scene from the black-and-white movie To Kill a Mockingbird, I asked students to choose one actor to study closely so that they could write a review of that actor's performance.  We had already read "The Last Movie" at the start of class, but after watching the scene, I invited students to find five words in this poem that they might use in writing their review.  The resulting reviews contained lines like "Mr. Ewell's look was opaque as he realized . . . that Atticus was doing a great job," or "Rather than spewing fury against Mayella Ewell or Bob Ewell, Peck continues to be the person who brings reason to the trial."  Students put the words to work to create an authoritative voice in their reviews.

Of course this principle has far broader application.  Before a draft day for an argument piece or a lit analysis, read a poem that is particularly rich in its diction, the"chocolate mousse" of word choice, and have students find just a few words to create a word bank.  These should not be mandatory to use in a draft, but the challenge of using a seemingly unrelated but interesting word often opens doors to more vibrant sentences.

P. S. Thanks to Bryce and Rebecca for letting me use their writing samples in this piece.

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He is the faculty adviser for the school literary magazine, Sevenatenine.  Besides his annual blogging adventure on this site, he has published work on Nerdy Book Club, The New York Times Learning Network, and Edutopia and you can follow him on Twitter (@theVogelman).

2018 Poem #1- What's It All About?

by Brett Vogelsinger

Some poems are so simple and beautiful that overthinking them, as English teachers are prone to do, can risk losing the potent, raw effect of the words.

I first discovered Nikki Giovanni's poem "Quilts" in her illustrated children's book I Am Loved.  I was next to my sons, reading them the book at bedtime, when the poem suddenly seized me, choked me up, sent chills down my spine.

To allow students to have this experience with poetry, it is sometimes necessary to minimize our intervention and discussion of the poems.  We must also unabashedly share our own unexpected emotional responses to a poem.  For me, it was the closing lines that move me the most:

        When I am frayed and strained and drizzled at the end
         Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
         That I might keep some child warm

        And some old person with no one else to talk to
        Will hear my whispers

        And cuddle
        near.

So when I share this poem with students, I tell them it is new to me, and the first time I read it, it almost made me cry in front of my sons.  I do not try to explain why this happened, just share that it happened, and that I hope they find a poem like this in their lives at some point, maybe even in the course of our class.

After hearing the poem twice, read aloud the first time by me and the second time by one of my students, I asked the class only one question: "What's this poem about?"

This simple but excellent question about poetry invites divergent thinking early in the class period.  In this case, students brought up that the poem is about aging, usefulness, love, timelessness, change, and comfort.  The question avoids killing the poem with over-analysis, and the student observations are varied.

Try this with "Quilts," or with a poem of your own choosing that speaks to your heart.

And welcome to our second year of Go Poems.  I hope you find some intriguing ideas for reading daily poetry in your classroom.

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past ten years. He is the creator of the Go Poems blog and the author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Writing in All Genres.   Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.