2022 Post #3 -- Enough Ballrooms In You

 by Elizabeth Oosterheert

Culturally, we seem to find shipwrecks fascinating, whether the wreckage is actual or figurative.
Laura Lamb Brown Lavoie’s haunting poem “Titanic,” beautifully read by Sarah Kay, invites us to consider both–and not only to contemplate wreckage, but resilience.

There are myriad ways to invite students into this work and use it as a mentor for writing our own memorable poetry. Following are a few ways to dive into the waves with students and “swim” in a shimmering sea of words:

• Share this brief video about the decay of Titanic’s wreckage. This gives students a good frame of reference for the descriptions in Lavoie’s poem of elements like Titanic’s stalactite beard, and it also illustrates the loneliness that lingers around the ship’s remains more than a century after her demise.
• Provide students with a hard copy of the poem, and invite them to listen to this beautiful narration of “Titanic” by Sarah Kay, found on poetryfoundation.org and Ours Poetica.
• Discuss craft moves such as the use of sound devices, lists, and the development of dialogue between the narrator and Titanic, and what students notice about this unusual conversation. I created this hyperdoc for my students to enrich our discussion.
• This poem could serve as a bridge to other poems featuring conversations involving inanimate objects, such as Sarah Kay’s “Poem from a Toothbrush to a Bicycle Tire,” and a next step could be inviting students to try writing their own conversation poems. Encourage them to use some of the same powerful craft moves that they noticed in Lavoie’s poem. Interestingly, conversation poems also appear in Kwame Alexander’s beloved Newbery novel in verse, The Crossover.

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of “Titanic” is Lavoie’s reminder and charge to all of us to take the risk of being gouged open by love in a world that often feels sinister and isolating. In emptying ourselves sacrificially for the good of someone else, we become stronger.


Further Reading:



Elizabeth Oosterheert is a middle school language and theatre arts teacher in Central Iowa. Like the Titanic, she believes that sometimes, we have to sail into icebergs with courage and grace. You can find her on Twitter @oosterheerte, or on stage with her 8th Grade Theatre Troupe.

2022 Post #1 -- The Magic of Ordinary Moments

by Allison Marchetti

Two years ago, I suggested the poem “The Return” by Jonathan Greene, for helping our students think about the grounding and comforting nature of rituals in times of upheaval.

This year, I offer “Abundance,” which contains a similar invitation. In this poem, Amy Schmidt argues that simple, everyday acts can evaporate loneliness and lead us to discover the bounty in our lives. I just can’t get enough of poems that zoom in on the magic of daily routines and ordinary moments. Plus, Schmidt dedicates this poem to Mary Oliver, one of my most cherished poets.

Here’s what working with this poem in your classroom might look like:


1. Read the poem out loud.

2. Discuss what you notice about the poem. Here are a few things that might come up, or that you might draw their attention to:

• The title is an abstract noun, followed by a concrete description.
• The poem consists of five very short sentences.
• The poem is directed at a “you” and contains commands (scrape, look).
• In one short sentence the poem illuminates how the simple act of zesting an orange can lead to noticing abundance: “Scrape…and the whole room fills…”
• "S" sounds
• Use of colon and fragments (“Always have”)

3. Then, encourage students to share everyday acts that could illuminate the big feelings we have. Could brushing our teeth somehow remind us to laugh? Wiping down the countertops bring a moment of clarity? How could some of the mundane acts of our lives inspire happiness, lightness, togetherness, courage – any number of positive feelings?

4. Finally, invite your students to write beside this poem, perhaps borrowing the frame:


It’s impossible to be ______________

when…


Look around: you

____________________________



You just didn’t notice

until now.




Further Reading: 

Allison Marchetti is co-author with Rebekah O’Dell of WRITING WITH MENTORS, BEYOND LITERARY ANALYSIS, and A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO MENTOR TEXTS (Heineman). She is the co-founder of Moving Writers, a blog for secondary writing teachers. She lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia.