Back to School: Rewriting The Beatles’ “Help!”
Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?
What Would Poetry Think About Prose?
Imagine that Poetry and Prose meet for the first time at a party? What would they say to each other? How would they feel? In this video, I guide kids through the process of writing a script in which these two forms of writing interact.
Holiday Writing: Packing Crates
Students will look closely at this old image and write a short, structured poem.
Remixing A Holiday Poem
Let’s take a classic Christmas poem and remix it to work with another holiday!
Lipogram: Rewrite “Twinkle, Twinkle”
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Writing About Art: Chōshi in Shimosha
Get your students writing some pretty darn impressive poetry based on Japan’s most famous artist.
Writing About Art: The Scream
Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.
Studying and Remixing “The Raven”
Ready to push kids beyond the boring, old ABAB rhyme scheme and into something a bit more complex?
Writing About Art: Impression, Sunrise
Students will create a surprisingly good poem based on Monet’s Impression, Sunrise.
Writing Haiku in Primary
Your youngest students will learn to write Japanese Haiku poetry.
Jabberwocky and Context Clues
Context clues lessons can be a disaster. Here, we expose students to a delightful classic packed with nonsense words (“Jabberwocky”) and ask them to decipher the meanings and parts of speech. Then, it’s only natural for students to write their own nonsense poems.
Looking Closely at Holiday Photos
Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!
Writing About Art: Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons
Students will create a pretty darn interesting poem about Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons.
Writing Summaries in Haiku
Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.
Writing About Art: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog
Students will look closely at a piece of art and then write a structured poem about it.
Order, Chaos, and the Holiday Season
Let’s write a holiday song about order and chaos!
Writing Seuss Style Poetry
Sure, Dr. Seuss wrote for young students, but can older students analyze his writing and learn to mimic his style? THEN, they can produce Seuss-style poetry about any topic: Ancient China, the electromagnetic spectrum, Pride and Prejudice, and (yes) fraction division!
Writing About Art: Twilight in the Wilderness
Students will write about a beautiful painting from Frederic Edwin Church.
Lipogram: Rewrite “Mary Had A Little Lamb”
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?