Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
—Robert Frost
Last year I had a student who had such anxiety about being called on to speak in class that a 504 plan was in place to ensure that all of her teachers were aware of it before she entered class. At the start of the year, I partnered Alice with a trusted friend for turn-and-talks or put her in groups of three that included a trusted friend. I spoke privately with her about her ideas about texts we read and asked her if I could share her thoughts when we shared as a whole class so her voice was heard.
The year progressed, and we moved to a poetry unit where we learned about how authors use figurative language to help us see the world they project in their writing. We had a guest educator come and work with students on the techniques used by spoken-word poets. And then came the time when students were asked to perform a poem of their choice at a “coffeehouse” reading. Students could choose to perform a cover or an original piece of their own. Recognizing that students like Alice would not want to perform, we created other roles for the coffeehouse, like graffiti artists who would decorate the room and announcers who would introduce the performers.
We used a Google Form for sign-ups, and to my surprise, Alice signed up to perform a cover of “Point B” by Sarah Kay (a personal favorite of mine) with a friend. I hid my surprise and had a conversation with Alice, thinking I might discover that she’d hit the wrong button when she was signing up or felt pressure from the friend and needed a tactful way to decline. It turns out it was not a mistake. Alice wanted to perform that poem.
The day of the coffeehouse she got up with her friend and performed in front of her peers, speaking in front of the whole class for the first time that year.
It was April.
After our coffeehouse performance, she went on to perform at the next board of education meeting and then at a local dock in front of about 100 members of our community.
Alice’s mom approached me at some point after these performances and thanked me. The feelings she felt from seeing her daughter have the courage to speak in front of an audience and to speak words about the relationship between mother and daughter were overwhelming. I felt enormous pride in Alice, but it wasn’t my place to take credit. Sarah Kay’s words spoke to Alice. There was something about the feeling the poem evoked for her or the message it sent that made Alice overcome her fear of speaking in public. It was powerful.
Poems are powerful. They highlight the power of words and push our feelings to the surface that we weren’t sure were there.
There’s no need to wait until April to share the poems we need right now. Here are some poems that I plan to share at the start of the school year:
A Poem to Share with Your Colleagues
“Who Will Clean Out the Desks”—a crowdsourced poem compiled by Kwame Alexander
Kwame Alexander compiled this crowdsourced poem from submissions from NPR listeners about teachers who affected their lives. I first heard this poem recited while I was driving, and was tempted to pull over right away to try to find it so I could listen again. I felt like Kwame was speaking right to me. It made me feel seen, and it expressed the emotions I was feeling in a way that I couldn’t find the words for. I felt such an urge to share it with the teachers I work with that as soon as I got to school that day, I copied it and sent it in an email with the subject line “This is something you need to hear right now.” I say the same thing to you. When we return to school, I plan to share it again in our first PLC.
A Poem to Share About the Power of Words and Reading
“An American Love Poem” by Kwame Alexander
This poem by Kwame Alexander opens discussion about the practice of banning books that has become more common in recent years. In our seventh-grade classrooms, it’s a fitting conversation before we read The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis, set in Afghanistan, since book banning is a major theme in the book and one of our hopes is that students will think deeply about what it is about books that causes people to want to ban them. It is perfect for the start of the year, when we want students’ minds open to the power of words to change your life.
A Poem to Share to Build Community
In this poem from the anthology Counting Descent, Clint Smith starts with a seemingly small, benign anecdote about a childhood job and uses it to make a deeper revelation about himself. When shared with middle schoolers, it encourages them to think about the “somethings” that they’d like to share and the experiences they have that teach them about themselves. In our first few weeks of school, sharing poems that encourage sharing little things about ourselves helps to build community and trust in our classrooms. It also opens opportunities to talk about metaphors that extend beyond a line, titles that are part of the writing, and line breaks. As an aside, another book that I’ve loved by Clint Smith is How the Word Is Passed, a powerful tour of landmarks that tell the history of slavery in our country.
A Poem to Share with Parents at Back-to-School Night
“Scaffolding” by Seamus Heaney
This poem by Irish poet Seamus Heaney provides a metaphor for many things in life. I first discovered this poem when my husband recited it as part of his best-man speech for his brother’s wedding. I’ve recently used it to think about the way we provide scaffolding for our students to support them as they learn new skills, and then how important it is to remove the scaffolding as they grow, so they don’t become overly reliant on those scaffolds.
As a middle-school teacher, I see how hard it can be for parents to give more independence to their middle schoolers for their learning life. In my back-to-school night presentation, I tell parents I expect students to email or come see me after they’ve been out or before they know they will be out. I ask them to let their child be the one to ask about grades they are confused about or disagree with. And I lean on this poem again, hoping it will reassure them that as their child becomes more independent, it’s okay to let them go, because they have a strong wall built as the scaffolding comes down. I know because I’ve been there with one of my own children, and truth be told, it’s still something I struggle with.
