In This Issue

National Poetry Month
Deadlines
Resources
Workshops

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

T&W’s Elevator Poems: A Citywide
Celebration of National Poetry Month

This April, Teachers & Writers Collaborative is continuing our multi-year partnership with the news and information service Captivate Network to share the work of young poets with elevator riders throughout the New York City area.

Since 2007, T&W and Captivate have celebrated National Poetry Month by featuring student poems written in T&W programs on elevator monitors in high-rise buildings. In a city where elevator trips of well over a minute are not uncommon, the work of young poets is a welcome and often inspiring diversion.

Enjoy the following samples from this year’s Elevator Poems collection, and happy National Poetry Month from all of us at T&W.

“A Beautiful Day”
by Mrs. Sanders’ first-grade class, PS92Q

It’s a smiley, strolling day.
Make sure you bring
your singing heart!

“Mom”
by Martin O., third grade, PS156K

My mom is like a panda
who eats vegetables like celery.
She is like a dark, sad moon,
like music that is smooth.

“I Celebrate Me!”
by Nathaniel S., second grade, PS111M

My nose is like a wolf’s.
My arms are like propellers.
My heart holds playfulness,
a wave going through my body!

“Untitled”
by Christopher H., sixth grade, IS219X

Black sickened earth.
Don’t cut down trees, please.
Polar bears missing.
Dark silent world.

“To La Paz”
by Marc, P721R

Bolivia, when I still danced
and talked to my friends and
I see my favorite color again,
the color of my mother’s eyes.

DEADLINES

Upcoming Deadlines for Writing Awards

Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) is currently accepting submissions for the 2011 Ellen Levine Fund for Writers award, administered by the New York Community Trust. T&W is one of a number of organizations invited to nominate a fiction book for the award, which is given to an author who has previously published (not self-published) a print edition of one or two books of fiction, and who doesn’t currently have a publishing contract for a second or third fiction book. The winner of the Ellen Levine Fund for Writers award receives $7,500.

Submissions to be considered for nomination by T&W should include contact information for the author (mailing address, e-mail address, and phone number(s)), a brief bio of the author listing the one or two works of fiction already published, an outline of the book, and 75-80 pages of the manuscript. Submissions should be mailed or hand-delivered to:

Amy Swauger
Teachers & Writers Collaborative
520 Eighth Ave., Ste. 2020
New York, NY 10018

Submissions will not be accepted via e-mail or fax. Incomplete submissions will not be reviewed.

The deadline for submitting work to T&W is 5:00 PM (Eastern), Monday, May 2, 2011. Please send questions regarding the 2011 Ellen Levine Fund for Writers award to aswauger@twc.org, or call 212-691-6590.

Entries for the 2011 Bechtel Prize must be received by 5:00 PM (Eastern), Thursday, June 30, 2011. T&W awards the Bechtel Prize annually in recognition of an outstanding essay on literary arts education. For complete submission guidelines for the Bechtel Prize, please go to www.twc.org/publications/bechtel-prize.

RESOURCES

New Resources on twc.org!

•Matthew Sharpe explores journal writing techniques using urban nature as a starting point. The end product is a book of their writing that acts as a guide to New York City, told from their perspective.
•Gary Lenhart explores the writing of W.C. Williams, and the human experience on its own terms.
•Kenneth Koch discusses various kinds of repetition and “poetry language” (line division, meter, non-metrical poetry, rhyme, stanzas and poetic forms.

Check out these and more on the Best Practices and Resources page of our website!

WORKSHOPS

T&W Workshops Use Poetry to Kick Start Prose

Last month, in fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms at PS 132 in the Bronx, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s description of Paul Revere’s ride echoed once again:

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night.

Led by T&W writer Jane LeCroy, students at PS 132 gave an energetic reading of “Paul Revere’s Ride” before beginning their own poetic exploration of rhythm and rhyme, alliteration and assonance, and image and hyperbole.

LeCroy is one of five T&W writers teaching at PS 132 this spring as part of a program reaching all third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders at the school. T&W writers at PS 132 have been guided by the school’s goal to help students develop motivation and skills in writing while developing a personal voice-in other words, to use the spark of language to fly “fearless and fleet!”

Only a few blocks north of PS 132, T&W writer Sarah Porter used poetry earlier this year to help fifth-graders at KAPPA (IS 215) think creatively and critically about the nature of memory. The following is excerpted from a poem by Jasmine R., one of Porter’s students:

“Memory Is”

a fog deep in your heart
that hides in little corners,
a washing machine
that cleans dirt off your clothes.

Another student, Aboudramane D., compared the challenge of piecing together the past to following a trail of bread crumbs: “Memory is crumbs of bread / floating around in my head.” Porter’s approach-asking students to write metaphors about memory-is similar to other T&W approaches including writing poems about “Poetry,” or about characters with names like Jealousy, Hope, Love, and Sadness.

In addition to practicing metaphor and personification in these exercises, students engage in higher-level thinking about abstract concepts. In Porter’s workshops at IS 215, students progressed from writing poems about Memory to writing actual memoirs, more aware of the vagaries of memory and how it sometimes can be used to “clean dirt off your clothes.”

With the release of the national Common Core Standards, T&W is receiving more requests from schools seeking help with informational writing and personal narrative. Recently, we met with teachers frustrated by the challenge of teaching the rules of the compare-and-contrast essay while also giving students room to develop personal voice within that form. As we celebrate National Poetry Month, T&W writers can help both teachers and students understand the value of poetry and other forms of imaginative writing as a starting place for writing even informational text.

Creativity can often serve as a shortcut to deeper learning. Students who have made metaphor of Memory are better prepared to write about their own memories in both a personal and critical manner. Similarly, students who have considered what Poetry as a character might want and do in a real-world setting are better prepared to analyze Longfellow’s poem and to understand the potential of language as “A cry of defiance, and not of fear, / A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, / And a word that shall echo for evermore!”

To learn more about T&W writing programs for students and teachers, please visit www.twc.org/workshops or contact T&W at workshops@twc.org or 212-691-6590.