For the past few years, educators from across the country have been coming together to write. What we have learned so far is that having a regular place to come to for ideas and audience is perhaps the most important aspect of nurturing a writing life (and, of course, to actually write something).

Writers seem to know where to go for inspiration — nature, art, photographs, books, poetry, authors, memory. But when a writer is faced with an empty page or a flashing cursor, a writer’s mind can go blank and, along with it, any sense of hope that the words will come.

Indeed, sometimes what a writer needs the most is another writer — for their inspiration, for their process, for their mentor text. And so, Ethical ELA offers teachers and socially-distanced students a collection of writers to keep writing lives loved during this time away from our classrooms.

The 141+ ways offered here are merely suggestions — not rules. In a writer’s world, a suggestion is an invitation to play with the idea, stretch into new ways of seeing the word and the world (Freire), express dormant emotions or silenced perspectives, and even disrupt standardized words, syntax, and form by inventing new words, fracturing expectations, and inventing forms. Sometimes rejecting a suggestion is just that sense of power a writer needs to tackle the waiting cursor.

You are welcome to write in this space, but you may wish to create your own — a technological oldie like a notebook will do just fine, but a Google classroom discussion or Google Site, Flipgrid read aloud, Kidblog, or even Instagram hashtag will work to offer the place and audience you and your students need to keep the writing love alive.

141+ Ways

  1. Haiku
  2. Origin Stories
  3. Giving Voice
  4. Synethesia & Color
  5. Aural Textures
  6. Epistolary
  7. 20 Questions
  8. What have you lost?
  9. Apology Poem
  10. What I want is…
  11. Dramatic Monologue
  12. Wonder Women
  13. Hot Lines
  14. Abuelito Who
  15. Call of Words
  16. Skinny Poem
  17. Bop Poem
  18. Echo Sonnet
  19. Fibonacci Poem
  20. Golden Shovel
  21. Nonet
  22. Quatrain
  23. Ritual
  24. Struggling Couplets
  25. Artwork
  26. Story of One Syllables
  27. Writing Down the Bones (Goldberg)
  28. Imaginative Play
  29. Senior Year
  30. Rule of Thirds
  31. Salute to Latinx Authors
  32. Spine Poem
  33. Día de los Muertos
  34. Inspired by an Artist
  35. Honor a Leader
  36. Ode
  37. Blackjack Poem
  38. Lists
  39. A Three-Element Poem
  40. Childhood, Where I’m From
  41. Travel Tanka
  42. #HashtagPoems
  43. I Remember
  44. Storytime
  45. Mashed Potato Bar Poems
  46. Artifact
  47. Old Clothes
  48. Photograph
  49. Two Sides of a Coin
  50. An Imaginary Mrs.
  51. Summer Tanka…And 30 more from #verselove19, a celebration of poetry for National Poetry Month:
  52. Patched Poems
  53. Finding Your Voice
  54. Family
  55. Celestial Bodies
  56. Lyrics of Your Life
  57. Memories
  58. News in Verse
  59. Historical Figures
  60. Spine Poetry
  61. Choices
  62. Music
  63. Timeless and Timely
  64. Lazy Sonnet, Fourteen Words
  65. Transliteration
  66. Pantoum
  67. Patterning Poetry
  68. Games & Sports
  69. Break-Up Poem
  70. Things We Carry
  71. A Space of Meaning
  72. Emotional Memory
  73. In My Closet, On the Top Shelf (Alexander)
  74. Reacting, Responding to Image
  75. #booklove
  76. Intertextuality
  77. Place-Based Poem
  78. Advice to…
  79. Sarah Kaye says, “Make a list.”
  80. My Best Part
  81. What is good?
  82. April 1, Credo
  83. April 2, Blitz
  84. April 3, Etheree
  85. April 4, Hairs
  86. April 5, Lyrics
  87. April 6, Object
  88. April 7, Ekphrastic
  89. April 8, Monologue
  90. April 9, Glimmers
  91. April 10, Golden Shovel
  92. April 11, Real Life Ballads
  93. April 12, Where I’m From
  94. April 13, Dreams
  95. April 14, Mirror and Juxtaposing
  96. April 15, Analogy Acrostics
  97. April 16, Having a Coke With You
  98. April 17, Lines for the Fortune Cookie
  99. April 18, Both Sides, Now
  100. April 19, Snap-Shot
  101. April 20, Setting in Ten Lines
  102. April 21, Earth and Ovillejo
  103. April 22, At Fifteen
  104. April 23, Observations
  105. April 24, Significant Numbers
  106. April 25, List of Firsts
  107. April 26, Reasons Why and Responses To
  108. April 27, Brother
  109. April 28, The Morning After
  110. April 29, A Day in a List
  111. April 30, What Remains to Be Said
  112. May, I Remember,
  113. Duplex,
  114. The Way I Felt,
  115. Turn From,
  116. Right Words at the Right Time
  117. June, Lists,
  118. Small Fictions,
  119. Memory Poem,
  120. Marcher or Leaper,
  121. Writing with Melanie Crowder
  122. July, Rondeau,
  123. Ode,
  124. Ghazal,
  125. Monotetra,
  126. Praise Poem
  127. August, Indelible Moments,
  128. A Container,
  129. Your Weather,
  130. The “Re” in Relationships,
  131. Moment of Change
  132. September, Decisions,
  133. Ego and Homage,
  134. News and New,
  135. Magic-9,
  136. Tasting a Memory
  137. October, Ways of Looking,
  138. Tritina,
  139. Take a Word for a Walk,
  140. Allusion,
  141. Bodies in Motion

A look into one writing process from Dr. Donovan:

Some suggestions for comment on writing: Commenting with Care
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments