Writers, teachers, teacher educators, people-who-say-they’re-not-poets-but-just-might-be (essentially, everyone)! I know it feels too soon for April and National Poetry Month, but I am looking forward to springtime in great anticipation of living in the universe with and through verse. During the month of April, I will …
Our seventh grade class began the final quarter of our year together with a closer look at rhetoric, specifically how a speaker earns the audience’s attention and trust (ethos), how a speaker moves an audience to feel (pathos), and how the speaker persuades and teaches the audience with jargon, facts, examples in the hopes that those who listen will consider the issue in a new way or be moved to act (logos).
“So the speaker is saying that she wishes her mother would have left her courage behind instead of her brooch. Can you relate this poem to another poem or story?” says Jonathan. “Yes, Andy*?” “This reminds me of a movie, Guardians of the Galaxy.” “What …
I am a resistor of the “countdown,” as in counting down the days until the end of school. I am anxious as nearly 600 other educators to dive into Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher’s 180 Days and get the story for my next novel that is …
Congratulations! Inspiration: We have shared this virtual space for 30 days — 30 days of words, phrases, images, and lines borrowed from lives lived and imagined. Today, we’d like to encourage you to select a day from our 30 days on ethicalela.com and reread …
Inspiration: What is your ultimate goal in your life? Geesh, this is a big, deep question to which you may not be ready to respond, but imagine for a minute or two what you would like people to say about you years from now. How …
Inspiration: What was your greatest struggle? How did you overcome it, and how has it changed you for the better? Form: Try to write your poem in couplets today. A couplet is a poem made up of two-line stanzas with the final word of each …
Inspiration (and a challenge from Jackson):Sympathetic Joy is the feeling which arises when you are able to be proud of other people’s accomplishments. We rejoice that in the good fortune of others. In this way we overcome resentment, envy, and jealousy and even find inspiration …
Inspiration: What’s the best gift you’ve ever given or received — whether tangible (an object new or passed on to your) or intangible (advice, love, guidance, support)? Why was this the “best”? A poem that tells a story is a narrative poem. Can you tell …
Inspiration: We’ve had a lot of free verse this month (free to rhyme or not, free to break lines as you wish or need, free to stanza or not), but how does the structure of a quatrain impact our expression, intention, and meaning? Try a …