I can’t wait to start the new cohort of #TeacherPoets tomorrow(!).
For tomorrow’s assignment and details on how to view and interact with us live, please visit, and considering subscribing to our The Educator Collaborative Community Blog. Updates will be posted there over the next three weeks.
Here is the direct link to the first #TeacherPoets assignment post.
Happy writing!
#TeacherPoets is a free, online community/course/experience/cheering-crowd-of-enthusiasm that is joining together for four weeks this month to write, reflect and rejuvenate.
We meet in a live-streaming, creative writing workshop over Saturdays in April. Anyone tuning in can interact using #TeacherPoets on twitter and by visiting our Google+ Page.
Should you apply? YES!
Really? YES!
I loved working with the 2014 cohort, and it feels like we’re all family! I’m looking forward to working with you this year!
Archived Session from the 2014 #TeacherPoets Cohort
Hi TeacherPoets.
Thank you from the very bottoms of my feet up through the top of my head for joining in this fun four weeks of reading, writing, and rejuvenating. Selfishly, you gave me an excuse to write poetry for a whole month, to laugh, be moved to near tears, and in general marvel at what an amazing community of educators we have.
A huge thanks to our live on-air poets:
Betsy, Michelle, Laurie, Markette, Audra, Crista, and Margaret (and from afar, Jason, who needed to attend to family). Your generosity of time, risk taking, and collaboration means so much. Plus, you’re pretty great writers to boot!
And a tip of the hat to my friends at Booksource who are donating books of poetry to this great group of educators in thanks to them for giving up Saturday mornings to write together. Booksource has also put together these lists of poetry books (Elementary, Middle, and High School) to support you in filling your classrooms with poetry.
Thanks as well to all of you who have joined our online Community Page or tweeted live, along with us, each week. Your energy and contributions were felt for miles, they certainly reached me.
The magic of the internet means all four episodes of the live series are available, in a full Youtube playlist, for viewing anytime (up to nearly 600 views!).
It’s a Poetry DVR:
For our last week we moved from little to big. Instead of aiming to simply retell an experience or explain a feeling, we talked about really taking on an intellectual project – giving ourselves our own writing assignment to attempt to put to paper a larger concept. Through this we also talked about the essential need in revision to “let go” of a first draft and pick up a whole new one.
Mentor poems:
We then workshopped original poems from our final two TeacherPoets, Laurie and Audra.
Thanks again for these fun four weeks. And thanks for all you do for children and for one another.
Chris
Hi TeacherPoets.
This series has been such fun–uplifting, inspiring, and just great to steal some time from busy schedules to write. It is also shocking how quickly time flies! It feels like it was just moments ago when our first session was starting online, now we’re already in our fourth and final week together!
If you have missed any of the series or care to catch up, you’ll find the full video playlist here (our sessions have been viewed almost 500 times to date):
During this past Saturday’s session we talked about specificity and zooming in, but this time looked at how poets often string together these little moments to tell a larger story or share a bigger idea. I showed how we can study mentor poems by drawing boxes around moments–to see where their pieces are. Then shared a draft of a poem piecing together different puzzle pieces (in my case: my daughter chewing the noses off her toys when she was little as one piece and Geppetto and Pinocchio as the other piece).
We read:
We also workshopped three more original poems from the TeacherPoets live group and through that experience touched on a few more tips for ourselves: don’t shy away from telling more of the “who” (our readers seemed to really want to know that each week), and consider how you control time or give more clues about time shifts (another comment that often has come up).
For our last week we’ll go even larger. Instead of aiming to simply retell an experience or explain a feeling, we will talk about really taking on an intellectual project – giving ourselves our own writing assignment to attempt to put to paper a larger concept: “I want to try and represent…” or “I have been thinking a lot about…”.
Mentor poems:
Workshopping This Week:
This Saturday we have our final two TeacherPoet’s original poems! Please download each of these, write all over them, and be ready to share your comments live on Saturday. These poems are in draft form and ready for your input:
Comments can be given live on Saturday via twitter using our hashtag #TeacherPoets.
Kinda like Fight Club: don’t talk about the TeacherPoet poems outside of TeacherPoet workshop. Wait until Saturday to share your feedback!
Here is the direct link to Session Three’s live streaming session on 5/3 from 11-noon EST. All you need is an internet connection to view:
Thanks for all you do! Happy writing!
Hi TeacherPoets.
Thanks for another great Saturday session! The highlight for me was Betsy and Michelle sharing their poems with us, and the caring, thoughtful responses from all of you. It was inspirational to have we, educators, come together over a love of writing. Thanks for that gift.
I want to make sure I mention the great contributions many of you are also making to our TeacherPoets community page. Links to original poems, published poets, even whole conversations are popping up even in comments you are leaving each other.
If you haven’t looked around recently, I highly suggest getting lost in there for awhile (shout outs to many of you, including Jennifer’s supportive comments, Catherine and Fran’s recent revisions they both posted, Sheri’s holy-cow-you-took-notes-as-poems(!!), and Kevin’s always-coolness in combining great writing and awesome tools).
Everyone is welcome, no prior poetry writing experience necessary to join in the fun.
During the second Saturday session we talked about specificity again, this time in descriptions of things. We looked at how evocative poems can actually be quite literal in the way they detail objects. It is the micro-details, the specific ways of calling our attention to bits of these things, that brings them to life. So often the poet’s gift to us is helping us notice details we may too often overlook.
The archive of our first and second live Hangout on Air is here (the videos have already been viewed more than 300 times!):
As I mentioned at the start, we also workshopped two original poem from TeacherPoets. What I love about these conversations is that we not only help to improve one poem, we also learn more about how readers receive our written words. It’s a process of helping others while also helping ourselves grow as writers. Betsy and Michelle were our brave first time sharers, and the community – including those of you on twitter – did a terrific job with specific, caring feedback. It was an awesome experience.
A Writing Invitation:
Mentor poems to read:
Workshopping This Week:
This Saturday we have a three more TeacherPoet’s original poems! Please download each of these, write all over them, and be ready to share your comments live on Saturday. These poems are in draft form and ready for your input:
Comments can be given live on Saturday via twitter using our hashtag #TeacherPoets.
Kinda like Fight Club: don’t talk about the TeacherPoet poems outside of TeacherPoet workshop. Wait until Saturday to share your feedback!
Here is the direct link to Session Three’s live streaming session on 4/26 from 11-noon EST. All you need is an internet connection to view:
See you Saturday! Happy writing!
Hi TeacherPoets.
Saturday was a lot of fun! Every moment of our conversation, the tweets coming in, most of all the passion and joy of everyone participating. Thanks for helping me rise up out of the blues of March into this great new spring. It was much needed inspiration for me and I hope for you, too.
During this first session we talked about the power of condensing time and emotion into manageable bites. That taking on huge emotions (joy, fear) or giant topics (love, death) can be not only an overwhelming task as a writer, but can also lead to writing that is too broad. Finding the smaller the pieces – almost like finding focus in a research topic – helps our writing become more specific. The more specific our writing the more universal the feelings and ideas really can become.
The archive of our first live Hangout on Air is here:
During this Saturday’s session we will talk about specificity again, this time in descriptions of things. How deeply evocative poems can actually be quite literal in their descriptions. It is the micro-details, the specific ways of calling our attention to bits of these objects, that brings them to life.
So often the poet’s gift to us is helping us notice details we may too often overlook.
A Writing Invitation:
Mentor poems to read:
Workshopping This Week:
Last week we practiced “workshopping” Dorianne Laux’s On the Back Porch (if you missed it, check out the video to see how).
Starting this Saturday, we will workshop 2-3 of our TeacherPoet’s original poems each week! Please download each of these poems, write all over them, and be ready to share your comments. These poems are in draft form and ready for your input:
Comments can be given live on Saturday via twitter using our hashtag #TeacherPoets.
Kinda like Fight Club: don’t talk about the TeacherPoet poems outside of TeacherPoet workshop.
While you may want to strike up a conversation with any of our poets, it is best to wait until we’re all in the safe, sharing space together and collecting feedback as a group. So keep good notes, but wait to share them until we’re live again on Saturday.
Here is the direct link to Session Two’s live streaming session on 4/19 from 11-noon EST. All you need is an internet connection to view:
I’m so grateful to be a part of this amazing profession with all of you. Happy writing!
Here’s a quick post to first just thank all of the Live teachers poets and the ton of you viewing online and tweeting along with us. If you could have seen the screen that I saw, it was a rush of tweets and Google Q&A comments.
This experience was the caffeine I needed. I’m leaving today’s session feeling joyful and energized, my hope is that we collectively gave that give to you as well. Thanks all.
Here is the archived video of our first session.
Feel free to share the video with your TeacherPoet friends. Then, join us live (or recorded) the next three Saturdays from 11-noon EST.
Until then, join our Google+ TeacherPoets Community to share with fellow educators.
Also, on Wednesdays the new “Assignment” will officially post. I shared this upcoming week’s assignments at the end of our session (see the video), but the official post is Wednesday when the EXCITING addition will be the original work of a few of our TeacherPoets, which you can read and prepare to “workshop” on Saturday along with us.
Thanks for all you do, all you give, and all you believe in. Happy Writing!
Christopher Lehman 