MANCHESTER, N.H.- What started out as a simple class project in a seventh grade literacy class has turned into a School of the Year honor for Southside Middle School from the Boston Children’s Poetry Organization.
Gail Lewis, a literacy teacher at Southside, taught a poetry unit with her seventh-grade students last year which encouraged students to share their stories, explore their creativity, and discover the power of their own words.
Lewis introduced the project using a poem from Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming. After reading and discussing Woodson’s work, students were challenged to create original poems using five criteria modeled on the author’s writing. The assignment gave students a clear structure while allowing them complete freedom to choose their subjects.
“I don’t care what you write about,” Lewis told her students. “They could write about a favorite pair of sneakers, a holiday, a family tradition, or something deeply personal.”
While the assignment was designed to be approachable, the results exceeded Lewis’s expectations.
Some students chose to explore meaningful and emotional experiences, writing about family responsibilities, relationships, personal challenges, and the moments that have shaped their lives. Others took a lighter approach.
Lewis was particularly moved by the honesty and vulnerability students brought to their work. She had taught many of these students in fifth grade and welcomed the opportunity to get to know them in a new way as seventh graders.
“The fact that they’re willing to be that vulnerable is huge,” Lewis said.
Recognizing the significance of the students’ work, Lewis sought their permission to submit their poems to writing competitions, including the Boston Children’s Poetry Organization. Rather than recognizing a single student, the organization named Southside Middle School its School of the Year.
For Lewis, that recognition was especially meaningful. She believed so many of the poems deserved recognition that choosing just one would have been difficult. The schoolwide honor allowed the students’ collective creativity and effort to be celebrated.
The poetry project reflects Lewis’s broader philosophy of teaching literacy: students are more likely to become confident readers and writers when they have choices and are encouraged to explore their own interests. One of the methods she uses is what she calls “quick writes.” Students receive a picture or prompt and are invited to write whatever story comes to mind. They work in a single draft, without the pressure of repeated revisions or perfect spelling.
Lewis wants students to focus first on getting their ideas onto the page.
“I’d rather you spell ‘magnificent’ wrong than good right,” she tells her students, encouraging them to keep writing rather than interrupting their ideas to worry about mechanics.
The approach has helped students who once resisted writing begin to enjoy it. Lewis has even had students take their work out to recess so they can finish.
“You’re not gonna get better if you don’t read. You’re not gonna get better if you don’t write,” Lewis said. “But you've got to find reading and writing they’ll enjoy.”