Welcome to our NCTE Session, “Poetry is Not a Luxury” and the pre-write for our monthly Open Write. If you have written with us before, welcome back. If you are joining us for the first time, you are in the kind, capable hands of today’s …
A Pleasure of Poems
This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that …
Academic Anagrams
This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that …
Last Lines
This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that …
Considering Writing in the Constellation of One’s Life
Celebrating Shifts in Priorities By Dixie K. Keyes When I was ten, I wrote a poetry collection with the title of “Me, Myself, and I.” My mother, for some reason, became quite excited about this and hired our next-door neighbor, an ambitious author, Mrs. Self …
Reading a Good Poem with Care
We often tell students that poetry can change the way we see the world. I’m not sure a poem saves the world. But I do believe the person who reads a poem might be changed. And I believe that change depends, in large part, on …
A New Year of Beginning Again
A new year invites us to look forward—but here, it also asks us to notice what has endured. Ethical ELA enters this year shaped by teachers and teacher educators who continue to show up, quietly and faithfully, to read, write, and respond. Over time, participation …
Teaching the Day After… Again, and Again
by Sarah M. Fleming In 2021, when I first wrote a post for this blog, I was reflecting upon the experience of teaching in the English Language Arts classroom one day after the January 6th Insurrection. I imagine you can clearly remember what school was …
I Am From: The Holiday Version
This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We are here every month. The next Open Write is January 17-19, 2026. Our Host Gayle lives in a small town near the …
My Heart: Haiku
This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that …
Picture This: Ekphrastic Poem
This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that …