Blog Archives

Closing Out our Poetry Unit

1/26/2020

In our ninth grade English classes, our poetry unit is coming to a close. We've read, analyzed, and written a wide variety of poems, and this week, we're working on some very BIG things.

On Tuesday during our 1st and 4th hours, we'll be hosting a Poetry Cafe. We've invited past students and staff members to come in and share their spoken word poetry. Then, our ninth grade students will take the mic (yup, we'll have a mic and a make-shift stage) to share their original poems. We are also lucky enough to be able to give away some awesome swag from our local poetry group, The Diatribe.

On Wednesday, we'll be talking about publication. Students will have an opportunity to contribute to our own literary magazine, but also submit their work out to some local and national publication spaces. We'll be hearing from published GHS poet, senior Daniel Lamboy about his recently published book and learn how he became a published author!

Finally on Thursday, January 30, we'll be publishing our final polished poems to our online portfolios and celebrating the close of our unit.

We've written everything from free verse poems to ovillejos, from haikus and blackout poems, from sonnets to limericks. We're excited to share all that we have crafted this month.

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What's Happening in 9th grade?

1/10/2020

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Hopefully your new year is off to a wonderful start. I wanted to take a moment to update you about our upcoming units of study in our 9th grade Composition through Literature course and share with you where you can find some of the resources to stay connected with our class.

We have just kicked off our Poetry unit this past week. Our class will be reading, analyzing, and writing of a variety poems. Free verse and blank verse, blackout poems and haiku, odes and sonnets - we'll be using a variety of formats as mentors for our own creations. We will have an opportunity to hear from poets coming into our class to share spoken word poems and talk with us about publication. Students will have an opportunity to publish their poems on their online portfolios as well as submit their work for publication outside of our school if they are interested.

Our poetry unit will lead into our study of the epic poem of The Odyssey. We'll be discussing the hero's journey and making connections between our reading of this classic tale with our reading of modern hero's stories like The Hobbit, Percy Jackson, Star Wars, and the Hunger Games.

Finally, we will wrap up our semester studying the American classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Not only will we analyze the characters of this story, but we'll discuss if this book should still be considered relevant today. How does this novel hold up in today's world?

We would love to invite you to read along with us! You can find our daily agendas posted on our the "Class Links" tab of this website. If you have an interest in reading along with us, discussing these texts with us either virtually or in person, we would love for you to join us! We'll be utilizing some online discussion spaces this semester that will open up opportunities to connect with other readers, and we'd love to include you! More information will be posted on this class website throughout the semester.

Our new year is off to a great start, and we're looking forward to connecting with you soon!

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Author

Ms. Jen Ward

An interest in helping young people discover and define their writing voice and reading interests drives Ms. Jennifer Ward to cultivate a student-centered learning environment, one that supports individual learning goals and incorporates purposeful use of technology. In March 2017, Ms. Ward was named teacher of the month by Michigan's 86th district state representative, Thomas Albert. In March 2016, she was named a TED-Ed Innovative Educator and is also a Google Certified Innovator, National Writing Project Consultant, and a 2014 PASCD Emerging Leader. Ms. Ward taught for 13 years in a Philadelphia suburban district and returned to her home state in 2015. In 2017, she joined the Grandville High School bulldogs!

And when not in front of a class or a computer, Jen is either in front of her sewing machine or has a glue gun in hand, ready to craft whatever her two little boys can imagine. You'll also find her blogging over at jenniferward.org.