friday poetry · line breaks · poetry · tcrwp

Stumbling into a first grade classroom

Stacey Shubitz

poetry-friday.jpg
I stumbled into a colleague’s classroom on Tuesday and found a chart posted about line breaks. It included a poem by Zoe Ryder White, whose work I was unfamiliar with. (I’m a bit embarrassed by this since she’s from NYC and has done lots of work with the TCRWP. I’m surprised I haven’t been to a Calendar Day with her, but it is what it is.) Here’s the poem I read on this first grade classroom’s Writing Workshop Wall. I simply love the way the line breaks turned an ordinary sentence into something profound.

Ceiling by Zoe Ryder White

The Ceiling
Is the sky
For the classroom.

Poetry Friday is being hosted at Farm School.

Published by Stacey Shubitz

I am a literacy consultant who focuses on writing workshop. I've been working with K-6 teachers and students since 2009. Prior to that, I was a fourth and fifth-grade teacher in New York City and Rhode Island. I'm the author of Craft Moves (Stenhouse Publishers, 2016) and the co-author of Jump Into Writing (Zaner-Bloser, 2021), Welcome to Writing Workshop (Stenhouse Publishers, 2019), and Day By Day (Stenhouse, 2010). I live in Central Pennsylvania with my husband and children. In my free time, I enjoy swimming, doing Pilates, cooking, baking, making ice cream, and reading novels.

7 thoughts on “Stumbling into a first grade classroom”

  1. I teach 4th grade and I am using this poem in conjunction with Calkin’s Poetry: Powerful thoughts in Tiny Packages. Students will find an artifact in the classroom or outside at the park and begin to write about ordinary objects as poets.

    Thanks!

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  2. I am so happy to hear that people are using this little poem! I am working on a book now, so there will be more poems out there in the world soon.

    Like

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