We welcome educators to use the resources on our PWN website with your students.
Teach This Piece
Our online young adult literary magazine, Bridge Ink, comprises voices from all over the world. We invite you to use pieces from this publication to inspire your students to discover and refine their authentic voices.
We begin many of our writing workshops with a “Poem of the Day” quick read, to set the tone for the class. We read the poem to the students and invite them to just listen to the words. (Our favorite resource is poets.org!)
"what if... it's okay... to wish" by the 7th & 8th grade AVID students at Red Bank Middle School
what if … it’s okay … to wish
by the 7th & 8th grade AVID students at Red Bank Middle School
What if this pandemic never happened?
(We all wish it didn’t)
What if we do whatever comes up in our minds?
What if we just do what we love?
What if there was no earth?
What if there was no tomorrow?
What if we left all our second thoughts?
What if people listened?
What if we could all just be kind?
What if we had a balanced life?
It’s okay to have fears
It’s okay if you are different
It’s okay to be yourself
It’s okay to own yourself
It’s okay to be who you are
Accept yourself
Because no matter who is in your life
Only your opinion matters
People you meet might not continue your journey with you
But every person is there for a reason
Some may be for a lesson
Others for a blessing
My wish is to treat this place we live in right
So we can live in peace
My wish is to finish one piece
Why is it that when the story ends we begin to feel all of it?
Let me hold on for a bit longer
Red Bank, New Jersey
VISION: getting our thoughts down
VOICE: generative writing
VEHICLE: hashtag prompts via write-a-thon
POEM OF THE DAY: “Manifesto of the Lyric Selfie” by Becca Klaver
PREP: Write each prompt (listed below) on a separate piece of paper.
After reading the poem of the day, have students open a notebook. Tell them that today we are going to do some quick writing with new prompts every 5 minutes.
If you are doing this in a classroom, you can arrange your students into four groups. Place two of the hashtag prompts that go together in each group. Then set the timer for 5 minutes (you are welcome to extend that time). After the timer goes off, move the prompts to the next group and repeat.
At the end of the write-a-thon, invite students to share their work aloud. After sharing, have students identify one line they’d like to include in a collective poem. Using their lines, arrange them into one large collaborative work. (Try to include all of the students’ writing as is, but feel free to edit for clarity.)
Virtual Modification: Put two prompts at a time in the Zoom chat or Google Classroom. At the end of the session, invite students to share their work aloud. Then have them identify one line to share in the chat. Arrange their lines into one large collaborative work.
#itsok
#whatif
#mywish
#mywishfortheworld
#lettinggo
#holdon
#iam
#iwillbe