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Teacher Spotlight: Jessica Briggs of Charette!

 

        I am a first year teacher at Charette High School in downtown Providence, RI. I teach 9th and 10th grade English. What has always driven me as an educator is the power of stories -- not just the ones we read, but also the ones we have inside of us, waiting to be shared and told.

The project I'd like to feature is called "Poetry & the People," which introduces our ninth graders to poetry - they learn to analyze poems for tone, word choice, imagery, style, and theme, and then apply that knowledge to their own work. We've just started the process of writing our own poems and while many are hesitant, the great thing about this project is that by the end, students really begin seeing themselves as writers -- not just students who write. The last part of the project has them "perform" or present a poem of their own to the class.

One of my favorite quotes to share with students when we start this project is from Anne Carson: “If prose is a house, poetry is a man on fire running quite fast through it.” This project is an introduction to recognizing the fire that exists within each of them, and how writing out that fire can be empowering, relaxing, and healing. Poetry captures the intensity of the emotions, beauty, and difficulties we all experience in our everyday lives in a way that prose and other forms of writing do not. The goal is not just for students to write poems for the sake of writing poems, but to write a poem for themselves; the poem is whatever the student needs it to be for them in that moment. By approaching the project this way, students recognize the power their voices have, for themselves and in their communities.


Below you'll see featured work from Ms. Brigg's students! 

They're incredibly talented and we hope you enjoy.



-Savonn, 9th Grade


Florida i’m here on vacation

it’s hot and sometimes chilly oh

how much i miss my home in

providence and my father

being back in the cold

  • Soria, 9th grade


The blue eyes of my mother

the blue sheets on my bed

the beautiful blue sky i see every day

the color that represents sadness

the blue moon that shines every night

the blue raindrops that drop on my head

  • “Blue” by Jamaree, 9th grade


Te escribo porque eres lo que pienso, te pienso porque eres lo que extrano y te extrano porque eres lo que quiero

  • Elianny, 9th grade


It surpasses the color of our skin

Its a issue with the way we live

It can’t change in a blink of an eye

We cant begin tommrow we might as well start now

Crazy ups and down like rollarcoaster

So ima hold it down like a soldier

The man above is the one I cherish with all my love

  • Alexa, 9th grade


I was born on the hot summer day of the 12th of June

I come from Hispanic parents from Dominican Republic and Guatemala

I enjoy to sit back and listen to the melodies of the rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie

I would enjoy to have a pair of Yeezy 700’s in a 9

I could imagine driving around in a black and red Lamborghini Urus with the engine roaring

I step on the field and play my game of soccer relieving all of my problems

I crave the taste of sour candies while playing my PlayStation

I would want to be an athlete when I grow up

I wish to go to college and get a scholarship to reach my goal of an athlete

I walked the halls of Nathanael Greene Middle School

I go home everyday and play with my black lab

I would love to visit to New York and Florida as I enjoy every single trip I take to these places

  • “Ronaldo” by Ronaldo, 9th grade

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