Carter-Dunne gave us ten minutes to pick a famous poem in our book. “I want everyone to choose a poem you like, then use it as a model to write one of your own. Look at the poem’s style. Think about how it’s written. Let the poem inspire you.” I flipped back and forth through the pages as fast as I could. “This is an in-class assignment, people. I’ll give you time to write, then we’ll read some of them out loud.” Out loud! A.k.a. in front of the whole class! I broke out in a sweat just thinking about it. I flipped some more. First I saw a Russian poem, but it had the word breast. No way was I going to say “breast” in front of a bunch of fifth-grade boys (half the class!). I almost picked a haiku about trees, but nobody gets a good grade for a haiku. It’s only three lines. Olivia picked “We Real Cool” right off the bat. “No fair!”
