Poetry at Work Day!
Today is Poetry at Work Day, celebrated on the second Tuesday in January. It is a simple invitation to notice the rhythm in our everyday work, and to let a little language bring more creativity, engagement, and ease into the day.
At Writing with Design, we want to use today to honor the people doing the real work of writing growth: WwD teachers, and the students they coach day after day. You are the ones building stamina, naming the moves, revisiting the draft, and keeping expectations high while still making writing feel doable. You are the ones turning “I don’t know what to say” into “Watch what I can do.”
In that spirit, here are two poems from Amber Parks, Director of Writing with Design, written for you—because we see the hard work behind the progress. We see the planning, the modeling, the feedback, the re-teaching, the celebrating, and the quiet moments when a student realizes, “I can.”
As you read, see if you recognize your classroom in the lines—the nods from teachers, the ah-ha’s from students, the clarity gained, and the creativity unleashed.
Then, take the Poetry at Work Day challenge: write a poem or two about your work today, your students this year, or what writing looks and sounds like in your classroom. It can be funny, heartfelt, or wonderfully ordinary. Share it with a colleague, read it to your students, post it for your class, or keep it as a snapshot of the year you are building together.
If you want to share yours with us, we would love to see it in the comments.
The Quiet Magic of Model Lessons
Model lessons are a quiet kind of magic—
not glitter, not noise,
but the subtle, almost-silent click
of teaching and learning aligning.
A marker cap snaps.
A page whispers as it turns.
A pencil skitters, then pauses.
A keyboard ticks—tick, tick—like careful footsteps.
A teacher leans in and breathes,
“Oh. That’s what she meant.”
There are the nods—small, steady,
the kind that say,
I can do this tomorrow.
I can do this with my kids.
I can do this without reinventing the wheel
in my home office at 10:47 p.m.
There are the smiles—small, stretching,
the kind that say,
I am a writer.
I am a wordsmith.
I am a student who doesn’t dread writing,
or fill a paper with fluff.
There are the ah-ha moments—soft, but bright—
a hum under the lesson,
a hush that turns into,
“So that’s how you add the why.”
“So that’s where the evidence goes.”
“So that’s how you make it sound like me
and still make it strong.”
Clarity arrives first—
like someone turns a dimmer up, not on—
and the room was there all along:
structure, purpose,
a path through the draft
that doesn’t feel like a maze.
Then creativity—
not the wild, untethered kind,
but the confident kind,
the kind that shows up
after the moves are named,
after the tools are set within reach,
after writing stops being a mystery
and becomes a craft you can hear:
the scratch, the tap, the soft erase,
the steady return to the sentence.
In the middle of it all,
a classroom, a school family—
thinking, reading, planning, creating, revising—
a little differently, quietly, together.
And when the lesson ends,
the sounds linger:
the last page settling,
the final click of a cap,
the low murmur of,
“I get it.”
We did not merely cover writing today.
We built it—
one small sound at a time.
Think to Write and Write to Think
We think to write, to bring the blur to light,
to pin a drifting meaning to the page;
A half-formed thought turns steadier in sight,
as sentences give order, shape, and gauge.
We write to think, to test what we assume,
to see where logic buckles, then repair;
A claim, once inked, can make a little room
for better questions, cleaner truth, and care.
The pencil is a ladder for the mind,
each rung a phrase that helps us climb and see;
We do not find our meaning predesigned—
we build it, word by word, deliberately.
So let the draft be messy, brave, and true:
Thinking grows because it passes through.
Focus on the process, practiced through:
for thinking grows as writing does, too.
