Since this August marked my 13th year teaching, I think I’ve finally learned how to approach teaching: I don’t stress. My cooperating teacher gave me sound advice: “If you are doing more work than the kids, something is wrong.” This year it made sense. I did not suffer from the usual anxiety of sleepless nights, migraines, and the dread of worrying about what sorts of kids will be entering in and out of my classroom. I just knew that this year would be better. And so far, it has been.

For my juniors, after a few days of some introductory activities and class builders, I introduced them to our first unit with the first text we would be studying, Mawi Asgedom’s Of Beetles and Angels. When I started teaching this new curriculum a few years ago, I came across his “IDIOT” poem. Naturally, I had to assign my students to compose a similar poem of taking a negative word, applying it to themselves with a positive association.  Above is the board of poems I received. Below are the ones that I thought were well written by teens who took a risk to put themselves out there for their peers to see with the hopes of changing their reputations.