Published Writing — Writing and Resources

Poetry Belongs in the Classroom. Now more than ever

Karen’s Essay/Commentary from Cogniscenti/WBUR: “We owe teenagers company in their uncertainty, including the companionship of poets whose inclination to question and observe the human condition mirrors their own. We owe them time spent with language in its highest form, especially now.”

Photo: (Gabrielle Lurie/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Essays, Published WritingKaren HarrisJune 8, 2021teaching poetry, cogniscenti/WBUR

We All Want Schools To Reopen Fully. That Doesn't Mean They Should (for Cogniscenti/WBUR)

An essay I wrote for WBUR/Cogniscenti about schools reopening in the fall. Published July 10, 2020.

Image: (In Jin-hyun/News via AP)

Essays, Published WritingKaren HarrisJuly 24, 2020schools, reopening, cogniscenti, wbur, covid, high schoolsComment

Echolocation (published 5/23/2020 in Pangyrus Magazine)

The couple who lived on the farm a half-mile away came to check on us; they’d heard our screams and raced over. The scene of them pulling up the gravel driveway in their pickup truck made me think of an article I’d recently read about how dolphins and bats use echolocation to send signals to one another, sometimes over vast distances.

Essays, Published WritingKaren HarrisJune 25, 2020birds, moving, Canobie Lake Park, Vermont, nesting, no more running

Using Thinking Inventories with Students to Ensure Deep Inquiry in the Classroom

Asking students a series of essential questions at the start of a course signals that deep engagement is a requirement. (Published on Edutopia)

Curriculum: Exploring Our Values through Poetry (Client: Unitarian Universalist Association)

A curriculum I wrote for the Unitarian Universalist Association’s robust youth education program. (2004). The challenge was to create workshops that were communal, hands-on, project-based, grounded in the values of the UUA, user-friendly, and didn’t feel “like school.”