Matthew Gallant, an English teacher at Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow, New Hampshire, wrote to us just before the new year with a story of how he struggled to get his students to do something constructive during the two days before Christmas break. Classes had been cancelled for more than a week due to power outages caused by a massive snow storm that had blown through the region.
"Since my classes had either just finished books before the storm, or had already been assigned work due after the official holiday break, I had two days to fill, using only my creativity, a photocopier, and any resources at hand," Gallant wrote. "I had just the day before received my January/February 2009 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and was skimming the Small Press Points column when I happened across the section on Erasure. I had the magazine in my bag, deftly made 105 copies of page 18, passed it out to my students for our classes, read it with them, emphasized the important parts for understanding, and said, 'Go! It'll be collected at the end of the period.'" Below are some of the their erasures.
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Poets
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with the alternating tenderness and rage
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