Your assignment
After the Last Bell
Write a free-verse poem about a familiar place when most people have left. Use concrete sensory details and make at least two deliberate choices about line breaks. Let an image carry the feeling instead of naming the feeling for us. You do not need a rhyme scheme. After feedback, revise the poem and be ready to explain one choice you kept and one you changed.
Your instructions guide the feedback. A scoring rubric is optional.
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View the classroom and test optionsLeila Ortiz’s writing
After the last bell
the lockers keep their mouths shut.
One basketball
keeps answering itself
behind the gym doors.
Mr. Torres steers his yellow bucket
around the trophy case.
A wet wheel draws a line
through our reflected faces.
Outside, headlights pause.
I lift my bag.
The ball bounces
once more.
A Coach question
Illustrative Coach feedback
Read the last four lines aloud. What does the pause before the final bounce let your reader hear?