The author describes the use of one-word poetry and traveling scrawled walls as forms of community-engaged public writing that can help urban young adolescents express their lived experiences. Teachers can engage in critical-multicultural questioning and simple content analysis of these student-generated texts to hear what students have to say about their social realities and then use this knowledge to transform the mainstream-centric structure of curricular guidelines, materials, and teaching styles. The instructional activities described in the article were conducted as part of a district-wide poetry writing initiative using the writings of Luis J. Rodriguez, a noted urban poet, author, artist, and community activist. (Contains 4 figures.)