supporting reading comprehension and improving the … of the elements generally associated with...

Supporting Reading Comprehension and Improving the Quality of Writing through Poetry

Presented by Georgia Heard

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All rights reserved copyright by Georgia Heard in Awakening the Heart

What Poetry Can Teach Students about Reading

1. Poetry demonstrates rich, precise, imaginative language

2. Poetry’s short, spare and concise format is often more manageable to read

especially for struggling or reluctant readers, and enhances confidence and

reading motivation

3. Poetry can provide a brief and sometimes much-needed break from daily

routines

4. Through poetry students can practice inferential thinking in text that is short

yet filled with meaning

5. Poetry gives voice to children’s feelings about themselves and the world and

helps children make a personal connection to literature

6. Poetry can help make a more relaxed and positive classroom atmosphere

7. Poetry Is a highly effective way to promote fluency

8. Poetry’s range of subject matter is vast and varied and can helps build

children’s interests and create new ones

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FLUENCY

Reading with fluency means that the reader sounds like the way he/shespeaks in a way that reflects solid comprehension of the text.

Fluent Readers Use: Punctuation to enhance phrasing and prosody (end

marks, commas, etc.) Tools like line breaks and stanzas Intonation (pitch – how your voice goes up and down) Emphasis – put stress on certain words based on the

meaning of the text Adjust and apply different reading rates to match text Expression -- read text with a tone and pace that

suggests emotional content

READ ALOUD GUIDE

Learning to read a poem out loud is a way of coming to a full understanding of the poem. --Billy Collins

1. Read a poem several times until you are familiar with the meaning of the poem.

2. Include the title and poet in your reading.

3. Read the poem slowly but in a normal, relaxed tone of voice.

4. Pause for a few seconds between the title and the first line.

5. Give a slight pause after each line-break and a longer pause between stanzas but make sure you speak the words smoothly.

6. Read the poem with expression and decide where your voice should slow down, speed up, whisper, yell, etc.

7. Pay attention to punctuation.

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Climb Inside a Poem: Living with a Poem for One Week

Monday: Introduce the Poem

• Getting to the “heart” of the poem

After reading the poem once, ask students:

1. What they notice

2. What images or memories did the poem evoke?

3. What personal connections did the poem make them think of?

4. To talk with each other about the poem, and how it relates to their lives.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Climb Inside a Poem

Deepen understanding of a poem. Activities include:

1. Illustrating the poem’s imagery to help make the poem’s meaning concrete

and to show the reader any gaps in his or her understanding

2. Performing the poem by turning it into a short play

3. Choral reading the poem

4. Quick Writes: Write off of a line or theme of the poem

5. Talking with a reading partner to grow ideas

Thursday: About the Poet

1. Discuss poet’s key biographical information

2. Read quotes about the poet’s writing process

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3. Gather several poems by the poet and ask students what they recognize

about the poet’s subject matter, style or craft choices: Does the poet always

rhyme? Does the poet always write about the natural world?

Friday: Craft Talk

Discuss craft features:

• Figurative Language

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Imagery

• Sensory words

• Feeling words

• Lines and line breaks

• Stanzas and stanza breaks

• Personification

• Rhythm

• Rhyme

• Meter

• Alliteration

• Repetition

• Punctuation and other conventions

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A Four-Week Reading Unit of Study in Poetry

Week 1: Immersion

• Day 1: Students Read a Variety of Poems and Poetry Books: Explore on a Chart: What Makes a Poem a Poem? What Did You Notice about the Poems You Read? Topic/Craft/What Surprised You?Identifying Favorite Poems and Poets

• Fluency: Perform and Choral Read Poems

Day 2: Reading for Meaning/Personal Connection(You’ll need a good collection of poetry books for this day. Omit Shel and Jack!)

Self-Portrait Anthologies: Teachers model by reading their own self-portrait poem.

o Students read and select one poem that reflects something about themselves or their lives.

o Students copy poem in a notebook and write a reflection on why they chose that poem.

o Students write their own poem inspired by their chosen “self-portrait” poem.

o At a later time, students can collect other “self-portrait” poems that relate to their lives and create an anthology.

o Multi-genre self-portrait anthology. Include excerpts from other genres.

• Day 3+: Reading for Meaning Read a poem and discuss what the heart of the poem is. Think aloud: explore a poem’s meaning; personal and other

connections; craft tools, etc. Students try think aloud with reading partners and interpret a

poem independently.

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Week 2 and 3: Reading like a Writer: What We Notice about Craft Imagery: Students read poems with imagery:

o Select a poem to illustrate. o Highlight words/phrases/lines in a poem that create

mind pictures.o Collect other poems with strong images.o Find imagery in other genres.

Lines and Stanzas: Discuss lines and line-breaks: K & 1 Discuss how poems looks different from stories: tall and thin and shorter lines K & 1 students draw outline around shapes of poems.

o Discuss how and why we read poems differently from a story.

o Read a poem out loud exaggerating pauses after each line. Ask students what they notice.

o Discuss variety of lines: end-stopped and enjambment.

o Stanza means room in Italian: how many rooms does a poem have. Discuss why.

o Discuss a variety of stanzas: couplets; tercets; and quatrains.

Metaphor and Simile: Read poems with similes and metaphors.

o Identify a simile and metaphor in a poem. Discuss the difference.

o Discuss extended metaphors and what makes a good simile.

o Display simile/metaphor poems about everyday objects around the classroom.

Wonderful Words: Ask students to listen as you read a poem with “wonderful” words: vivid; surprising; unusual; or sound words.

o Cloze a poem.o Point out and discuss alliteration and onomatopoeia.o Write “wonderful words” on a chart and post any

wonderful words that students hear or read.o Discuss parts of speech and how they work in

poetry. Repetition: Students read poems with several different

kinds of repetition.

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o Students can highlight the repeating words or lines in a poem.

o Discuss refrain; circular repetition among others. Rhyme: Students read poems with several different kinds of

rhymes. o Students highlight rhyming words.o Discuss internal, off, and end rhyme.o Discuss rhyme scheme.

Personification: Read poems with personification. Discuss what personification means.

Week 4: Poetry Clubs

In small groups students can:

o Interpret a Poem Togethero Write Down the Questions They Would Ask Peers

about the Poemo Act Out a Poemo Choral Read a Poemo Illustrate and Create a Picture Book of a Favorite

Poemo Write Down How a Poem Relates to Their Liveso Highlight Wonderful Words to Include on a

Wonderful Word Charto Write A Poem Inspired By a Poem They’ve Read

Practice Reading their Original Poems for Poetry Celebration

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Like

By Mary Ann Hoberman

I like soda.

I like milk.

I like satin.

I like silk.

I like puppies.

I like kittens.

I like gloves.

And I like mittens.

I like apples.

I like pears.

I like tigers.

I like bears.

I like to slide.

I like to swing.

We don’t agree

On anything!9


I like butter.

I like jam.

I like turkey.

I like ham.

I like rivers.

I like lakes.

I like cookies.

And I like cakes.

I like yellow.

I like blue.

I like pizza.

I like stew.

I like summer.

I like spring.

We don’t agree

On anything!

There’s something else

I like a lot.10


But if I like it,

You will not.

There’s something else

That I like, too.

But you won’t like it

If I do.

Tell me yours

And I’ll tell mine.

I like reading.

Reading’s fine!

You like reading?

Yes, I do.

Why, reading was

What I picked, too!

Well, then, at last

We both agree!

I’ll read to you!

You’ll read to me!

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Visualizing

Strong readers make pictures in their minds to understand the meaning of a poem.

Enchantment -- Joanne Ryder Draw your mind pictures in this space below:

On warm summer nights

the porch becomes our living room

where Mama takes her reading

and Dad I play games

in the patch of brightness

the lamp scatters on the floor.

From the darkness, others come –

small round bodies

clinging to the screens

which separate us

from the yard beyond.

Drawn to our light,

the June bugs watch our games

and listen to our talk till bedtime

when Mama darkens the porch

and breaks the spell

that holds them close to us.

After reading and illustrating the poem I think the heart of the poem is:

_____________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________12


Ducks on a Winter’s Night

Ducks asleep

on the banks of the pond

tuck their bills

into feathery quills,

making their own beds

to keep warm in.-- Georgia Heard

1 2

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Night Story

When the blue page of day

Is turned to night,An alphabet of starsIs printed, small and bright,On dark and ancient-storied skies—

We read the universeWith wondering eyes.--Beverly McLoughland

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Ten Writing Lessons Poetry Can Teach Prose

I went to the school of poetry in order to learn to write prose.Grace Paley

Images writing with picture words – show don’t tell

Metaphor/Simile saying things in a new way

Details descriptive words – focus on the small particulars

Word Awareness unusual, surprising words – concrete words – sounds of words

Trains Your Ear the music of words – what sounds “right”

Pattern/Repetition repeating words and sentences

Beginnings/Endings techniques for opening and closing the door of the writing

Point of View trying on different points of view

Voice the personality behind the words

Re-vision re-seeing -- taking out unnecessary words – adding images – cracking open words and sentences

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PoetryFrom poetry we learn the language of heart and soul, with particular attention paid to rhythm and sound, compression and precision, the power of images, and the appropriate use of figures of speech. And yet it is also the genre that is most playful in its attention to language, where rhyme, pun, and hidden meanings are constant surprises. The identification and analysis of the elements generally associated with poetry – metaphor, simile, personification, and alliteration – have an enormous impact on student reading and writing not only in poetry, but in other genres.

From Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework

1. Sensory Tools/Meaning 2. Musical Tools/Meaning

• Imagery• Figurative Language: Metaphor Simile Personification Symbolism Hyperbole• Word Compression

and Precision• Vivid Verbs• Precise Nouns• Stanzas

• Conventions

• Line Breaks• Rhythm• Rhyme and Rhyme

Scheme• Meter• Repetition• Alliteration• Onomatopoeia• Consonance• Assonance

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Valentine for Ernest Mann--Naomi Shihab NyeYou can’t order a poem like you order a taco.Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”and expect it to be handed back to youon a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.So I’ll tell you a secret instead:poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,they are sleeping. They are the shadowsdrifting across our ceilings the momentbefore we wake up. What we have to dois live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wifetwo skunks for a valentine.He couldn’t understand why she was crying.“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”

And he was serious. He was a serious manwho lived in a serious way. Nothing was uglyjust because the world said so. He really liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them as valentines and they became beautiful.At least, to him. And the poems that had been hidingin the eyes of skunks for centuriescrawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite

and let me know.

Where Do I Find Poetry?

--Georgia Heard

I open my eyes and what do I see?

Poetry spinning all around me!

In small ants trailing over the ground,

bulldozing dry earth into cave and mound.

In a hundred grains of ocean sand,

that I cradle in the palm of my hand.

In a lullaby of April rain,

tapping softly on my windowpane.

In trees dancing on a windy day,

when sky is wrinkled and elephant gray.

Poetry, poetry! Can be found

in, out, and all around.

But take a look inside your heart,

that’s where a poem truly likes to start.

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Poems for K -- 2Compiled by Georgia Heard

Little Bird

Little hurt bird

in my hand

your heart beats

like the pound of the sea

under the warmth

of your soft feathers.

True

When

the green eyes

of a cat

look deep into

you

you know

that

whatever it is

they are saying is true.

--Lilian Moore

Point of View

For little beetles

looking up

the sun is called

a buttercup.

You, whose day it is,

Make it beautiful.

Get out your rainbow colors,

So it will be beautiful.

--Nootka

The dark gray clouds,

the great gray clouds,

the black rolling clouds are elephants

going down to the sea for water.

They draw up the water in their trunks.

They march back again across the sky.

They spray the earth again with the water,

and men say it is raining.

--Natalia M. Belting

Cat Kisses

Sandpaper kisses

On a cheek or chin

That is the way

For a day to begin!

Sandpaper kisses

A cuddle, a purr.

I have an alarm clock

Covered with fur.

--Bobbi Katz18


Poems for Grades 3-5

Perfect Children

We children are sweet.

We children are nice.

We always say “please”

At least once, maybe twice.

Our voices are gentle

Like a beautiful song…

If you think this is true

YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG! --Brod Bagart

The Pencil SharpenerI think there are a hundred bees

Inside the pencil sharpener

and they buzz

and buzz

and buzz

until my point

is sharp!-- Zoe White

Things

Went to the corner

Walked in the store

Bought me some candy

Ain’t got it no more. Ain’t got it no more.

Went to the beach

Played on the shore

Made me a sand house

Ain’t got it no more. Ain’t got it no more.

Went to the kitchen

Lay down on the floor

Made me a poem

Still got it. Still got it. -- Eloise Greenfield

We Are Trees

our roots

connect

with the roots

of other trees

our branches

grow wanting

to reach out

to other branches

Francisco X. Alarcon

Perfect Children

We children are sweet.

We children are nice.

We always say “please”

At least once, maybe twice.

Our voices are gentle

Like a beautiful song…

If you think this is true

YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG!

--Brod Bagart

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Poems for Grades 3-5Dreams

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

--Langston Hughes

Dragonfly

This sky-ballerina,

this glimmering

jewel,

glides in a gown

of lucid blue—

with wings that you

could whisper through.

--Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Lawnmower

The lawnmower

Grinds its teeth

Over the grass,

Spitting out a thick

Green spray;

Its head is too full

Of iron and oil

To know

What it throws

Away:

The lawn’s whole

Crop of chopped,

Soft,

Delicious

Green hay.

--Valerie Worth

New Notebook

Lines

in a new notebook

run, even and fine,

like telephone wires

across a snowy landscape.

With wet, black strokes

the alphabet settles between them,

comfortable as a flock of crows.

--Judith Thurman

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Poems 6-8

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

--Robert Frost

The RiderA boy told meif he roller-skated fast enoughhis loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,the best reason I ever heardfor trying to be a champion.What I wonder tonightpedaling hard down King William Streetis if it translates to bicycles.A victory! To leave your lonelinesspanting behind you on some street cornerwhile you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,pink petals that have never felt loneliness,no matter how slowly they fell.--Naomi Shihab Nye

My People

The night is beautiful,

So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,

So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.

Beautiful, also, are the souls

of my people.

--Langston Hughes

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Poetry Unit OverviewPoetry Unit OverviewPoetry Unit OverviewPoetry Unit OverviewPoetry Unit OverviewInspiration Inspiration Inspiration Inspiration Inspiration

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5reading reading reading reading reading

writing writing writing writing writing

Craft Craft Craft Craft Craft



Craft Craft Craft Revision and Editing

Revision and Editing






Celebration Celebration



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A Suggested Four-Week Poetry Writing Unit of Study Georgia HeardWeek 1: Introduction and Inspiration: Multiple Points of Entry

• Day 1: Introduction: Ask students: What do you know about poetry? What makes a poem different from prose? Do you have a favorite poet or poem? Write down what students say on a chart. Explain that they will be starting a poetry unit of study ending with a publication and celebration.

• Discuss how poets look at the world with “poet’s eyes.” Students will collect seeds for poems in special poetry notebooks during the unit:

• Poets find poems in the ordinary: look around and find poetry in an ordinary object or everyday experience.

• Poets find poems in wonder/questions: write any wonders or questions you may have.

• Poets collect words they love: collect words you love or words you don’t know the meaning of to use in poems.

• Poets write about feelings: write what you’re feeling and what’s making you feel this way.

• Other seeds• Emphasize that poems do not have to rhyme.

Poets tell the truth about their lives and experiences.

• Day 2: Students write original poems from “self-portrait” poems (see Reading Poetry section)

• Day 3: “Where Do I Find Poetry?” by Georgia Heard: students make specific lists in notebooks where they find poetry to keep as a topic list

OR

“Valentine for Earnest Mann” by Naomi Shihab Nye: students make specific lists of where poetry hides to keep as a topic list

• Day 4: Re-read notebook entries and highlight seeds of poems:o Poetic or Memorable languageo Emotional partso Strong images

Show students how to create poems from prose. Students can also create a poem from small moment pieces.

What’s the heart of your small moment piece (heart mapping)? Underline essential images, words, parts that reflect the heart of the piece Take out extra words Strengthen verbs Line-breaks (next week)

• Day 5: Doors of Poetry: Heart; Observation; Concerns about the World; Questions; Memories

• Tape heartmaps in notebooks for poem ideas

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Week 2 and Week 3: Craft Lessons: Students will continue to write original poems and revise poems using specific craft elements (you may have to repeat mini-lessons to reinforce craft lesson)

*Original Poem *Imagery: Students write poems from mind-pictures

o Mini-Lesson --shared writing: Cracking-open: “It was a nice day”

o Homework: Find a poem with an image, sketch the image and save in notebook

Line-Breaks and Stanzas: Students revise line-breaks and stanzas on at least one previously written poem

o Mini-lesson: Place slash marks on poem paragraph as students listen for pauses in voice

o Variety of line-breaks: end-stopped; enjambmento Stanzas: Room in Italian o Extension Stanzas: couplets (2); tercets (3); quatrains

*Metaphor and Simile: Students write poems about Natural World/Ordinary Things

o Mini-Lesson: Ordinary to Poetico Extended metaphorso What makes an effective simile and metaphor

Word Study: Students revise poems focusing on wordso Mini-Lesson: Cloze o Active Verb studyo Noun Studyo Revision: Cutting Out Small and Extra Words

*Repetition: Students write poems inventing own repetition o Mini-lesson: 3 kinds of repetition:

Begin each line with same word(s) Begin and end poem with same line Refrain

*Personification or Mask Poem: Students write a mask poem *Rhyme: Students write poems disguising rhyming words:

o End Rhyme Internal Rhyme Off Rhyme

• Introduce Other “Musical Tools:” Onomatopoeia; Alliteration; Consonance; and Assonance.• Introduce Other Figurative Language: Hyperbole and Symbolism

• Poetic Forms*Study one form per grade:

Haiku; Ode; Found; Rhymed Couplets; Ballad; Sonnet;Sestina; and Villanelle

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Week 4: Revising and Editing: Students pick poems they will publish and practice reading one poem they will read out loud at celebration

Initial mini-lesson will focus on how and why to select poems to publish and read out loud

Mini-lessons will focus on revising poems using:o Deep Reading Strategies

Re-reading with Different Lenses:o Mind Pictures/Re-visiono Heart mappingo Clarity/Focuso Keeping Best Lines/Words

Toolso Line-breaks and stanza breakso Cutting out small, unnecessary words (and, etc.)o Beginnings and endingso Adding imageryo Revisiting the craft tools learned in week 3

Small group work will be coaching students in revising poems and reading works out loud with partners to make sure the writing looks and sounds exactly the way that they intend it to

Editing: Students check their final drafts. Mini-lessons will focus on:

• Remembering conventions that have been taught so far this year.

• Making sure that any breaks with conventions are purposeful.

• Poetry Conventions: caps before each line or not; playing with lower case and upper case fonts.

Publish and Poetry Reading Celebration! If performance is publishing medium, rehearsal time needs to be

added in. Reading Poetry Out Loud: Memorize Poems

o Pause after title o Slight pause after every lineo Pause between stanzaso Voice is smootho Read with feelingo Eye Contact with audience

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Imagery Images bridge the gap between the particular and

the universal, the inner and the outer. -- Clark Strand

•Writers use sensory images to help the reader experience the writing

•Writers use imagery to show details•Writers make a “movie in his or her mind” [so the reader can do the same]

•Writers choose “picture” words that are precise and descriptive so the reader can create a picture in her or his mind

The next day was rainy and dark. Rain fell on the roof of the barn and dripped steadily from the eaves. Rain fell in the barnyard and ran in crooked courses down into the lane where thistles and pigweed grew. Rain spattered against Mr. Zuckerman’s kitchen windows and came gushing out of the downspouts. --Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

He pushed his chair back. It made a hollow scraping sound on the hearthstones, and the dogs stirred. Lottie, small and black, wagged her tail and lifted her head. Nick slept on.I turned the bread dough over the over on the marble slab on the kitchen table.--Sarah, Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan

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from Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Seaby Chris Butterworth (Candlewick Press,2006)

In the warm ocean, among the waving

sea-grass meadows, an eye like a small black bead

is watching the fish dart by.

Who does it belong to?

Sea Horse –

one of the shyest

fish in the sea.

Sea Horse has a head

like a horse,

a tail like a monkey, and

a pouch like a kangaroo.

This one is a Barbour’s sea horse.

He has tiny prickles down his back, like a dragon.

He may not look much like a fish…but that’s what he is.

Sea Horse swims

upright. He moves

himself through

the water with the little

fins on his head and

the larger one

on his back.

He can only

swim slowly,

so if a hungry

snapper cruises by,

looking for a snack,

Sea Horse does

something very

clever:

he holds still and

changes color

(now you see him)

until he’s almost invisible

(now you don’t!).

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Choosing the Best Words

Directions: Fill in the blank spaces with the “best” words you can think of. The “best” words are usually: surprising, imagistic, concise and musical. Then read the original poem and compare your choices with the poet’s.

Oil Slick by Judith Thurman

There, by the curb,a leaky truckhas ________________a grease-pool,

a black, pearlyslickwhich ______________when the sunstrikes it.

I could spend all day____________its flashy colorswith a stick.

Take A Word Like Cat by Karla KuskinTake a word like cat

And build around it;

A fur room over here

A long meow

Floating from the chimney like a smoke tail.

Draw with words.

Balance the little blocks.

Carve word furniture:

A jar of pussy willows,

Catkins, phlox,

Milk in a dish,

Catnip pillows,

A silver bell,

A plaster bird,

An eaten fish.

When everything is perfect in its place

Step back to view the home

That you have built of words around your word.

It is a poem.

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Conferring Questions Let me read your poem back to you – tell me what comes to your mind or what you notice about your poem as you listen.Other questions you might ask:

• Do you see any other pictures or images?

• How does it sound? Any place where you think you could add more or need to change?

• What made you write about ____ today? What were you thinking about?

• Do you think the poem you wrote matches what’s in your heart?

• Close your eyes, what’s the first thing you see in your mind about _____?

• One thing I notice about your poem is ____(compliment).

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Name:________________________________ Date:________________________________

4 = Exceeding Expectations 2 = Approaching Expectations

3 = Meeting Expectations 1 = Area of Concern

Rubric for PoetryInspiration

The writer wrote a meaningful poem that expresses something significant

from the heart ________

Craft

The writer used at least 2 of the following poetic sensory tools: imagery;

metaphor; simile; personification; hyperbole; and

symbolism __________

The writer used at least 1 musical tool such as: rhythm; repetition; alliteration;

consonance; assonance; or rhyme __________

The writer organized with line breaks and stanzas __________

Revising

The writer revised for clarity __________

The writer revised by deleting extra words __________

The writer revised for word choice including strong verbs and vivid language __________

Editing

The writer edited for punctuation __________

The writer edited for spelling __________

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Name:________________________________ Date:________________________________

4 = Exceeding Expectations 2 = Approaching Expectations

3 = Meeting Expectations 1 = Area of Concern

Rubric for Poetry Performance

Stands up straight _______

Makes eye contact _______

Loud enough _______

Expresses feeling and emotion _______

Good pace and rhythm to match poem _______

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Poetry Books for Young Poets

All the Small Poems and Fourteen More by Valerie Worth

Rich Lizard and Balloons and Other Poems by Deborah Chandra

Honey, I Love and In the Land of Words by Eloise Greenfield

I Feel the Same Way and Mural On Second Avenue by Lilian Moore

Creatures of Earth, Sea and Sky and This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort by Georgia Heard

Confetti: Poems for Children by Pat Mora

Lemonade Sun, The Spin of Things and Over in the Pink House by Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Spin a Soft Black Song by Nikki Giovanni

The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury selected by Jack Prelutsky

Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems by Joyce Sidman

Poems to Dream Together by Francisco X. Alarcon

Wake Up, Sleepy Head: Early Morning Poems Mandy Ross

Little Dog Poems and Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems by Kristine O’Connell George

You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Stories to Read Together by Mary Ann Hoberman

Poetry Books For Older PoetsA Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson

A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms edited by Paul Janeczko

A Maze Me; Poems for Girls edited by Naomi Shihab Nye

Walt Whitman: Words for America by Barbara Kerley

ten poems to change your life selected by Roger Housden

what have you lost? selected by Naomi Shihab Nye

Blushing collected by Paul Janeczko

Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser

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Georgia Heard’s Bio

Georgia Heard is a founding member of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project where she worked as senior staff developer in the New York City schools for seven years. For the past twenty years, Georgia has been a frequent keynote speaker at conferences, a consultant and visiting author in school districts throughout the U.S, Canada and around the world.

She is the author of numerous professional books on teaching writing including her most recent A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades (Stenhouse), Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School (Heinemann) which was cited by Instructor Magazine as “One of the Ten Best Books Every Teacher Should Read,” and Climb Inside a Poem: Reading and Writing Poetry Across the Year (Heinemann). She has also authored many children’s books including her two most recent Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems (Roaring Brook Press) and The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems (Roaring Brook Press, 2012).

Professional Books

A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades (Co-author Jen McDonough, Stenhouse, 2009)

Climb Inside a Poem: Reading and Writing Poetry Across the School Year (Heinemann, 2008)

The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques That Work (Heinemann, 2000)

Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School (Heinemann, 1999)

Writing Toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way (Heinemann, 1997)

For the Good of the Earth and Sun: Teaching Poetry (Heinemann, 1996)

Children’s Books The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems (forthcoming Roaring

Brook Press, 2012)

Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems (Roaring Brook Press, 2009) This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort (Candlewick, 2006) Songs of Myself: An Anthology of Poems and Art (Mondo, 2000) Creatures of Earth, Sea, and Sky: Animal Poems (Boyds Mills Press, 1999)

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