Growing Readers and Writers Who
Love Poetry
2013 Texas Woman’s University
Reading Recovery and K-6 Literacy
Institute
November 5th, 2013
Georgia Heard
[email protected]
Ten Lessons Poetry Can Teach Prose
I went to the school of poetry in order to learn to write prose
Grace Paley
1. Imagery: writing with picture words – show don’t tell
2. Metaphor/Simile: saying things in a new way
3. Details: descriptive words – focus on small particulars
4. Word Awareness: unusual, surprising words –
concrete words – sounds of words
5. Trains Your Ear: the music of words – what sounds
“right”
6. Pattern/Repetition: repeating words and sentences
7. Beginnings/Endings: techniques for opening and closing
the door of a poem
8. Point of View: trying on different points of view
9. Voice: the personality behind the words
10. Re-vision: to see again -- cutting out unnecessary words
– cracking open words
[email protected]
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.
From 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 The Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework
Two Poetry Craft Tool Boxes
Meaning
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Imagery
Figurative Language
Metaphor
Simile
Personification
Symbolism
Hyperbole
2. Music
o Word Compression
and Precision
o Vivid Verbs
o Precise Nouns
o Stanzas
o
Conventions
o
o
o
o
o
o
Line Breaks
Rhythm
o
o
o
Rhyme and Rhyme
Scheme
Meter
Repetition
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
Consonance
Assonance
Poetry Books for Young Poets
All the Small Poems and Fourteen More by Valerie Worth
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 Georgia Heard
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer
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
A Writing Kind of Day by Ralph Fletcher
There Was a Place and Other Poems (out of print) by Myra Cohn Livingston
The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury selected by Jack
Prelutsky
Book of Animal Poetry by J. Patrick Lewis
Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman
Poetrees by Douglas Florian
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
Hop Hop Speaks to Children with CD: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat by Nikki Giovanni
Poetry Books For Teens
A 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 Naoimi Shihab Nye
You Hear Me: Poems and Writing by Teenage Boys by Betsy Franco
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
Books by Georgia Heard
Professional Books
For the Good of the Earth and the Sun, Heinemann
Writing Toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way, Heinemann
Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School, Heinemann
The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques That Work, Heinemann
Climb Inside a Poem: Reading and Writing Poetry Across the Year, Firsthand Heinemann
A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades, Stenhouse
Poetry Lessons to Meet the Common Core State Standards, Scholastic
Finding the Heart of Nonfiction: Teaching 7 Essential Craft Lessons with Mentor Texts,
Heinemann
The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques that Work (New Edition), Heinemann
Children’s Books
Creatures of Earth, Sea and Sky, Boyds Mills Press
Songs of Myself: Poetry and Art, Mondo
This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort, Candlewick
Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems, Roaring Brook
The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems, Roaring Brook