Learning from students: Dracula

Here's another example from my adult students sharing poetry with young people in my "learning from my students' students" series. 

We're looking at how they interacted with You Just Wait: A Poetry Friday Power Book using each PowerPack to see how young writers responded.

Here, Adriana got the students involved in the PowerPlay prewriting exercise for PowerPack 5 of You Just Wait with amusing results. 

Then she also created fun digital poem postcards for the poems. Here's one she made for "Dracula" by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand. 

Finally, she gathered some other collections of "monster" poetry that students would enjoy as they explored this topic. 

Learning from students: Cinquains

Here's the next installment in my series featuring my students sharing poetry with THEIR students. 

Here, Charlotte focuses on PowerPack 4 of YOU JUST WAIT and shares the mentor poem she used and her students' writing efforts in response to that mentor text. Plus, she includes related poetry books that offer additional resources for student writers.

First, here's the poem by Janet Wong, "Any Tongue," and the digital picture postcard that Charlotte made to accompany the poem:
Next, here are response poems by two different students as they think about Janet's "Any Tongue" poem. 

Texas
A wonderful
place for great burritos
and an awesome place for tacos
Yummy!

Donuts
Sweet and yummy
Everywhere there's donuts
Sparkles, icing, different flavors
Donuts!

And finally, Charlotte recommended these additional poetry books, so that students could have more examples of poetry about food and about place.

Learning from students: Number poems

Here's the second installment in my series on learning through my students and THEIR students. 

Here, Karis uses YOU JUST WAIT with young Hayden who experiments with writing a "phone number" poem. In this form, you write a phone number vertically with each number starting the line of the poem. Then, each line of your poem has as many words as that number. For example, 4 would have 4 words, 7 would have 7 words, and so on, all presented vertically like an acrostic poem. 

First, my student, Karis, created a visual image for the mentor text poem by Janet Wong:

Then, Karis's student, Hayden, created a phone number poem:

My dog is
named Cooper
He barks at my Mom
and at
Dad.
He thinks
he 
is the best guard dog.
But he is not always brave.
When the phone rings, he runs and hides.

Sometimes the form or structure of the poem (number limits per line) pushes us to choose each word carefully while still building the story we want to tell or moment we want to share. Hayden communicated quite a bit about her dog, Cooper, in just 35 words!

Learning from students: I am

To paraphrase an ancient proverb, I like to think that the students of my students are also my teacher! I learn from them—as well as from my own students. And this April, my graduate students who are teachers and librarians are trying poetry activities with their students and allowing me to share them here so we can all see what kids are thinking and writing and sharing. In a nutshell, they tried the interactive activities in the Poetry Friday Power Books, You Just Wait and Here We Go and I'll be featuring their work with students all month long in celebration of National Poetry Month.

First, we focus on You Just Wait, a Poetry Friday Power Book for tweens and teens, features 12 PowerPack sets that combine: 1) a diverse outside poem from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School; 2) a new original response poem and mentor text by Janet Wong; 3) a PowerPlay prewriting activity; and 4) a Power2You writing prompt. We're also so pleased that You Just Wait was selected as a NCTE Poetry Notable book.

The twelve poems from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (also an NCTE Poetry Notable) were written by Robyn Hood Black, Joseph Bruchac, Jen Bryant, Margarita Engle, Julie Larios, Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, Charles Ghigna, Avis Harley, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Charles Waters, and Virginia Euwer Wolff. 

The way they are joined together here with twenty-four new poems by Janet Wong, they form a story featuring Paz, an Asian-Latina soccer player with dreams of stardom in college, the Olympics, and ultimately the World Cup; Lucesita, her feisty movie-loving cousin; and Joe, an older brother with dreams of the NBA. 

What follows is a sample poem from PowerPack #1 along with one student’s responses in the interactive PowerPlay and Power2You activities. Thank you, Erica, and thank your students too. First, a student checked the boxes that described her in this PowerPlay activity that starts the PowerPack.  

Then, Erica shared this digital graphic she created for the mentor text poem, "I am" by Janet Wong.

Then, a student responded to this text with a poem of her own.

See how this girl shares a bit of herself in her poem and in her colorful, graphic creation of her poem? She"loves to play in the rain even when there's thunder" and "is proud to be Tongan." All in rainbow colors. Lovely!  

Poetry at NSTA

Janet (Wong) and I are in Los Angeles for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference all set to share POETRY with this gigantic group of science teachers. This is our third or fourth time to join an NSTA conference and we’re always so pleased about how open they are to infusing poetry into the science curriculum. After our first NSTA conference, the editor of SCIENCE AND CHILDREN invited us to submit an article which resulted in this article HERE. We really tried to make the case for how many wonderful works of poetry lent themselves to the teaching of science.

The next conference led to a spot on the Science Friday radio program. So cool! Poetry Friday meets Science Friday! Then we scored a monthly “Poetry of Science” column in SCIENCE AND CHILDREN. Here's just one recent example:



I share this not to brag, but to highlight how science folks are actively seeking ways to connect science content and promote literacy too. So cool! (I find it harder to convince reading and language arts teachers to share science-focused poetry than it is to get science teachers to consider sharing poetry! What?) 

Here are a few highlights of our upcoming presentation at NSTA. We’re particularly connecting with the very popular Picture-Perfect series by Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry that suggests using picture books as anchors for science lessons—and we’re adding poetry to that mix! Science-focused picture books + science-focused poetry! 

Here's on example from ONE of the first three books in the series, More Picture-Perfect Science Lessons:

This sample lesson focuses on the human heart and how it works and what things affect it. The educational objective for their lesson is:

The pair of science-focused picture books that Ansberry and Morgan selected for this topic are:

What poetry book might you connect with this topic and with these particular picture books? 

And what poem from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science might extend this lesson even further?

Ansberry and Morgan also just launched two new books in this Picture-Perfect series with a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics):

STEM topics in these two books include:





Poetry to match with some of those science topics might include:

Finally, my Book Links article for April suggests poetry to match with their selections of science picture books in each of the Picture-Perfect resource books. You’ll find that HERE. 



That's just a sampling of what we shared. The main point is: if you're using picture books with a science focus for a science lesson, why not include a science poem (or poetry book) to extend the lesson even further? Start or end the lesson with a poem. Or offer another way of viewing a science topic through the eyes of a poet!

Now go see what Amy Ludwig VanDerwater has in store for us this Poetry Friday over at the Poem Farm.

Poetry Award-a-rama

All of a sudden, I've seen a pile up of poetry awards announcements and it's time to pause and celebrate each one of them. It's always nice to see poets and poetry books get recognition. I hope these awards also help teachers and librarians add to their poetry book collections and cast a wider net in reading and choosing new books to share with students. So please indulge me as I share the latest installments for several recent awards. 

The Cybils Award for Poetry went to The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan (Random House, 2016). All the Cybils winners are listed HERE and you can find a teaching guide for Laura's lovely novel in verse HERE (created by yours truly). 

The Claudia Lewis Poetry Award this year went to When Green Becomes Tomatoes: Poems for All Seasons by Julie Fogliano (Roaring Brook Press, 2016). You can find more info about this award at a "toolbox" I created several years ago that shows all the winners and honor books and provides some mini-lessons and digital trailers created by my wonderful students. Click HERE for the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award Teaching Toolbox.

The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award went to Somos como las nubes/ We are Like the Clouds by Jorge Argueta (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2016). Once again, you can find more info about this award at a "toolbox" I created several years ago that shows all the winners and honor books and provides some mini-lessons and digital trailers created by students. Click HERE for the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Teaching Toolbox.

The Lion and Unicorn  Award for Excellence in North American Poetry went to TWO books, Hypnotize a Tiger: Poems About Just About Everything by Calef Brown (Henry Holt, 2015) and My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson (nameless, 2015). I also created a Teaching Toolbox for this award with the assistance of my graduate students. You can find the Lion and Unicorn Poetry Award Teaching Toolbox HERE. 

The American Library Association (ALA) announced the recipient of the Laura Ingalls Wilder award for a "substantial and lasting contribution to children's literature" is poet Nikki Grimes. You can find more information about this year's Wilder award HERE.

And finally, ALA also announced that the person who will deliver the 2018 Arbuthnot Honor Lecture is poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Now that she has been selected, libraries and universities can apply to host Naomi's lecture. You can find more information about the Arbuthnot lecture HERE. 

Did you notice how each of these awards recognized a DIFFERENT book or poet? I love that! Poetry offers such richness and diversity that it's wonderful seeing many, many books get lots of love and support. Be sure to check them ALL out!

Now head on over to Jone's place at Check It Out for more Poetry Friday goodness. 

HERE WE GO: Teaching poetry skills

I have recently been tooting the horn about my latest book with Janet Wong, Here We Go: A Poetry Friday Power Book. This is the second book in the Poetry Friday Power Book series. Book 1 in the series, You Just Wait: A Poetry Friday Power Book, was published in September 2016 and was recently selected as a 2017 NCTE Poetry Notable.  Here We Go: A Poetry Friday Power Book for children, tweens, and teens, features 12 PowerPack sets that combine: 1) diverse anchor poems; 2) new original response poems and mentor poems by Janet Wong; 3) PowerPlay prewriting activities; and 4) Power2You writing prompts. 

The twelve anchor poems for HERE WE GO were written by: Naomi Shihab Nye, Ibtisam Barakat, Joseph Bruchac, David Bowles, Eileen Spinelli, David L. Harrison, Kate Coombs, Robyn Hood Black, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Renée M. LaTulippe, Margaret Simon, and Carole Boston Weatherford. Their poems are joined together with twenty-four new poems by Janet (Wong) that form a story featuring a diverse group of kids who are concerned about social justice. In addition, I created PowerPlay activities to launch each PowerPack and Power2You writing prompts to conclude. There is also extensive back matter resources for readers and writers. 

Several of my favorite bloggers have been kind enough to write their own posts about Here We Go and what they like about it. (Thank you, friends!)

What is NOT obvious is that Janet (Wong) and I also incorporated skill instruction and modeled 12 skills in each of the PowerPacks (based on frequently taught poetry skills and CCSS). I'd like to demonstrate what that looks like. But first...

Here's one example PowerPack to demonstrate how this works. This is PowerPack 10.   

The skill focus for PowerPack 10 is alliteration. 

There are 11 different skills woven through the poems in this book with one skill focus for each PowerPack. Each PowerPack infuses that skill through each component of the PowerPack-- from the PowerPlay activity, through the three poems, to the final Power2You writing activity.

First, students "play" with language. In PowerPack 10, they choose one of these letters: P M N S T F W and then circle all the words that begin with their chosen letter-- setting the stage for pointing out what alliteration is. PLUS, all the words come from the poems in the book. "P" words are highlighted here.

  

After students have read the poems and talked about them, you can go back and read them together and look for examples of alliteration-- the repeated use of initial consonants. There are examples in each of the three poems in this PowerPack highlighted here.


Finally, students also have the opportunity to write a poem and experiment with alliteration in their own poems in the final Power2You activity page. 






Now head on over to Penny's place for the Poetry Friday gathering.