Poetry [6:17]

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About

In this lesson, we will discuss poetry.

Transcript

Are you ready to talk about poetry for young people? It's one of my favorite genres, but I know it's not for everyone and I think that's a shame. My guess is that a lot of people were either turned off of poetry by someone who made them memorize it or analyze it, or they just simply haven't looked at the most recently poetry for young people. Because I found, there's so much wonderful variety available that kids really enjoy. They love the music of poetry; they love the humor of poetry, the nonsense. And so, it's just time to dig back into that genre and you see what you can find that you might enjoy to share with kids.

There's also lots of great curricular connections to make with across the curriculum and novel study as well. When we talk about poetry for children, there's a wide gambit, from "Mother Goose" for the very youngest child, the silly nonsense of Jack and Jill went up the hill, but there's also jingles and songs and free verse, anthologies, picture poetry books and even novels and verses. So there's quite a variety available for rhyme and un-rhymed poetry for children to choose from.

We typically begin with "Mother Goose" for young children, and there's so many different versions available, it's very fun. It's fun to read out loud and to share an audio version. I found a lot of kids who are older missed "Mother Goose" in early childhood, so I enjoy sharing it even with older kids especially if you can bring in "Mother Goose" and nursery rhymes from different languages and different cultures, just to show them that every kid around the world grows up of some kind of rhyming, singing, lap time verse. It just may be different from what you learned when you were little.

Then when it comes to school age, there's so many choices to infuse poetry into the curriculum. We typically begin with what's called a general anthology, and that's a great place to start. Those are books full of poems by many different poets, typically one person or two people have edited it and collected all the poems, and they're typically gathered in sub-themes or sub-categories. For example, the National Geographic book of animal poetry came up just a few years ago, edited by J. Patrick Lewis, and that's a very kid-friendly collection of poems about all kinds of animals, by all kinds of poems, organized in a very useful curriculum-friendly way, and then full of beautiful full-color photographs taken by National Geographic photographers.

So you get these beautiful, colorful photographs of animals along with wonderful poems about those same animals. It's a great book to browse through, stop, read out loud, and of course connect with science. I also like to look for topical of thematic collections of poetry, because those really lend themselves to curricular connections. You can find collections on almost any topic at this point; so many animal collections, nature collections, but also history, presidents, celebrations, family, friendship, cultures. These are collections of poems that are all gathered around a specific topic like insects or Christmas. And so, those collections are very curriculum-friendly from the get go.

I also like sharing collections of poetry that are by a single poet. For example, Shel Silverstein, probably the most popular poet who ever has written for children, his first anthology, Where the Sidewalk Ends, was published way back in 1974 and it still continues to be one of the bestselling children's books of all time. Those are all written by Shel, so that's an individual poet collection, and that's a fun way to really dip deeply into one poet's work and get a sense of his or her style and fun for in-depth literary study in your reading or language arts class.

I also like to choose and share poem picture books, where it's one poem, a single poem, but it's played out across all the pages of a 32-page picture book. For example, "Casey at the Bat" is a very popular poem, an old poem, but it's made new again as new illustrators tackle that poem and envision in new ways. And that's an exercise that kids can engage in too; to choose a favorite poem and then draw the pictures that go with it, either to display or to make their own simple hand-made book, and be part of the whole maker movement.

And for older kids, a new trend is the novel in verse. These are typically for fourth, fifth, sixth grade and on up, and they're novels but every page is a poem. Typically, a free verse poem. But because of all the white space surrounding the poem, it looks like a much easier book to read for children who are reluctant or struggling readers, or for kids who are still learning English as a new language, or just for kids who enjoy the spare writing and the fun dialogue, and the vivid characters; novels in verse are really trendy, and from Sharon Creech Love That Dog to Karen Hesse's Newbery winning Out of the Dust, there's so many wonderful books to choose from too.

When it comes to connecting poetry into the curriculum, I recommend using Poetry Friday as a beginning point. That has really caught on; the whole idea that you share a poem on Friday, but things are a little more relaxed and a little more playful. Open a book, dip in, share one, read it out loud, have the kids read it chorally with you, or pair that poem with another book that's like it. I love to pair poetry and non-fiction for example, just to show how two different writers might tackle the same subject but in a very different way. That's a lot of fun too, to make the curriculum richer and to make those cross-genre connections that are so important.

Activities

Mine Your Poetry Collection

Context:

This lesson examines types of poetry for sharing with children, with examples of curricular connections. Anthologies are typically collected around a theme, which may serve as helpful springboards to content areas, such as science. Collections by a single poet offer opportunities for deeper exploration of poetry style in English Language Arts classes. Poetry picture books, where one poem is told across the pages of a book, can inspire students' original versions of poems in pictures. For middle grades and up, novels in verse are often accessible and helpful for children needing support in reading.

Instructions:

This activity provides a structured opportunity to view your school library poetry collection for potential curricular connections. Using your library catalog and collection of poetry books, identify poetry topics that align with subjects taught by classroom teachers. It may be helpful to conduct a general scan of the collection, and then narrow in by either grade levels or content areas. Working together with classroom teachers may be fruitful in identifying topics. Some samples are provided in the Resources below.

Resources:

Book or Poem Title	Subject Area Connections	Ideas for student learning
Wonders: The Best Poems of Effie Lee Newsome Bishop, Rudine Sims, ed. Wordsong, 1999.	Nature (animals, flowers, trees, weather, sky) wondering and constructing questions	Share before a nature walk or outdoor field trip; connect to science studies of plants, animals, weather (K-5)
Hand in Hand: An American History Through Poetry Hopkins, Lee Bennett, ed. Simon & Schuster, 1994.	U.S. History	Students select and investigate historical context of individual poems (grade 4+)
Confetti: Poems for Children. Mora, Pat. Lee & Low Books, 1996.	Colors, counting, Spanish vocabulary, nature (clouds, wind, rivers, leaves)	Share, draw and color, act out; Connect to science studies of plants, animals, weather (primary)

Entry ID: 2122871

About the Author

Sylvia Vardell is Professor Emerita of literature for children and young adults in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University. She has authored or co-authored more than 100 published articles, more than 25 book chapters and given more than 150 presentations at national and international conferences. She is the author of Children's Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide, Poetry Aloud Here!, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists, Poetry People, and co-edits many poetry anthologies for young people with collaborator and poet Janet Wong.

Select Citation Style:

MLA Citation

Vardell, Sylvia M. "Children's Literature Basics. Poetry [6:17]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, September 2015, schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/1960209?learningModuleId=1960216&topicCenterId=2247902.

Chicago Citation

Vardell, Sylvia M. "Children's Literature Basics. Poetry [6:17]." School Library Connection video. September 2015. https://schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/1960209?learningModuleId=1960216&topicCenterId=2247902.

APA Citation

Vardell, S. M. (2015, September). Children's literature basics. Poetry [6:17] [Video]. School Library Connection. https://schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/1960209?learningModuleId=1960216&topicCenterId=2247902

https://schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/1960209?learningModuleId=1960216&topicCenterId=2247902

Entry ID: 1960209