I love poetry and (yay!), April is National Poetry Month!
I think most people have a deep-rooted fear of poetry and I'm guessing you're already remembering some horribly dreadful class you had in high school where you were forced to read (and harder yet, understand) a bunch of poems you couldn't have cared less about. Been there.
And another confession... I used to think all poems had to rhyme. Total rookie.
I actually didn't start liking poetry until I became a first grade teacher. Now I love it and it's one of my favorite writing units to teach. And (not lying) most of my children love it, too. Why? Because it's the one form of writing that's without strict rules and who doesn't love that? The more I learned about poetry, the more I wanted to teach it. For years, I scoured book stores finding amazing books for children that eventually became my mentor texts. If you're a primary teacher, you need pint-sized poems for your pint-sized learners. The children need to see poems they can understand and that look like poems they could actually write.
There's really no sense in planning your poetry lessons until you've settled on some great mentor texts for your specific group of children. As you consider books to use for modeling, think, Will my students like these poems? Do these poems look like a style or level of poetry my young writers could emulate? (TIP: Save rhyming and highly rhythmic poems for reading workshop. They're great for developing phonemic awareness, but they're rigid in design and difficult for most primary children to write. In my experience, they tend to keep children from writing creatively.)
Hands-down, my favorite book for introducing writers to poetry is Little Dog Poems by Kristine O'Connell George. My first graders LOVE this book of poems. Each page is its own poem, but they work together to tell the story of a typical day in the life of this little dog. It's a super age-appropriate way to introduce my students to concepts like:
• choosing a small topic near and dear to your heart
• different forms, shapes, and lengths
• line breaks
• white space
• creative use or lack of conventions (capitalization and punctuation)
Consider beginning with this text because there's no single specific style throughout the book. Children will see that poems can take many forms. And because poetry is a genre that is typically shorter than personal narratives, you'll find the children are very prolific writers during this unit. As a matter of fact, I usually start them out with blank half sheets of paper and they often produce 2-4 poems per writing session. My struggling writers love this because the size of the paper implies the writing won't be long and labor intensive.
When you're ready to model something new, try acrostic poems. Silver Seeds by Paul Paolilli is a great beginning choice for this type of poetry. The common thread throughout the book is nature and each page features a new acrostic poem about something found outside... the sun, clouds, trees, leaves, hills, etc. You'll notice the nice "no rule" feature of this book is that each line doesn't have to have a certain amount of words... it's up to the author and what they're trying to say.
Hi, Koo! by Jon J. Muth is a collection of modern haiku and he explains how the rules of haiku are changing. No longer does there have to be a certain number of syllables per line... and that's why I like this book as a mentor text. This book opens up another form of poetry to young writers. And notice how short and sweet they are. One of these literally reads: Eating warm cookies on a cold day is easy. I agree. :)
Actually, I don't care what the temperature is.
This next one is a little bit trickier, but I know some of you have older children and they might get a kick out of these puzzly-poems. The book is Lemonade: And Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word by Bob Raczka. Each poem is written using only the letters in the title. (It's kind of like a "Making Words" lesson!) On one page, the author drafts it like a puzzle to be deciphered. On the follow-up page, the poem is written out so it can be read easily.
These are a few to get you started, but begin your own hunt. See what appeals to you, too. If you like a book, it's easier to get your kids excited about it. If you're starting to plan your lessons, check out our Pinterest board where we've been collecting ideas to help you teach and celebrate poetry.
Do you have a favorite book or idea you use when teaching poetry? We'd love for you to share it with us. If you have a minute, leave a comment below.
Happy teaching! :)
