Posts filed under 'Poetry Friday'
This week we have a great poem by “some anonymous students” that Teri Lesesne used at the end of her book, Naked Reading: Uncovering What Tweens Need to Become Lifelong Readers. “It speaks volumes to me and to all whose hope it is to connect kids to books,” writes Teri about the poem she received from a librarian in South Carolina. Enjoy!
To the Woman (We Think You’re a Teacher) with the Books on the 2 Train
By some anonymous students
On the platform for the 2 train
you stand with a book in your hand
the pages open
Which is how you enter the train
Reading
Sometimes you smile, or frown
Once you even cried
on the train
when you were reading Night
and a man sitting across the aisle
said he cried too, when he read that book
and we thought,
we want to read that book
so we did
And then you were reading all those
basketball books
by Walter Dean Myers
so we read those too
speeding along on the 2 train
one time you saw us reading Slam
and you said
I love that book
and do you think Slam is going to make it in high
school?
We do, we think he’s going to make it
Then you were reading some really hard stuff
Epistemology of the Closet, Postmodern Narrative
Theory
and we tried those, but we think you have to have read
the books those authors have read, if you want to read
their books
Our favorite is when you are reading poetry
Picnic, Lightning
and you lean back against the seat
and smile
and keep reading the same page
again and again
we do that now and it’s really nice
Last week you were reading Life of Pi
and we rushed out to buy it
So we could in the lifeboat
adrift in the blue, blue sea
with the boy, the Bengal Tiger, and you
If we don’t see you next year
on the train
Maybe sometime we’ll bump into each other on the
platform
You’ll know us because
we’ll have books in our hands.
August 20th, 2010
Hello! Welcome to our blog on this lovely Poetry Friday! Thanks for stopping by!
As a special treat today, we have an original poem by poet, teacher, and professional book author Georgia Heard titled Ars Poetica. Enjoy and leave your links below!
Ars Poetica
by Georgia Heard
In September, small poems lay
still and silent inside your hearts.
If you listened carefully,
you might have heard
the quivering of wings.
In January, from the corner
of your eye, you could have spied
a flutter or two –
poems slowly unfolding,
delicate silken wings.
In April, poems began to appear everywhere!
Rainbow wings beating, flapping,
hovering over desks, hanging
from the ceiling, tips of noses, tops of heads.
It was difficult to get any work done!
Now, your butterfly poems
fly free. You fold the memory
into your hearts. Poems –
small butterflies raised, watched,
let loose into the world.
August 13th, 2010
Happy Friday everyone! This week I picked a poem from Andie Cunningham and Ruth Shagoury’s book Starting with Comprehension: Reading Strategies for the Youngest Learners. The poem is Backyard by Mary Oliver and Andie and Ruth use it in the book to teach students to dig deeper in their understanding. Also, it describes my backyard perfectly at this time of the year.
Backyard
Mary Oliver
I had no time to haul all
the dead stuff so it hung, limp
or dry, wherever the wind swung it
over or down or across. All summer
it stayed that way, untrimmed, and
thickened. The paths grew
damp and uncomfortable and mossy until
nobody could get through but a mouse or a
shadow. Blackberries, ferns, leaves, litter
totally without direction management
supervision. The birds loved it.
August 6th, 2010
Happy Poetry Friday! This week we have a great poem by a student, Crystal Whiteaker, titled “The Skin I’m In” based on Sharon Flake’s book of the same name. Janet Allen uses this poem in a chapter on shared reading in her book On the Same Page: Shared Reading Beyond the Primary Grades. Enjoy!
The Skin I’m In
Every day she’s teased.
With her skin, no one is pleased;
It’s dark as chocolate and
her soul is golden like the sun,
Yet, she’s still an outcast to almost everyone.
She’s constantly pushed around,
but when she screams there is no sound.
She cries secret tears
hoping no one will find her fears.
She puts up with so much day in and day out,
but she never raises her voice to shout.
In the end, she opens her eyes,
To see that their taunts were nothing but lies.
Her lesson was learned and
The bully was burned.
She finally loved the skin
that her body was in.
July 30th, 2010
This week’s poem comes from Robin Turner’s recent book, Greater Expectations: Teaching Academic Literacy to Underrepresented Students. Robin uses the poem Cincinnati by Mitsuye Yamada in a time literary analysis writing exercise with his Puente class. At this point in the school year, Robin’s students are reading Elie Wiesel’s Night and the class is very interested in World War II. Robin hands them this poem after reading a couple of other poems to practice analyzing out loud.
Cincinnati
Mitsuye Yamada
Freedom at last
in this town aimless
I walked against the rush
hour traffic
My first day
in a real city
where
no one knew me.
No one except one
hissing voice that said
dirty jap
warm spittle on my right cheek.
I turned and faced
the shop window
and my spittled face
spilled onto a hill
of books.
Words on display.
In Government Square
people criss-crossed
the street
like the spokes of
a giant wheel.
I lifted my right hand
but it would not obey me.
My other hand fumbled for a hankie.
My tears would not
wash it. They stopped
and parted.
My hankie brushed
the forked
tears and spittle
together.
I edged toward the curb
loosened my fisthold
and the bleached laced
mother-ironed hankie blossomed in
the gutter atop teeth marked
gum wads and heeled candy wrappers.
Everyone knew me.
July 23rd, 2010
This week’s poem is an original by Liz Hale, author of Crafting Writers, K-6. In a mini-lesson on writing free verse poems, Liz shares how she demonstrates writing a free verse poem in front of her class. She thinks aloud as she writes: “Hmmmm, okay, I’m thinking of what coffee looks like… hmmm what else, coffee is… I’m thinking about it in my cup….” The think-aloud part in this lesson is very important, says Liz. “Students need to see that thinking and some effort are needed to go against the rules of the standard sentence.
Coffee
by Liz Hale
Dark brown in
my cup
Every morning
waking me up
From the Earth
right to mugs
Steam rises as I close
my eyes
and smile
July 16th, 2010
In their book Poetry Goes to School, David Booth and Bob Barton provide teachers a remarkable collection of poetry and teaching strategies. In Chapter 5 they use The Secret Song by Margaret Wise Brown to show students how to feature various voices in poetry.
The Secret Song
Margaret Wise Brown
Who saw the petals
drop from the rose?
I, said the spider.
But nobody knows.
Who saw the sunset
flash on a bird?
I, said the fish
But nobody heard.
Who saw the fog
come over the sea?
I, said the pigeon
Only me.
Who saw the first
green light of the sun?
I, said the night owl,
The only one.
Who saw the moss
creep over the stone?
I, said the grey fox,
All alone.
July 9th, 2010
Not that we need an introduction to poetry… But in case you do, here is one by Billy Collins. Kimberly Hill Campbell uses it in her book Less Is More as an example of a poem that’s great to read aloud to students to open their ears and eyes to poetry. So go ahead, read it aloud to yourself!
Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into the poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confessin out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
July 2nd, 2010
Finding the main idea of a poem is an important skill for all students to learn. In Test Talk: Integrating Test Preparation into Reading Workshop, Amy Green and Glennon Doyle Melton use this poem to demonstrate how to go about finding the main idea. What questions do you ask yourself as you read the poem? What do you visualize as you read? What does the poet want you to learn from this poem?
All good questions to ask yourself as you read When I am Full of Silence by Jack Perlutsky.
When I am Full of Silence
Jack Perlutsky
When I am full of silence,
and no one else is near,
the voice I keep inside me
is all I want to hear.
I settle in my secret place,
contented and alone,
and think no other thoughts except
the thoughts that are my own.
When I am full of silence,
I do not want to play,
to run and jump and fuss about,
the way I do all day.
The pictures painted in my mind
are all I need to see
when I am full of silence…
when I am truly me.
June 25th, 2010
Here is a great poem by William Stafford for this Poetry Friday. Patrick Allen uses this poem in his book Conferring to remind himself what he needs to think about as he sits down to confer with a student: “To review what he is doing as a reader, to have him read aloud, to record my noticings. To provide instruction, to gather insights, to be intrigued. To plan together, to progress further, to set a purpose. I have to be ready.”
You Reading This, Be Ready
William Stafford
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life -
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
June 18th, 2010
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