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Poetry Friday: A Round of Rondeau Redouble

  So, every once in a while, I get to write poems with the Poetry Princesses, which is an intimidating thrill. First, we did the crown sonnet. Next up was the villanelle. And then, with barely time for a deep sigh of relief after we posted those in December, we somehow ended up embroiled in a

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More Ways to Get Young Kids Involved in Poetry Readings

Yesterday, I shared some of the ways I try to engage young kids, especially pre-readers, in poetry reading during school visits. I don’t want to just stand there and recite my poems. I want the kids to own the poems, too. But there’s always limited time, so I can’t repeat poems three and four times

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Making Your Poems or Book Interactive for School Visits and Readings

Last fall, I wondered how to make the poems in Stampede more interactive for readings with young kids. For either pre-readers who can’t read the entire poem up on a screen or for settings where there’s no screen available. I got some great ideas from you guys (thanks!) and did some brainstorming on my own. I’ve been

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Kids Write the Darnedest Things

At my school visit last week, one teacher brought me a set of thank you letters from her kids before I left the school that afternoon. Letters from the kids are one of the very best things about school visits. Here are just a few highlights of notes from second-grade students: …My favorite part was

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Thoughts

How I Spend My Writing Days

Wildly busy and varied, that is! In an effort to share with beginning writers and also interested readers just what one full-time writer’s life is like, I kept a diary of my work days for one week in December. Today, that diary is up at David L. Harrison’s blog. And last week, there was an

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Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School

Stampede Is a Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award!

Exciting news over the weekend. I got home from a game night Saturday night to find a congratulations email from Joyce Sidman–for Stampede’s choice as a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards! The other three finalists in this category are Joyce herself, Alison McGhee, and Marion Dane Bauer. Wow. I’m in unbelievable company! I clicked

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Quotation Motivation: Deadlines

  I’m under a lot of deadline stress lately, so I thought I’d post a quotation that actually looked at the positive side of stress. Here it is: That’s right. There isn’t one. I couldn’t find a single quotation extolling the virtues of stress. Dang. But I did find this about deadlines: A deadline is

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Thanks for Nothing, Jon Scieszka!

The new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature will be announced tomorrow, and today, bloggers are taking time to thank Jon Scieszka, the outgoing ambassador. (Outgoing in both meanings of the word.) Here are just three of his books I absolutely love: I could go on and on, but one of my goals for 2010

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Thoughts

How Did I Do on My 2009 Theme? Fail!

Each year, besides setting all kinds of concrete goals/schedules/to-do lists, I choose some kind of theme to focus on and work toward throughout the year.  How did I do on my 2009 theme? Well, it took me a few minutes to remember what it was. That should tell you the answer right there. Turns out

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Lyrics as Poetry: You’re My Home (Billy Joel)

Today is my husband’s birthday! Since I love many song lyrics as poetry, I wanted to share an old-school Billy Joel song that we almost chose to have sung at our wedding (we went with Onward, by Yes, instead). Happy birthday, Randy. You’re my home. YOU’RE MY HOME (Billy Joel) When you look into my

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Quotation Motivation: Glittering Eyes

Today’s quotation comes to you courtesy of author/blogger Susan Taylor Brown. She has gathered some of her favorite writing quotations here, and there are many there that speak to me. This morning, this one is calling the loudest: “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are

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Poetry Friday: Wounded (an original villanelle)

Last Friday, a group of seven of us, led by Liz Garton Scanlon of Liz in Ink, posted original villanelles. I had wanted to do something other than a nature poem, because those feel like home, and I wanted to push myself out of the comforts of home. So I tried a war poem, written

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Poetry Friday: The Villanelle People

OK, you know Liz Garton Scanlon, of Liz in Ink? You know how she’s always so enthusiastic and passionate about stuff? Well, a month or so ago, she emailed our group that wrote the crown sonnet a year and a half ago (that long?). And she proposed that we each write a villanelle, all seven

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A Poem for Lee Bennett Hopkins

  Maybe you’ve heard that Lee Bennett Hopkins, gifted poet and anthologist, was officially awarded NCTE’s Excellence in Poetry for Children Award the weekend before Thanksgiving? I couldn’t attend the Philadelphia conference because I was in Atlanta for a joyful family wedding, and it sounds like I missed a fantastic event. You can read Sylvia

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