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2 Poems for Poetry Friday!
Happy Poetry Friday! I’ll have another tip Tuesday in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. For today, I already have two poems I need to share because of other folks’ schedules, so I didn’t want to overwhelm you with even more stuff! For my first Poetry Friday poem, I am pleased to be featured
Tip #22: Fess Up [and 15 Words or Less Poems]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #22: Fess up. If you don’t feel comfortable with poetry (whether it’s the poetry itself or just the dramatic presentation of it), it’s okay to let students know that. In fact, they are often thoroughly relieved to discover that you aren’t the
Tip #21: Focus on Sounds [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #21: Focus on sounds. If a poem features repeated sounds in it, emphasize those sounds as you read it so that kids will pick up on the repetition. In the poem below, for example, which I wrote for Ed DeCaria’s March Madness
Tip #20: Mix It Up! [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #20: Mix it up! I hear people advise teachers, “Just share poems you love!” I kind of disagree with that. I mean, of course, share the poems you love. But perhaps your poetry taste is very narrow. If you only share silly
Tip#19: Let kids chime in! [Plus a guest post for rhyming writers]
First of all, writer friends, I have a guest post up at Angie Karcher’s RhyPiBoMo series. I shared an excerpt from the book Lisa Bullard and I wrote together, Rhyming Picture Books: The Write Way. Take a peek if you’re interested! And teacher friends, welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers
Tip #18: Let the Poet Read [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #18: Let the poet read. If you’re self-conscious about reading poetry aloud, one way to ease into it is let the poets themselves read! I love the Poetry Speaks to Children anthology that comes with a CD of many
Tip #17: Give a Line Some Space [and 15 Words or Less Poems]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #17: Give a line some space. One approach to reading poems aloud is to do a slight pause at the end of each line, whether there is punctuation there or not. That’s the identifying factor of poetry, after all. Poets break their
Tip #16: Add Sound Effects [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #16: Add sound effects. Have kids make sound effects appropriate to the poem. Kids love being sound effects experts, and it give pre-readers, especially, a great way to be part of a poem reading when they don’t actually know the poem yet.
Tip #15: Echo Read [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #15: Echo read. Try echo reading. You read a line, and then the students echo it back to you. This is great for helping students’ fluency, and I’m always amazed at how quickly and how well they pick up on performance nuances.
Tip #14: Riddle Me This [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #14: Make it a riddle. Turn a poem into a riddle. Kids love riddle poems, and they are super fun to both read and write. (I had a blast with riddleku in National Poetry Month of 2014 and even turned them into
Tip #13: Lights Out! [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #13: Turn out the lights! Turn out the lights to help students focus. When you remove visual input, students are often able to listen more carefully. Fewer distractions. Something unexpected and new. It can add a little more focus
Tip #12: Use a Prop [and 15 Words or Less Poems]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #12: Use a Prop Use a simple prop to help share a poem visually. When I share Elaine Magliaro’s “Things to Do If You Are a Pencil,” I hold up–a pencil. And I point to each part of the pencil mentioned in
Tip #11: Focus on Transitions [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #11: Focus on transition words. In narrative poems that tell a story, emphasize transition words, like “then,” or “first,” or “next” to help kids follow the chronology and make sense of the series of events. Or if the poem doesn’t use obvious
Tip #10: Emphasize Important Words [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #10: Emphasize important words. Sometimes when you’re sharing a poem, you might be talking about a specific aspect of it, whether that’s the rhyme or a repeated word or something else. I might include this poem, “Dancin’ (Snow)Man,” in a discussion about
Tip #9: Speed It Up! [Poetry Tips for Teachers]
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. Tip #9: Speed it up. Speed up a poem! When you’re repeating a poem that’s about a fast topic, speed up your reading. Often, we’ll start out reading the poem slowly, so they get to know the words and meaning a bit. Then
Are You Looking For?
Go to my Poetry page for:
- National Poetry Month projects through the years
- Small Reads Roundups (poems grouped by topic)
- Introductions to several favorite poetry forms