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
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’
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
Happy Poetry Friday! I’m so pleased to be hosting Poetry Friday today, and thank you for dropping in! First, I’m going to continue my month-long series of Poetry Tips for Teachers. Tip #8: Connect With the Poem Help kids connect before reading the poem. Let’s take this poem from Lee
Tip #7: Walk and Stop Walk around the room as you read, and then STOP moving at the most important, powerful part of the poem. Kids will naturally be following your progress, and when you suddenly stop, they will pay attention to what’s happening. When reading the poem draft below
Welcome to today’s tip in my month-long Poetry Tips for Teachers series. [Addendum: I had a little issue with a disappearing blog post and rewriting it and–well, I’ll spare you the details. I apologize for having the same basic tip two days in a row, but this one has a
Tip #5: Make a face. Keep an appropriate expression. Don’t grin during a sad poem or look serious during silly verse. If you were to smile while reading this poem, for instance, your students might be a little disturbed–or think you are!
Tip #4: Slow down. Read slowly. Much more slowly than you would read prose. Poems are dense and compact and a lot to take in! Here I am reading the poem–as slowly as I can:>) [soundcloud url=“https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/198628798” params=“color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=“100%” height=“166” iframe=“true” /]
Happy Poetry Friday! I’m hanging out with the wild Poetry 7 again! This month we wrote raccontinos–say what? I’d never even heard of them! (Make sure to go to Tricia’s post, where she explains the form a bit.) Anyway, I was in Scotland and Ireland this past month (wow), and
Tip #2: Define it! Is there one particularly difficult word in the poem? If so, define it for kids before you read the poem. That way, not knowing the meaning of the word won’t stop them from comprehending and enjoying the poem. Before reading the poem draft below, for example,
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