I love scary books and poems (and movies, even though I cover my eyes a lot during them). Here’s a cheesy video of me reading my poem “Midnight,” from a jack-o-lantern’s point of view. Midnight See my spooky, blank eyes staring? Like the crooked teeth I’m baring? Feel my wicked
I already mentioned that the second book in my 30 Painless Classroom Poems series is going to be Riddle-ku: Haiku for Very Close Reading. You might remember that I shared these poems here during National Poetry Month earlier this year. What was cool as I went through editing the riddle-ku
Happy Poetry Friday! I don’t often write poems or verses for specific people. Well, I do, occasionally, but I don’t give it to them–I’m too self-conscious to do that. I’ve written poems for/about both my daughters but don’t think I’ve ever shared them. However, inspired by Renee LaTulippe’s lovely take
What did I do this summer? I spent three weeks with K‑5 summer school students in a local school district. It was the most intense visiting author program I’ve ever done. Three weeks, four sites, 1700 students. Whew! It was hard work and incredibly rewarding. I shared this process in
I had a lovely surprise when the presenters at an IRA session performed one of my poems! The session was The Power of Poetry to Provide Teachable Moments, and the presenters had no idea I was in the audience (until my friend Janet Fagal told them afterward). Here they are:
[See yesterday’s post for my Friday at IRA.] Saturday at IRA, I went to a fantastic session called The Power of Poetry to Provide Teachable Moments (I’m going to do a separate post on that soon). I was with Janet Fagal, and we had a blast–and the presenters performed “The
Educators, it’s almost April! I’m excited on two counts: 1) My new book, Water Can Be…, publishes tomorrow! I’m still creating educator materials for it, but you can find reviews, my first teaching guide, and a bunch of videos (both book trailers and content videos) here on my site. 2)
Sharing another video this week. This one isn’t a trailer for Water Can Be…, but a quick video I hope educators might find useful. And here’s a classroom guide. Lots of ideas there for your unit about water, which I’m excited about. I’ll also be creating a CCSS-referenced reading guide
Excited that Water Can Be… got a lovely review in this month’s Booklist: Like its predecessor, A Leaf Can Be … (2012), this picture book explores an aspect of the natural world in a way that is imaginative but ultimately informative. A fine choice for reading aloud in the classroom
Usually in this feature, I share my process as a reader reading a poem someone else wrote. But for this one, I’m sharing the writing process behind a poem I shared last week on Poetry Friday, “Ocean Tales.” I was working on a set of poems that eventually became BOOKSPEAK!
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