Tag Archives: poetry

Poetry Resources in GALILEO

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Are your students studying rhythm and rhyme? From the ancients to recent Pulitzer Prize winners, students can find poetry criticism, poet biographies, full-text poems, images, and more in Literary Reference Center. And, when they are trying to figure out what onomatopoeia means, Literary Reference Center also includes a literary glossary for that.

If you’re looking for a poem for Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26, 2012, here’s a quick tip for finding poems. In Literary Reference Center, go to Advanced Search and type “poem” in the search field (or a topic that you like) and then limit your search to Poem in the Document Types section. Click the Search button, and you have thousands of poems at your fingertips.

Elementary and middle students can find fun poetry activities in SIRS Discoverer. Search for “poetry” and look for the red “a” code that indicates articles with activities. Students will also find editorially-selected websites and articles about poets and poetry.

Students of all ages can also write a poem about their own hometown and create a digital story to share their personal narratives in the activities outlined by the Where I’m From in GALILEO lesson plan. See the GALILEO site for the lesson plan, poem template, GPS alignments, guides to resources and tools, and an example video and poster.

Teachers, media specialists, and other school personnel can find classroom activities and lesson plans in ERIC. Search for “poetry and activity” and limit by grade level in Advanced Search. Check both ERIC@eric.ed.gov and ERIC@EBSCOhost – each may have different items in full text. Professional Development Collection also includes research articles and practical guidance for the teaching of poetry. Just search for “poetry study,” “poetry slams,” or a favorite poetry-related term.

Find plenty of interesting Georgia poets in the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Browse to Literature > Poetry to see the list. Several of the poets have video and audio clips included with the article, so don’t miss David Bottoms talking about metaphor or the reading of Sidney Lanier’s “The Marshes of Glynn.”

See the archived Poetry Resources in GALILEO webinar in the Archived Sessions section of GALILEO Training and download the handout from the Presentation and Materials page.

Please Contact Us if you have questions or comments or if you need to report problems.

Courtney McGough
GALILEO Support Services
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Some links may not work off site. Log in to GALILEO first for access.

Express Links for Databases Mentioned in this Post:
Literary Reference Center: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zblr
SIRS Discoverer: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zssd
ERIC (at www.eric.ed.gov): http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zeri
ERIC (at EBSCOhost): http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zber
Professional Development Collection: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbpd
New Georgia Encyclopedia: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=ngen
Find All Your Express Links (what’s this?)

Using Poll Everywhere to Craft Poetry

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Until September 28th, I am hosting the Ashley Bryan Traveling Exhibit of Illustrated Africana Children’s Literature featuring the artwork of Shadra Strickland.   This exhibit showcases 8 works of art from the books White Water, Bird, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, Our Children Can Soar, and Eliza’s Freedom Road.  There is also a curriculum guide that incorporates the art and books into lessons about making text to text and text to self connections, response to literature, and more.  I took these lessons and wondered how I might adapt them to various kinds of learning that I try to support in my media center.

One of lessons invites students to write “Where I’m From” poems from the perspective of a character in the story or artwork.  I wondered how I might support students in writing a collaborative “where I’m from” poem rather than individual poems, so I turned to Poll Everywhere

 

Poll everywhere allows you to create an open ended or multiple choice questions that students can respond to in a variety of ways:  poll everywhere website, texting, tweeting.  With a free educator account, you can receive up to 40 responses per poll and the responses feed into a real-time screen.  The responses can be downloaded into an Excel file, used in a word cloud, or scrolled through on the poll everywhere site.

For my lesson, I shared George Ella Lyon’s original “Where I’m From” poem as well as a template that pointed out pieces of the poem such as phrases, everyday items, foods, etc.  Then, students thought of lines that might be in their own poems and shared them with partners or with the whole group.  We moved into reading White Water by Michael S. Bandy & Eric Stein; illustrated by Shadra Strickland.  This book details an African American boy’s curiosity with what it might be like to drink water from the “whites only” fountain during segregation.  All along the way, we paused and thought about possible lines that the main character in the story might write in his own “Where I’m From” poem.

Students then moved to computers where I had the Poll Everywhere site pulled up with the question “My line in our where I’m from poem is…”.  Each student thought of one line for the poem.  The teacher and I conferenced with students about their lines to look for spelling and repetition, and then each student submitted their response.  We reconvened in front of the smart board to read our poem, which was already waiting for us on the screen.  Finally, we took the words of our poem and pasted them into Tagxedo to make another version of our collaborative poem as well as to look for the words that we used the most and least.

There are numerous uses for Poll Everywhere, but I loved the fact that it could support a collaborative writing effort with a class.  The whole process took us less than 45 minutes to complete.

Here is a final poem from a 2nd grade class:

Where I’m From:  A Response Poem to the book White Water by Michael S. Bandy & Eric Stein; illustrated by Shadra Strickland

Mrs. Brink’s Class

I am from I know everything
from tricking my grandma.
from White Water at a water fountain in town.
from 6 blocks away from the bus stop.
I’m from drinking out of a colored water fountain.
from telling a lie to the bus driver.
from I can do anything
from drinking lots of water because fresh water is good.
I AM FROM
I’m from not being able to drink the white water
from pretending to be sick.
from that good ol’ time of riding the bus to town, waiting to drink water.
from boy you better not do that
I’m from white people sitting in the front seat
from going to town with my grandma
from trying to get white water because I thought it was fresh and cool.
from nasty muddy gritty yuck!
from I can do anything
I’m from
I’m from a water fountain
I’m from I can do anything

Andy Plemmons

School Librarian

David C. Barrow Elementary

Athens, GA

http://barrowmediacenter.wordpress.com

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/aplemmons

Happy Poetry Month 2011

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Poetry month is here!  We’ve already seen some great posts on the GLMA blog to get us thinking about this creative month:

Poetry Resources in Galileo

Looking Ahead to National Poetry Month

Later this month, I’ll share some of the products we’ve made and celebrations we’ve had in the Barrow Media Center, but I wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a Happy National Poetry Month and to pose some questions for thought:

  • In what ways are you incorporating poetry into the lessons you are already teaching in your libraries?
  • What kinds of poetry are your students creating in the media center?
  • How are you celebrating the joy of reading and writing poems in your library?
  • How are you honoring student work?
  • How are you incorporating technology for both inspiration and creation of poetry?
  • What special poetry events have you planned in your school (poetry picnics, poem in your pocket day, contests, etc.)?
  • How are you sharing poetry beyond the walls of your library?

Here are a few of the things that we will be doing over the next month in the Barrow Media Center.  Some things are already underway while others are still be fleshed out.

  • PreK Poetry:  PreK students are writing their own shape poems on large cut-outs of symbols from their classroom and will video record their final poems to upload to Teacher Tube.
  • Joyce Sidman collaboration:  A few groups of students will be studying the poems of Joyce Sidman and writing poems inspired by her writing.  These poems will be created in multiple ways from using Photo Story to simply writing them on paper.  The poems will be featured at Joyce Sidman’s keynote speech at the NCTE conference in November.
  • List Poetry:  Using Georgia Heard’s collection, Falling Down the Page, students will study list poetry, write list poems as a whole class, and write individual list poems in a variety of ways.  A first grade class is planning to use Photo Story for this project.
  • Book Spine Poetry:  Students in various grades will create a kind of found poem using books from the library shelves arranged in a stack to write poems using the titles on the spines.  Classes will photograph their stacks and record themselves reading their new poems.
  • Poetry Display:  5th grade has an autobiographical poetry and photography display on the media center shelves.  This project was a collaboration between the art teacher and the media center.
  • Poem in Your Pocket Day:  The official national poem in your pocket day is April 14th this year.  We’ll be celebrating on April 15th.  The media center will be transformed into a poetry cafe with tablecloths, special lighting, and an open mic for all classes to read both original poetry and favorite poems.
  • 1st Annual Poetry Contest:  Students in all grades PreK-5th can submit poems to our media center poetry contest.  A panel of judges will read and select the most creative poems at PreK-1st, 2nd-3rd, and 4th-5th grades.  Top poets will receive autographed books that I had autographed at the Decatur Book Festival, and other special poets will receive things such as pens, bookmarks, and other special trinkets donated from Borders.

Resource:

  • Poetry Tag Time:  For $0.99, you can download a creative e-book called Poetry Tag Time. The book features unpublished poems by top children’s poets.  Each poem is somehow connected to the one before it as each poet tags the next poet to write a new poem.  There is also a blog connected with the book.  You can also follow the Gotta Book Blog and Poetry for Children Blog, where free poems will be posted each day of poetry month.  This would also be a fun way to start a poetry project in your school among students or teachers.

Have fun this poetry month and feel free to share the exciting things going on in your library in the comments section of this post so that we can all continue to learn from one another about how to honor this genre of our collections.

Andy Plemmons

School Librarian
David C. Barrow Elementary
Athens, GA

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/aplemmons

Thinking Ahead to National Poetry Month

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National Poetry Month doesn’t begin until April 1st, but it’s not too early to start planning (or even celebrating! Why wait?)

Here are a few ideas and resources as we think ahead to Poetry Month, when we celebrate one of the often underutilized sections of our collections.

Read Poetry Aloud

One of the simplest things we can do with poetry is to read it aloud. Many students, especially those in high school, may think of poetry as primarily something to be analyzed.  When I hear resistance to poetry, I try to remind students that poetry is experimentation with language. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, poetry is meant to be enjoyed.

I read poetry aloud in my classes every time we meet.  It seems strange to many of my students at first, but they quickly come to anticipate the experience of listening to poetry read aloud.

Here are a few books I’ve read aloud from recently:

Animal Poems by Valerie Worth (with excellent collage illustrations by Steve Jenkins)

  • I read each poem but leave out the name of the animal.  Students can guess the animal, based on the wonderfully descriptive words in each poem.

This is Just To Say, Poems of Apology and Forgiveness by Joyce Sidman

  • This book is written as a riff on the famous (some might say infamous) poem by William Carlos William entitled “This is Just To Say.” From the silly to the deeply painful, this book of apologies (and responses) strikes a chord with many students.

The Blacker The Berry by Joyce Carol Thomas

  • This book celebrates all the different shades of blackness through lush descriptive verses and beautiful illustrations.

Poetrees by Douglas Florian

  • Simple, enchanting poems about all kinds of trees and their virtues. Florian also wrote the delightful Dinothesaurus, Insectlopedia, and many others.

In addition to reading aloud from published books, there will likely be many students writing poetry throughout the month of April.  Why not invite a student to read their poem aloud during the daily newscast, or set up a recording station in the library and have students create poetry podcasts?

Writing Poetry

Speaking of writing poems, there are a number of online tools that connect to poetry.  One of my favorites is piclits.com, which features striking pictures and your choice of drag-and-drop words or a freestyle “type your own” option. Strong words are an important part of poetry, and pairing them with images add another layer of meaning.  (Note: some of the images provided on piclits.com may be better suited for older students, but this idea would be fairly easy to adapt to a younger age group with some creative commons images and a bank of clever words).

Tagxedo is a site familiar to many of us, but we may not think of word clouds as poems. Tagxedo reminds me of concrete poetry. Concrete poems are great fun to write by hand or online, once again using the visual as a layer of meaning for the writer to consider. (Check out Paul Janeczko’s A Poke In The I for a great collection of concrete poems). As students create concrete poems, we can help them think about what image would work best to share their ideas with an audience. These poems would be easy to collect and post on a website.

For More Ideas…

These are just a few ideas I’ve used to inspire the reading and writing of poetry. There are many other resources you can look to for inspiration.

National Poetry Month Resources from The Academy of American Poets at Poets.org

Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High School Students

A Middle School Version of the Poetry 180 Project

Sylvia Vardell’s blog Poetry for Children (including this post featuring poems about librarians)

Buffy Hamilton’s Poetry Posts

Andy Plemmons’s Posts about Poem In Your Pocket Day and Book Spine Poetry

I hope this post gets you thinking about all the different ways you might celebrate National Poetry Month in your library. Please share your own favorite ideas and resources in the comments!

Beth Friese

Ph.D. Candidate

Department of Language and Literacy Education

The University of Georgia

Poem in Your Pocket Day 2010

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Last year, I was inspired by Buffy Hamilton and other media specialists who were participating in National Poem In Your Pocket Day.  I asked myself, “How might we celebrate this wonderful day in our elementary school?”  This question developed into a 2-day celebration of poetry throughout our whole school.

Our preparation starts at the beginning of April with daily poetry on BTV and poetry writing workshops with multiple classes.  This year, we did lessons on green living poetry, poetry & photography, book spine poetry, and shape poetry.  Many classroom teachers also explored biopoetry and list poetry.  Because of CRCT testing, we held our Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 15th instead of the national day, April 29th.  On April 15th, all students, teachers, and staff carried poems in their pockets that they wrote themselves or that they copied from a book.  Each person was given a “Poem In Your Pocket Day 2010″ sticker indicating that they had a poem in their pocket.  All day, participants were encouraged to stop one another and share their poems.

On April 14th & 15th, the media center was transformed into a poetry cafe.  Tables were set with bulletin board paper tablecloths, paper lanterns, die-cut confetti, and poetry books.  Crayons were also placed on tables for students to create their own images and poetry as they attended the cafe.  Lamps covered by scarves lighted the sides of the media center.  The stage area featured a cloth covered stool with groovy lights and fabrics as a backdrop.  Every class in the school came to the cafe during the two days to read poetry at the open mic.  We all celebrated each poet’s reading by snapping.

Several incredible moments happened during the two days.  When our paraprofessional, Ms. Olin went to do lunch duty, she saw students asking each other to share their poems.  Our principal went outside to recess on both of our school playgrounds and heard students saying, “Do you have your poem?  Let me hear it”.  In the media center, we saw several students who hardly ever speak go up to the microphone and share their poem.  We saw students do some impromptu multiple voice poems and choral reading.  We also heard a beautiful reading of Eloise Greenfield’s “Honey, I Love” from a 3rd grader.  We had several adults who also shared at our open mic.  Our school secretary, aka “The Queen”, shared a poem about being a queen.  Our technology integration specialist, Steve Piazza, shared a poem he wrote about pockets.  Meg Inscoe, a first grade paraprofessional, shared a limerick about her class.  Ms. Olin shared two poems that she wrote about things she loves and dreams.  Several teachers, including Ms. Em, shared their poetry as well.  Our assistant principal saw students sharing poems after school as they went to their cars.  Also, her son had memorized his poem and recited it for the family at dinner.  The day after Poem in your Pocket Day, a PreK student brought me a poetry book he had made at home and he left space for me to include my own poems.  The list could go on and on.  The day was just filled with wonderful moments.

It was sad to take down all of the cafe decorations after school, but we have these pictures to help us remember this wonderful day until next year’s Poem in Your Pocket Day.  Enjoy viewing the pictures and looking at examples of our poetry creations.  Feel free to post comments about your own poetry celebrations.

[slideshow]

Andy Plemmons
School Librarian
David C. Barrow Elementary
Athens, GA

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/aplemmons

Start Planning for National Poem in Your Pocket Day and Poetry Month 2009

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http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

Poem In Your Pocket Day – Poets.org – Poetry, Poems, Bios & More via kwout

One of my favorite months of the year is April because it is National Poetry Month! We celebrated poetry in many ways last year in our media center with special book displays, posters of student poems, student poetry podcasts, a guest poet, and of course, Poem in Your Pocket Day! Read more about how I celebrated this day last year in my media center.

National Poem in Your Pocket Day will be Thursday, April 30, 2009 this year! Now is the time to start planning for this date and your National Poetry Month 2009 festivities!  Please consider adding your photos for this day to the Flickr Group, Poem in Your Pocket.  You will also want to check out how the Academy of American Poets celebrated this day last year in New York City.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2aoNNd1Ozs]

You can visit the home page of National Poetry Month at http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41.  Be sure to check out the Teacher Resource page and Librarian Resource page for super ideas on ways to integrate poetry into your program and celebration activities.  You will also want to check out the resource page for organizing a poetry read-a-thon—this is an activity I am planning on this year for my library!

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Last, you may want to check out my resources for tapping into the power of Web 2.0 to celebrate and integrate poetry in your library.  Take a peek at my recent presentation on Poetry 2.0!

http://theunquietlibrarian.wikispaces.com/Poetry2oh

theunquietlibrarian » Poetry2oh via kwout

Buffy Hamilton, Media Specialist
Creekview High School
http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com
http://theunquietlibrary.wordpress.com

National Book Award Winners To Be Announced Tonight!

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 http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2008.html

The National Book Foundation via kwout

Clear your schedule tonight and stay tuned to hear who wins the National Book Award for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and of course, Young People’s Literature!  The medal ceremony begins at 9:00 PM (EST), and you can follow the updates via http://twitter.com/nationalbook !  Download free posters and bookmarks, read interviews with the nominees, and learn more about each nominated book/work of literature by visiting http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2008.html .

Who do you think will win for Young People’s Literature?  Vote now!

[polldaddy poll="1120848"]

Buffy Hamilton, Media Specialist
Creekview High School
http://mysite.cherokee.k12.ga.us/personal/buffy_hamilton/buffyhamilton/default.aspx

Save the Date: Decatur Book Festival, August 29-31!

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http://www.decaturbookfestival.com/2008/index.php

The 2008 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented by DeKalb Medical | Home

 Many thanks to Dr. JoBeth Allen from the University of Georgia Department of Language and Literacy for the heads up on this WONDERFUL event!  I plan to be there…Billy Collins will be giving the keynote address!  Here is the latest info straight from the festival organizers via email:

It’s hard to believe, but here we are preparing to launch the THIRD annual Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented by DeKalb Medical. The festival has not merely survived its first few years. We’ve built on partnerships with artistic, educational, business, and governmental organizations not only from all over metropolitan Atlanta but from all over the nation. Hosted in the literary haven of Decatur, this festival has quickly joined the ranks of the largest and most talked about book festivals nationwide.
 
 Perhaps we could just keep doing what we’ve been doing and call that good enough, but where’s the fun in that? We’ve added plenty of new and unique programs to this year’s festival:
 
 We’ve had a Children’s Parade since the first year, but this is the first time we’ll be launching a new book at the parade. Not just any book: It’s the first new “Madeline” story in 50 years–”Madeline and the Cats of Rome”–written by John Bemelmans Marciano, the grandson of Ludwig Bemelmans. We encourage everyone to join Marciano in the parade, maybe wear a big yellow hat, sing your favorite French (or, for that matter, Italian) song, or just make some noise.
 
 Though we’ve had programs directed at teenagers from the beginning, 2008 marks the first year we will set aside a space exclusively for teenagers, called Escape. Escape will host best-selling authors for interactive discussions, an open mic and a literary salon. For those under 18, there will also be a quiz show called How Well Do You Know Harry? judged by Cheryl Klein, continuity editor for the last four Harry Potter books.
 
 In a historic partnership, Poets & Writers and Agnes Scott College are working with us to present the best DBF Writers Conferenceyet, with top national editors, agents, critics, publicists, authors, and screenwriters sharing their collective wisdom in a conference tightly integrated with the rest of the book festival. In addition, beginning this year, DBF will host the prestigious Southern Independent Booksellers Association (SIBA) awards ceremony. Many of the nominees will give readings at the festival.
 
 In 2006, we hosted the launch event for the first Atlanta Reads. This year, we’ll launch Atlanta Reads as well as the Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts. Atlanta’s Big Read will encourage the entire community to read and talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”
 
 Still not enough to fill your Labor Day weekend? Check out even more of the new programs that make this year’s festival truly unique:

 Brooks & Co. Dancewill perform a dance inspired by Shirley Jackson’s classic short story, “The Lottery,” set to the music of Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring” and drawing on Ninjinsky’s seminal choreography to Stravinsky’s work.
 
 In a program called “Words from Iraq,” adult and young actors from PushPush Theater will present multiple perspectives on Iraq through readings of letters children have written to their parents in the military, blogs written by soldiers in Iraq, and a blog by a young Iraqi woman.
 
 In the spirit of the Java Monkey Local Authors Stage, we’re adding a stage for emerging authors just beginning to get their work out into the world, called the Emerging and Exhibiting Authors Stage.
 
 Author and former Olympian runner Jeff Galloway will lead a fun run Saturday morning of the festival, followed by a running clinic.
 
 Lee Smith, Marshall Chapman, Jill McCorkle, and Matraca Berg will all be onstage together to give a taste of their traveling musical–The Good ol’ Girls–about their friendship and the mutual influences of their books and music on one another.
  
 And that’s just the new stuff!
 

You know you can also count on us to bring you the nation’s top authors in our strongest, most diverse line-up yet. You know we’ve got you covered for good food and some of the best singer-songwriters in America. You know we’ll show the whole family a good time. So, come join us this Labor Day weekend for the best AJC Decatur Book Festival yet!    
   
   

 Be sure to check out our 2008 DBF web site,www.decaturbookfestival.com <http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=0010o9b8-G1lEKeg0HJ9PdUjGRNyOgyeblVgbcTsEt5PKylDahxzgliuFLJWKLt-zYIoc45cFGTjIsQlOObVGPCdF6Q_S1hyNoiVHSyZMw4GDtx6o-NqZyAj84pBZOFARsm> .

Buffy Hamilton, Media Specialist
Creekview High School

Happy Poetry Month!

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Making Connections through Poetry  http://www.loc.gov/teachers/history/

Looking for ways to combine primary sources and poetry?

A new activity from the Library of congress, Making Connections through Poetry: Finding the Heart in History, allows students to review and analyze primary sources and then synthesize the information and create poetry based on what they have learned. They can create “found poetry” from selected documents on many topics….or they can write a poem to accompany an image.

Students can print out their poems and the primary sources on which they are based and teachers can compile the poems and make chapter books that can be shared with students, other teachers and parents.

This is ready to use…the images & documents have been selected for you!  Take a look!  Try something new!