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Re: Reading Aloud and Poetry
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From: smithhemb_at_aol.com
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:14:34 -0400 (EDT)
My daughter's 7th grade English teacher does a "March Madness" unit on poet ry. Each student brings in a poem s/he really likes (it could be one they' ve written themselves) and the poems assigned to a tableau like the ones us ed in sports tournaments. Each student is given another student's submissi on to learn and to present to the class. Poems are read in pairs and then voted upon. Each winner goes on to another match until the brackets narrow to the final two.
What amazed me about this assignment was how much poetry got read by how ma ny people (and with how little involvement was required on the teacher's pa rt -- a good thing, to my mind). My daughter and I spent a couple of hours going through collections and reading poems to each other for consideratio n. When my parents heard about the assignment, which overlapped spring bre ak, they started volunteering suggestions, which led my Dad to spend some t ime tracking down half-remembered poems he'd loved. My daughter ended up w riting a poem, but rejecting it in favor of Auden's "The Unknown Citizen." She then she memorized another poem written by a classmate, and listened t o all the submissions, coming home particularly impressed by Blake's "The T yger."
This isn't the only work they do with poetry, but it provided a context for using everything else they learned and it showed them that people know and love poems long after they've been assigned to read them in school.
Up until now, I think the poetry my kid has most enjoyed reading in school has all been assigned in French class. Perhaps because while the vocabular y and syntax is fairly simple, the ideas have been more sophisticated than what she's encountered when she's been assigned what I'd call childrens' po etry in English classes.
Sue Hemberger Washington, DC
Message-----
From: Megan Schliesman To: ccbc-net, Subscribers of Sent: Tue, Apr 19, 2011 6:28 am Subject:
Reading Aloud and Poetry
Thanks you for everyone who has been contributing to the discussion on reading aloud, sharing your philosophies, stories and m emories, and favorite read-aloud titles.
Let's use reading aloud as a launching point for the discussion for the rest of this month: Poetry Spoken (and Read!) Here.
How do you share and encourage children and teens to read and share poetry? Do you read it aloud in the classroom or library? Do you look fo r poems to incorporate into story times, discussion groups, or the curri culum? Do you encourage poetry writing along with poetry reading? During the second half of April (which is National Poetry Month), we invite yo u to share a few lines about using poetry with children and teens.
My CCBC colleague Merri Lindgren and I have been doing a lot of book stalks to librarians and teachers in recent months, and one of our favor ite books to highlight is "Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors" b y Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beckie Prange (Houghton Mifflin, 2010). I've heard Merri read the poem "Tail Tale" from this book many times and never get tired of listening to it. And I relish opportunities to read it myself. I did this most recently at the end of dinner at my house, t o my daughter, husband and a friend eating over. It's a poem that is a delight to read and a delight to listen to, and made me realize that I r eally need to make more time for reading poetry out loud at home, and me als are a perfect opportunity to do this.
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:14:34 -0400 (EDT)
My daughter's 7th grade English teacher does a "March Madness" unit on poet ry. Each student brings in a poem s/he really likes (it could be one they' ve written themselves) and the poems assigned to a tableau like the ones us ed in sports tournaments. Each student is given another student's submissi on to learn and to present to the class. Poems are read in pairs and then voted upon. Each winner goes on to another match until the brackets narrow to the final two.
What amazed me about this assignment was how much poetry got read by how ma ny people (and with how little involvement was required on the teacher's pa rt -- a good thing, to my mind). My daughter and I spent a couple of hours going through collections and reading poems to each other for consideratio n. When my parents heard about the assignment, which overlapped spring bre ak, they started volunteering suggestions, which led my Dad to spend some t ime tracking down half-remembered poems he'd loved. My daughter ended up w riting a poem, but rejecting it in favor of Auden's "The Unknown Citizen." She then she memorized another poem written by a classmate, and listened t o all the submissions, coming home particularly impressed by Blake's "The T yger."
This isn't the only work they do with poetry, but it provided a context for using everything else they learned and it showed them that people know and love poems long after they've been assigned to read them in school.
Up until now, I think the poetry my kid has most enjoyed reading in school has all been assigned in French class. Perhaps because while the vocabular y and syntax is fairly simple, the ideas have been more sophisticated than what she's encountered when she's been assigned what I'd call childrens' po etry in English classes.
Sue Hemberger Washington, DC
Message-----
From: Megan Schliesman To: ccbc-net, Subscribers of Sent: Tue, Apr 19, 2011 6:28 am Subject:
Reading Aloud and Poetry
Thanks you for everyone who has been contributing to the discussion on reading aloud, sharing your philosophies, stories and m emories, and favorite read-aloud titles.
Let's use reading aloud as a launching point for the discussion for the rest of this month: Poetry Spoken (and Read!) Here.
How do you share and encourage children and teens to read and share poetry? Do you read it aloud in the classroom or library? Do you look fo r poems to incorporate into story times, discussion groups, or the curri culum? Do you encourage poetry writing along with poetry reading? During the second half of April (which is National Poetry Month), we invite yo u to share a few lines about using poetry with children and teens.
My CCBC colleague Merri Lindgren and I have been doing a lot of book stalks to librarians and teachers in recent months, and one of our favor ite books to highlight is "Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors" b y Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beckie Prange (Houghton Mifflin, 2010). I've heard Merri read the poem "Tail Tale" from this book many times and never get tired of listening to it. And I relish opportunities to read it myself. I did this most recently at the end of dinner at my house, t o my daughter, husband and a friend eating over. It's a poem that is a delight to read and a delight to listen to, and made me realize that I r eally need to make more time for reading poetry out loud at home, and me als are a perfect opportunity to do this.
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
---Received on Tue 19 Apr 2011 11:14:34 AM CDT
