POETRY MADNESS BEGINS!

Ready for POETRY MADNESS to begin!

I am not a big basketball fan but do keep up a bit with MARCH MADNESS. I really have no choice as my husband is obsessed with it for several weeks each year. But I did pay attention when Tony Keefer started talking about the March "Book" Madness he was doing in his classroom. It sounded like such a great way to create amazing conversations and celebrations around books.  I made a mental note to myself to remember this idea next March. Then came March's #Titletalk on Poetry. It was a great discussion as all #Titletalks are and my head was spinning with all of the ideas. Somewhere in the conversation, someone mentioned that you could do a Poetry type March Madness in April for National Poetry Month. The answer to the part of my personality that hates to wait to implement a great idea!

So, this week, we begin POETRY MADNESS in the Riverside Library! It will be a month long event and I can't wait to see how it unfolds.

Before I got too far along in my planning, I needed to really think about my big goals. I am not one to do events just because they sound fun. I need to make sure the time spent adds up to something for my students.  And I don't often do the same thing with all classes in grades 1-5. Last year, we did the POETRY PICNIC in the library and kids are still talking about it.  It was a fun two weeks and gave kids lots of experiences with poetry but the interest in poetry didn't carry beyond the picnic.

Poetry seems to be hit or miss in the library. If a class is working with poetry, kids seem interested but I very seldom have kids check out poetry for their independent reading.  I realized that our kids know books, characters, and authors of lots of books but they do not really know poetry books and poets.  Kids stop me in the hall (several times an hour:-) but I realize they never talk to me about poetry.

So POETRY MADNESS is about changing this. One of the things I love about my job is the ability to invite whole school conversations. Because I see all students, I see siblings. I love when one sibling has heard about something in the library from their brother at home over dinner. I love to hear that conversations around books have made it to the dinner table.

One goal I have is to create a whole school conversation around poetry. Because this is a 4 week event/tournament, there is lots of time for this. I am hoping to have a few displays, include some tournament winners, etc. on our morning announcement TV show, etc.  Just quick things to get the entire school community talking about poetry.

I also want kids to begin to see poetry as something worthy of choosing for independent reading time. By getting their hands on 64 books, I am hoping they find books they want to go back to in the future. Because of this goal, I did not bring in any books from the public library, etc. Instead, I pulled them all from our library shelves.

And, I am hoping to have kids begin to know poems and poets in the ways they know characters and favorite authors.  Because we will be really thinking about 16 books, I will have the opportunity to share information, read poetry, visit poets' websites, etc.

So, we started this week with 64 books.  There was no real system for choosing the 64 books. I wanted books from our library and teachers had already checked several out.  I tried to find a variety of authors, forms, publication dates, etc. Each class rotated to 6 tables during their class time to browse the books. Then, every student in grades 1-5 had a chance to vote for 1 book they were hoping would be in the tournament.  It was such fun to listen to the conversations as they revisited old favorites and discovered new books.

After the first round of voting, we will have 16 books in the POETRY MADNESS tournament. I will place the books in a bracket based on votes (1st and 16th, 2nd and 15th, etc.). So, next week we'll have 8 votes to make. I'll introduce the 16 winners/8contests and kids will vote. I am hoping to have time to read a poem or two from each, share a bit about the book, etc. so kids have something to vote from. I know we will revisit some of these books a few more times so that gives me some flexibility.

The following rotation, we'll be down to 8 winners and 4 contests. And so on. I figure each week, we'll get to dig deeper into the books that are still in the running.  During these last weeks, I will build on opportunities as they occur based on the books chosen and the conversations.

My hope is that conversations around poetry will become part of our school community.  I hope that kids share some of this at home with families at the dinner table and that they begin to include more poetry in their conversations as readers.

Below is a list of the books that we have started with. Can't wait to see this play out!

African Acrostics by Avis Harley
Animal Poems by Valerie Worth
Amazing Faces by Lee Bennet Hopkins
Antarctic Antics by Judy Sierra
The Arrow Finds its Mark by Georgia Heard
The Basket Counts by Arnold Adoff
Beast Feast by Douglas Florian
Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky
Beyond Old McDonald by Charley Hoce
Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
Blackberry Ink
Bookspeak by Laura Purdis Salas
Busy in the Garden by George Shannon
Butterfly Eyes by Joyce Sidman
Button Up! By Alice Schertle
Chicken Scratches by George Shannon
City I Love by Lee Bennett Hopkins
The Cuckoo's Haiku by Michael J. Rosen
Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman
Dear Hot Dog by Mordical Gerstein
Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian
Dogku by Andrew Clements
Dogs Rule! By Daniel Kirk
Doodle Dandies by J. Patrick Lewis
Emily Stew by Thomas Rockwell
Emma Dilemma by Kristine O'Connell George
Every Day ís a Dog's Day by Marilyn Singer
Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein
Falling Down the Page by Georgia Heard
Fold Me a Poem by Kristine O'Connell George
Forgive Me, I Went to Do It by Gail Carson Levine
Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex
Good Books, Good Times! By Lee Bennett Hopkins
Good Rhymes, Good Times by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Good Sports by Jack Prelutsky
Guyku by BobRaczka
Happy Birthday! by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Here's a Little Poem by Jane Yolen
Hey World, Here I Am by Jean Little
Hip Hop Speaks to Children by Nikki Giovanni
Laugh-eteria by Douglas Florian
Loose Leashes by Amy Schmidt
Lunch Money by Carol Diggory Shields
Mathematickles! By Betsy Franco
More Pocket Poems by Bobbi Katz
My Dog May Be a Genius by Jack Prelutsky
On the Farm by David Elliott
Outside Your Window by Nicola Davies
Red Sings From the Treetops by Joyce Sidman
Scarum Fair by Jessica Swaim
School Supplies by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Something Big Has Been Here by Jack Prelutsky
Splish Splash by Joan Bransfield Graham
Spot the Plot by J. Patrick Lewis
Step Gently Out by Helen Frost
Take Two! A Celebration of Twins by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen
Tap Dancing on the Roof by Linda Sue Park
This is Just to Say by Joyce Sidman
Truckery Rhymes by Jon Scieszka
A Whiff of Pine, a Hint of Skunk by Deborah Ruddell
The Wonder Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
A World of Wonders by J. Patrick Lewis
A Writing Kind of Day by Ralph Fletcher
You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Scary Stories by Mary Ann Hoberman

BOXED IN -- a goose poem, a city nature poem

BOXED IN

They've made their home

in a commercial zone.

He struts down the walk

where no predators stalk:

the vigilant gander

threatening human bystanders,

while goose wishes she

had more privacy.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2012

Poem #2, National Poetry Month 2012

Cathy, at Merely Day By Day, is joining me in a poem a day this month. Other daily poem writers include Amy at The Poem Farm, Linda at TeacherDance, Donna at Mainely Write, Laura at Writing the World for Kids (daily haiku), Liz at Liz in Ink (daily haiku)...and YOU?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Go visit TEACH MENTOR TEXTS for the whole round up of 

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? posts.  

Thanks Jen and Kellee!

This Week's Update is Brought to You by Mary Lee

I grabbed FAKE MOUSTACHE by Tom Angleberger at the library yesterday. (I was gathering books for the unit of study on empathy that we'll be beginning Monday. No, I don't think FAKE MOUSTACHE will be part of the study!) Based on all I've heard about it, including Franki's review last week, this is the funniest Angleberger yet. I can't wait to get started on it!

But before I start FAKE MOUSTACHE, I'm embarrassed to say that I need to get caught up and read DARTH PAPER STRIKES BACK. I started it last night, but I soon fell into a food-induced coma from a birthday dinner at Rivage. 

Actually, I need to put this one aside (yet again...and this is how it has happened that I haven't read it yet...) because...

...I really need to read the newest LUNCH LADY (LUNCH LADY AND THE MUTANT MATHLETES) so that it can be on the chalk tray first thing this morning and I can maintain my position as The Teacher With All The Coolest Books.

Now a peek at my adult reading...

I just finished listening to LITTLE BEE Saturday. Because of the two voices in the story, the audio experience was particularly powerful. Plus, this was the first audio book I checked out of the public library. CML has a really easy stepsheet for getting the free OverDrive app and checking out e-books and audio books. 

Now that I'm finished with LITTLE BEE, I'll get back to listening to 11/22/63 by Steven King. I sort of left the main character stuck back in time while I took a break to listen to LITTLE BEE for book club. It made for fascinating conversation to be reading a time travel book while my class was listening to/reading along with A WRINKLE IN TIME.

Happy Monday, and Happy Reading!!

Collaboration - a teaching poem, a learning poem

COLLABORATION

Teaching is collaboration,

Not an act in isolation.

Empty vessels don't exist,

Learners' efforts must persist.

Nothing's easy the first time,

But "Oh! I get it!" feels sublime.

Both of us must take a turn.

Two must try for one to learn.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2012

Poem #1, National Poetry Month 2012

My student N. was so taken by the way the Madness! 2012 poetry tournament worked that she started asking me for words to use as prompts for her own poems. (Franki tells me the same is true of her middle schooler.)

I gave N. a couple of words, but then realized that she needed a self-sustaining strategy for giving HERSELF a challenge. So I told her about Amy LV's Dictionary Hike, and together we went to the dictionary to get ourselves some words. She got TIRE, and I got COLLABORATION. And so begins National Poetry Month 2012!

Cathy, at Merely Day By Day, is joining me in a poem a day this month.

*     *     *     *     *     *

An addendum. Seems to fit with the poem in a Calvin and Hobbes sort of way...

March Mosaic

M -- North Market

Flower Stall -- North Market

Silly Question -- North Market

G -- North Market

Thai Burrito -- NorthStar Cafe (YUM!)

W -- Heart of Ohio Antiques

Z -- March Sky

Redbud and Fly -- Our Yard

Redbud -- Our Yard

Redbud -- Our Yard

Unlikely Nestbox -- Olentangy Plaza, just down from Mad River Outfitters

Crawdad -- Little Miami River in John Bryan State Park

River Shells -- Little Miami River in John Bryan State Park
Dutchman's Breeches -- John Bryan State Park
Geometric -- Our Neighborhood
0 -- Our Neighborhood
8 -- Selby Park
Pines -- Selby Park
Tracks -- Our Neighborhood

Tree Imitates Sky -- March Sky

5 -- Utility Pole on Goodale Street

Not as many numbers and letters this month, but as A. E. Housman said,

"...And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow."

You can see all the photos HERE on Flickr.

Poetry Friday -- STIGMA

SAFFRON HARVEST

by Mary Lee Hahn

The blooming field
is a purple sea.

Closer
you see rows.

Bent over, I focus
on each crocus.

For 50 millennia,
the three-part stigma –

threads of yellow,
golden glow,

–has been harvested by hand,
bloom by bloom, plant by plant.

Priceless
spice.

Earlier in the week, I wrote a little about the process of writing this poem. How I got from STIGMA, my word in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 poetry contest, to a SAFFRON HARVEST.

My poem didn't quite get enough votes to move me on in the contest, but I do not feel like I LOST in any way, shape or form. In fact, here are a few of the ways I have WON with this contest:

• I am a better writer.
• I am a better writing teacher.
• R. went and got a thesaurus to look up a better word for DRY in one of her poems.
• N. asked for a word so that she could try writing a poem the way I had. She is learning so much about the writing process as I share my process with her -- that it pays to collect definitions, synonyms, rhymes and pages of ideas before you actually start the poem.
• On Wednesday, my Environmental Club "lesson" was on parts of plants and parts of flowers...specifically, STIGMAS. Then we went outside in the warm sun and the brisk breeze and we putzed around in the land lab, peeking into every bloom we could find, looking for the stigmas.
• This from my Mom: "I think more about words since your poetry contest...I wanted to share this beautiful sentence from the book I am reading now--a mystery set in Wyoming, starring a fish and game officer. "A single stringy white cloud seemed to have snagged on the top of the peak like a plastic bag caught on a tree branch." "
• And last, but not least, all of the SUPPORT and kind words from bloggers around the Kidlitosphere, from folks back in my hometown, from friends far and wide, from the teachers and kids at school. 

Happy Poetry Friday! Heidi's rounding us up at my juicy little universe. (Happy Spring Break, Heidi!)

National Poetry Month starts this weekend. I'm sure today's roundup will highlight many of them.

Starting on Sunday, I'll be posting an original, fresh out of the notebook poem-a-day here, in amongst our regular programming. These will be DAILY poems, not polished drafts that I've worked on for five hours. I don't have a particular theme for my poems, like Heidi does, or a particular way I'll be getting my ideas, like Amy LV does. I think I'm going to try playing around with some longer forms (I was inspired by Susan Taylor Brown's pantoum and Amy LV's triolet and Kat's sonnet). Maybe I'll combine my Project 365 photography with poems. We'll just have to wait and see!

Wordless (or nearly so)

The Giant Seed
by Arthur Geisert
Enchanted Lion Books, June 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

I am a huge fan of wordless picture books, and Arthur Geisert is a master of the form.

This followup to Ice (reviewed here) is a story of survival, collaboration and dandelion seeds. Yes, dandelions. It seems like the perfect season to look at those plants we think of as pests with wonder and admiration as we imagine the small worlds that would be saved by those magical floaty seeds...

Little Bird
by Germano Zullo
illustrated by Albertine
translated from the French by Claudia Zoe Bedrick
Enchanted Lion Books, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

It's high time we here in the U.S. started paying better attention to books published internationally.

Take for instance, Little Bird, winner of the 2011 Prix Sorcières for illustration (the French Caldecott). Yes, the book is visually stunning. It's clear why it won an award for illustrations.

But it's a great story, too. About the small things in life. About keeping your eyes open for the little ways that make every day different, unique, and a day to be treasured.

This is not quite a wordless book. The words stay tucked down at the bottom of the page in the white margin around the illustration. The words are like a quiet commentary that complement the cinematic pictures. This is one I'd love to read to kids of many ages to see how their reactions differ.

From STIGMA to SAFFRON

by Hugh MacLeod at Gaping Void

I subscribe to a free daily dose of these cartoons by Hugh MacLeod. (Sign up here.) It's creepy but wonderful how often they "talk" to me by giving me just the message I need to hear at the moment they land in my inbox.

I used one in a post a week ago, when I was shaking my head at getting the word SCUTTLE in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 Poetry Writing Tournament, and at the crazy improbability that I could even hope to win against the amazing children's poet Julie Larios.

Well, win I did, and the word I got on Sunday night, for a competition against Greg Pincus, master of wit, rhyme and puns is...

STIGMA

I spent 6 straight hours Monday night after school working on a poem that uses the word stigma in it. 

The way I looked at it, I had two options: a poem about social disgrace, or a poem about one of the reproductive parts of a plant.

I was totally stuck because I was trying to write a poem about the word. I needed to write a poem that just used that word in passing. That's when I decided to write a poem about saffron.

What do I know about saffron and saffron harvesting? I have a bottle of it in my spice cupboard. I've cooked with it maybe once or twice in my life. Thank goodness for the internet. I Googled "Saffron Harvest," and through the pictures, video, and websites, I created a virtual experience for myself, and boiled it down into a poem I could be proud of.

As agonizing and frustrating as it was to work for SIX hours on this poem, the moment when I realized I was on the right track was an amazing and addictive kind of high. Because of this contest, I am learning that I really do LOVE to write poetry.

I am not that good at writing funny poems, or poems with a regular rhythm and spot-on rhymes. But I am finding out, through this contest, that I am good at near-rhyme, flow, titles, and nailing down endings.

Voting is still live throughout today for the "Elite Eight" poems in the Madness! 2012 Poetry Contest. My poem is here.  It lost by a couple of votes, but I'm still feeling lika a big winner.

Thank you Ed DeCaria at Think Kid, Think for a fun game.

Women's History Month: Touch The Sky

Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper
by Ann Malaspina
illustrations by Eric Velaszuez
Albert Whitman & Company, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

This biography of the first African American woman to win Olympic Gold is written as a series of free-verse poems. Malaspina does a fabulous job showing the reader how Alice the child became Alice the Olympian.

Alice's dream and her talent were jeopardized by the poverty of her family and the color of her skin. But all along the way, people believed in her and opened doors for her. She never let them down. She literally cleared every hurdle put before her.

Photographs, the author's note, and the bibliography (including several websites) help to bring the story into sharp focus.

Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It: False Apology Poems by Gail Caron Levine

I fell in love with Gail Carson Levine years ago when I read PRINCESS SONORA AND THE LONG SLEEP. The humor she brought to her retelling of one of my favorite stories--The Princess and the Pea--was brilliant. And I went on to read the rest of her Princess Tales.  So, I have been looking forward to Gail Carson Levine's new poetry book called FORGIVE ME, I MEANT TO DO IT. I really had no idea what to expect from this book, but knew that I'd want a copy. I picked my copy up at Cover to Cover last week and read it when I got home.

This book was one that made me laugh out loud. Each poem in the book is connected in some way to a fairy tale or nursery rhyme we know.  The poems are apologies from characters, etc. about their actions. But they are false apologies which makes them even more fun. I kept finding poems I wanted to share with my family. (My husband was thrilled as I continued to read samples aloud while cracking myself up--he was trying to watch March Madness...)  One of my favorites was an apology poem from Pinocchio.

I think kids will have a ball with this one. Older kids will make the connections needed to understand the humor.  For some, this may inspire them to read some of Gail Carson Levine's other fairy tales--her retellings and her original tales.

The author's bio on Amazon states that Gail Carson Levine shares a birthday with William Carlos Williams.  How fun, then, for her to write a book inspired by his famous poem!  The author does invite readers to try their own apology poems--she does so with her usual wit:-)

So much to love about this author and this new book!