Kids Reading and Writing Poetry
RSSJudy Freeman, Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 03/02/2010
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Teachers and librarians, some of whom have FOP (Fear of Poetry), rally during April —National Poetry Month—raiding bookshelves and sharing a soupçon of verse with their kids. I understand FOP. I had it bad in college, and never did succeed in slogging through the hundreds of the intimidating, tissue-paper-thin pages of The Norton Anthology of Poetry. It wasn’t until I became a school librarian that I transcended my anxiety and reignited my love affair with children’s poetry, which had begun with A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young (Dutton, 1924) when I was very young.
Working my way through the library shelves, I reveled in the free-verse imagery of Valerie Worth’s Small Poems (Farrar, 1972); rediscovered Mother Goose-like nonsense rhymes in Wallace Tripp’s A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up and Tied His Horse to Me (Little, Brown, 1974); and set to music some of the silly verse in Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends (HarperCollins, 1974). With my classes, I would scatter poetry books across the tables and have kids work in pairs to pick a poem that sang to them and practice reading it together. Then each duo performed its selection for the rest of the group. Poetry is meant to be performed and celebrated and savored, not ingested in quantity in one’s gloomy dorm room.
In the past decade, we’ve seen an increasing number of stellar middle grade novels that are written in free verse or incorporate poetry, led by Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (Scholastic, 1997; Gr. 6-9), Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog (HarperCollins, 2001; Gr. 4-8), and Jacqueline Woodson’s Locomotion (Putnam, 2003; Gr. 5-8). And now I’ve fallen hard for a trio of little gems for younger readers, transitional read-aloud chapter books that will provide intrepid educators with some joyful follow-up poetry lessons.
You’ve probably already made the acquaintance of the snappy-dressing, dictionary-loving second grader, the title character in Lois Lowry’s Gooney Bird Greene (Houghton, 2002). In the fourth book of the series, Gooney Bird Is So Absurd (Houghton Harcourt, 2009; Gr. 1-3), illustrated by Middy Thomas, Gooney Bird and her chatty classmates become poets. When principal Mr. Leroy announces over the intercom the possibility of more snow tomorrow, Tyrone blurts out, “Snow day! OKAY!” On this wintery day, Gooney Bird is wearing what she calls her new two-ponytail hat, a pale green ruffled helmet with a hole on either side, through which her red pigtails are poking out. Chelsea recognizes the hat for what it really is and shrieks, “It’s underpants!” Ben starts to call out, “I see London, I see France . . .”
Their teacher, Mrs. Pigeon, inspired by Tyrone’s little snow “poem,” skillfully redirects the children’s attention into her lesson for the day: writing couplets—short, two-line rhyming poems about snow. Mrs. Pigeon says, “There are no rules about how long a poem should be. It only has to be long enough to say what you want it to say.” Over the course of the winter week, they segue into writing haiku, list poems, and even limericks. Mrs. Pigeon’s elderly mother, the class’s room mother they call Mrs. X., has been ill, and the students send her their poems to cheer her up. When, in a poignant turn in the novel, the woman dies, and Gooney Bird comes up with a perfect tribute for their grieving teacher: the class writes and videotapes what they call a “Poem for Many Voices.”
Read the book as a way to swan dive into your own poetry unit, and read aloud the classic James Whitcomb Riley poem Mrs. Pigeon mentions, “The Gobble-Uns’ll Git You Ef You Don’t Watch Out” (which, if you don’t have a copy in your library, is easily available online). That poem, written in 1885, was the inspiration for the comic strip character, Little Orphan Annie, and begins:
“Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!”
What a pleasure it is the meet the spirited characters in Nikki Grimes’s new easy-to-read chapter book series about a zestful, super-smart girl, Dyamonde (pronounced Diamond) Daniel. In the first book, Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel! (Putnam, 2009; Gr. 2-4), Dyamonde has just moved from Brooklyn with her mom to a new apartment in Washington Heights, New York. She misses her best friend, Alisha, and the sleepovers they used to have.
At school, there’s a new boy named Free who grunts at everyone and acts angry all the time. She thinks of him as Rude Boy. Dyamonde is determined to find out what’s bugging this kid, and she does it by confronting him directly. “Who are you so mad at?” she demands. Reed “Free” Freeman has just moved from Detroit after his dad lost his job, and now lives in his grandmother’s crowded apartment. With much in common, the two become friends. R. Gregory Christie’s scrappy black-and-white drawings add personality and humor. This first book in the series just sets up Dyamonde and Free as new friends. It’s a very quick read, so when you finish reading it aloud (or booktalking it), you’ll want to slip right into the second book, Rich: A Dyamonde Daniel Book (2009), which is where the poetry thread kicks in.
“I hate being poor,” Free grumbles, annoyed with his mother for not letting him have a new video game, but Dyamonde sets him straight. “My mom says everybody wants something they can’t have. That don’t—doesn’t make you poor . . . Poor is having no clothes and no food, and no place to live, and nobody who cares.” Wise words for a third grader.In class, Mrs. Cordell announces the public library is sponsoring a poetry contest for kids. The top three entries will be published in the Sunday paper, and the winner will receive a hundred dollars. Free sees it as a free ticket to that video game he wants. There’s a quiet, pretty girl in class, named Damaris Dancer, with “skin like dark chocolate mixed with strawberries,” who keeps to herself because she has a secret, which Dyamonde discovers. Damaris lives in the local shelter and doesn’t want anyone to know. (Your children may not know anything about shelters, so you’ll want to talk about that.) She also loves to write poetry. Dyamonde spurs her to write a poem about her experiences in the shelter and submit it to the contest.
In chapter four of Rich, when Dyamonde drags Free into the store, Second Time Around, to look for treasures, he is unimpressed. “Why would I want stuff other people threw away when I could buy something new?” She tells him that everything in there has a story. (Invite your students to bring in an old item and write or tell the story behind it.) There she buys Damaris a copy of Eloise Greenfield’s poetry book, Honey, I Love, and Other Love Poems (HarperCollins, 1978; Gr. 2-5), which is a marvelous read-aloud, especially the title poem, which starts:
“I love I love of lot of things, a whole lot of things
Like
My cousin comes to visit and you know he’s from the South
‘Cause every word he says just kind of slides out of his mouth
I like the way he whistles and I like the way he walks
But honey, let me tell you that I LOVE the way he talks
I love the way my cousin talks.”
What you and your readers will love about the Dyamonde Daniel series is that it shows real kids dealing with tough family issues, but is, nevertheless, upbeat and filled with characters to care about. Each of the three main characters has had a recent crisis and upheaval. Explore the differences of how each one deals with it. Ask students to write a poem or an essay about one thing (excluding money) that makes them feel rich. There’s also a good teacher’s guide you can download from the author’s website. Then introduce the appealing child narrators in Grimes’s stories-told-in-poetry books, including Danitra in Meet Danitra Brown (HarperCollins, 1994; Gr. 3-5), the young male narrator in My Man Blue (Dial, 1999; Gr. 3-6), and the young fremale narrator who dotes on her fierce cat, Gorilla, in When Gorilla Goes Walking (Orchard, 2007; Gr. PreK-4).
O frabjous day! Our old pal, Oggie Cooder is back. He’s the weird but lovable fourth grader who last year taught us all about charving (chewing and carving) slices of American cheese into outlines of each of the 50 states in his eponymous chapter book, Oggie Cooder, by Sarah Weeks, illustrated by Doug Holgate (Scholastic, 2008; Gr. 2-4). In his latest adventure Oggie Cooder, Party Animal! (Scholastic, 2009; Gr. 2-4), Oggie can’t believe he just got invited to classmate and neighbor Donnica Perfecto’s birthday party. He’s never been in her pool or even to her house, and he’s really, really happy about it. He asks her what she’d like for her birthday.
For her part, the imperious Donnica is having a hissy fit because she was supposed to have a local rock band, Cheddar Jam, play at her party but her father got Bumbles the Juggling Bear instead. And then her mother made her invite Oggie, whom she considers more annoying than a broken fingernail, because Mrs. Perfecto wants to get into the Wawatosa Gardening Club and thinks Oggie’s mother can help her. Donnica knows exactly what she wants from Oggie—to have him stay away from her party. She tells him all party guests must memorize her list of 100 Birthday Party Rules, and Oggie, being a guileless and gullible kid, believes her.
How can he ever remember 100 rules? Simple. Oggie’s friend Amy teaches him how to write and use a series of mnemonic sentences that make learning Donnica’s rules a snap. (Children can write their own sentences to help them recall 10 things they want to keep in their heads.) Then, in Chapter 10, Oggie’s mother tells him she sometimes stands on her head for inspiration. He tries it, and it works. Have kids describe what they do when they need some inspiration. Oggie says “Prrrrr-ip!” when he’s excited about something. (Ask your kids if they have any special words or sounds they consider their own.) Every bit as funny and charming as the first book, this one’s full of foreshadowing, coincidence, and plot twists for kids to predict.
Wait! What about the poetry connection? Here it is: Oggie’s teacher, Mr. Snolinovsky, wants his students to write anonymous haiku that contain the essence of who they are as individuals. Before revealing Oggie’s, your kids can write one for him and one for themselves. Then they can play the game, “Whose Haiku Are You?,” as described in chapter 14. Or you could have the staff at your school or library compose haiku that define their own personalities. Put together a bulletin board with photos of the kids (or staff) and their anonymous haiku, and have viewers try to match them. Poetry is such fun!
Judy Freeman (www.JudyReadsBooks.com Books Kids Will Sit Still For 3 (2006), The Winners Handbook: A Closer Look at Judy Freeman’s Top-Rated Children’s Books of 2008 (2009), and Once Upon a Time: Using Storytelling, Creative Drama, and Reader's Theater with Children in Grades PreK-6 (2007, all Libraries Unlimited), winner of the 2009 Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award. Her latest and most exciting project is writing children’s book reviews and other content for author James Patterson’s award-winning Web site for parents, teachers, and librarian.
Watch Jacqueline Woodson discuss the writing of different poetry formats of Locomotion (Scroll down to the second movie.)
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