Poetry and Art

We recently visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and my daughter was thrilled that the museum offered booklets for children to work in as they visited many of the collections.

We eventually worked our way to the Japanese collection and discovered a collection of poetry.  Visitors were asked to write a poem after viewing the screens, scrolls, woodblock prints, ceramics, and sculptures.  They could choose to take their poem with them, or contribute to the collection, which is show in the image below.

A notebook of "Poetic Inspiration" was available for visitors to look through while they wrote their poems.  

I think this idea would make a great addition to a classroom or library.  Contributors could write a poem and add it to the collection.  

The display piece at the Nelson-Atkins was an Umbra Fotofalls Desktop.  They had used index cards for the poems.   

I love to gather ideas from the places I visit.  Where have you found inspiration?

Booked

We usually have NPR's Weekend Edition on the radio as we get ready for church on Sunday mornings.  One Sunday in April, I was blown away by an interview with author Kwame Alexander:  How to Get Kids Hooked On Books?  'Use Poetry.  It Is A Surefire Way.'  There have been very few books over the years that I have stopped, and immediately ordered a copy as soon as I heard about it.  Alexander's new novel Booked was one of them.

Kwame writes books about middle school boys in verse, rather than prose, and he is exceptional at it!  His earlier book, The Crossover, won the Newberry Medal.  Booked is about Nick, a twelve year old boy who loves soccer, and HATES books.  This premise alone is enough to pull in those reluctant readers.  But as readers get to know Nick, they also learn that "He hates books because his father makes him read the dictionary every day."  

My middle school students adored this book.  It was loved by voracious and reluctant readers, boys and girls, whether they were sports-oriented or not.

Booked (affiliate link)

Listen to the impressive interview via NPR:

How to Get Kids Hooked On Books?

'Use Poetry.  It Is A Surefire Way.' 

Visit Kwame Alexander's Website

Follow Kwame on Twitter

Check out Alexander's Book: Page-to-Stage Writing Workshop: Awakening the Writer, Publisher, and Presenter in Every K-8 Student

Read Kwame's acceptance speech for the Newbery Award for The Crossover

Happy Reading!  

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

Poem by William Wordsworth
(The kids find the author's name to be a hoot ~ WORDSworth ~ his words must be worth a lot!

Imagery, personification, vocabulary...This is a such a great poem to use with kids!  The poem can be found at the Poetry Foundation website.

We began by reading a copy of the poem and using the Internet to view images of daffodils, vales, and bays.  We talked about the meaning of vocabulary words new to the kids: jocund, pensive, sprightly, and solitude.  Then, the kids worked hard to consider what the author wanted us to take away from this poem.

After reading the poem several times, I shared this awesome comic strip version of the poem that I found through a McGraw Hill site (scroll down to page three).  This helped my students understand the poem even better, especially the idea of personification.  Later, the kids drew their own examples of personification.

Printable Personification Page through Google Drive

Another great discovery was the picture book I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud illustrated by Sami Suomalainen, available as a PDF and located at Be There Bedtime Stories.  The kids were intrigued by the illustrator's interpretation of the poem, and it helped them understand it in a different and deeper way.  After all this work with the poem, we completed a Literature Web. Since it was our first attempt, we did it together, stanza by stanza.

Our next step is to complete a Vocabulary Web for some of the new words from the poem.  The kids will use Internet resources to complete their webs with a partner (call me tech savvy, or just know that we don't have dictionaries in our room...) 

Vocabulary Web

Try this great poem with your class!