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Week Seven:
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Wrapping it up
Thanku: A Poem of Gratitude
Thanku is available on epic books to read for free for educators and students. This book is a collection of love poems to the world. Each poem is written by different poets sharing their gratitude for everything from the sunset to graduating. Each poet is vulnerable in expressing their gratitude for objects and places that might be taken for granted. This book is a great story to share in the classroom. It is a mentor text for students to take a step back and write what they are thankful for and to appreciate all that the world offers.
Paint the Sunset by Charles Ghigna is one of my favorite poems from this collection. Sunsets and sunrises remind me to take a moment to breathe. When you look at the beautiful sky and see all that was created, it has a way of making you feel small. It allows you to calm down and realize that there are bigger things in the world and that you have the ability to create your own reality.
Textbook: not exactly a memoir
Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal has been one of my favorite books of poetry to read this semester. Amy inspires readers to engage with the poems through a multidimensional process. Readers engage through reading her poems, or challenges, and are invited to text responses to her. I love the idea of using this in the classroom. Students would love how interactive and relatable her poems are. She shows readers that poems can be modern and take any form.
Unit 9 Compare and Contrast stuck out to me on page 254 because this poem is also a great way for students to practice homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same but differ in spelling or meaning. These words can be very confusing to young students. Through this poetic structure, students can investigate homophones.
Forest Has a Song by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
Click on the picture to purchase the book and visit her website!
Forest Has a Song by Amy VanDerwater is a poem filled with imagery invoked through colorful details. This poem inspired me to take a moment and look around my second grade classroom. Amy VanDerwater spoke about looking around in the forest and just listening.
I would use this as a mentor text to help my students learn how to add detail through those good describing words. We would write a class poem together and then through gradual release I would invite students to close their eyes and listen to the sounds around them.
References
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Dorfman, L. R., Cappelli, R., & Hoyt, L. (2017). Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children’s literature, k-6. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
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Heard, G. (1999). Awakening the heart: exploring poetry in elementary and middle school. Heinemann.
Rosenthal, A. K. (2016). Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York, New York: DUTTON.
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THANKU: POEMS OF GRATITUDE, illustrated by Marlena Myles; edited by Miranda Paul
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