This post was originally published in Nick Glass’ monthly column for Curriculum Connections, an e-newsletter published by School Library Journal in partnership with TeachingBooks.net. Subscribe to this free newsletter here.
When we stop to listen, poetry is all around us: in the rhythms that we walk, in the music that we listen to, in the natural world we experience. Fortunately, National Poetry Month gives us space to make poetry a curricular focus.
This column features video and audio recordings with outstanding poets from TeachingBooks.net’s digital collection. As you and your students listen to such poetic icons as Shel Silverstein and Langston Hughes, and watch Jacqueline Woodson, Mary Ann Hoberman, and others discuss and recite poetry, I hope that you will be inspired to read, write, and think about poetry in your classroom.
Shel Silverstein recites “Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too” from Where the Sidewalk Ends (Harper and Row 1974) in this animated video.
Jacqueline Woodson talks about the writing of haiku, list, and epistle poems, and her book Locomotion (Putnam 2003), in this TeachingBooks.net original movie.
Mary Ann Hoberman reveals how loose change inspired the title poem for All Kinds of Families (Little, Brown 2009), illustrated by Marc Boutavant.
Sharon Creech performs a reader’s theater adaptation of her book Love That Dog (HarperCollins 2001) in collaboration with Walter Dean Myers, Avi, and Sarah Weeks. Incorporate this 14-minute minute, original TeachingBooks.net video into poetry lessons, with tissues on hand.
Loris Lesynski reviews some of her humorous poetry collections, including I Did It Because—: How a Poem Happens (Annick 2006), illustrated by Michael Martchenko.
Francisco Alarcón shares insight into his bilingual, bicultural, and binational identity in this video. His Spanish/English work includes Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems (Children’s Book Press 1999), illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez.
Langston Hughes recites and shares the inspiration for his famed 1922 poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers in this 1955 audio recording.
Check out our archives of Poetry Friday blog posts!
Posted by Nick Glass, Founder & Executive Director of TeachingBooks.net
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