Monday Musing: World Teachers' Day

 

 

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

 

 

I never teach my pupils; 

I only attempt to provide the conditions 

in which they can learn.

                                        

                                        – Albert Einstein (unsourced)

 

 

According to the UNESCO website, World Teachers’ Day has been held annually since 1994 "to commemorate the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers. This Recommendation sets benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions. . . In 2020, World Teachers’ Day will celebrate teachers with the theme Teachers: Leading in crisis, reimagining the future. The day provides the occasion to celebrate the teaching profession worldwide, take stock of achievements, and draw attention to the voices of teachers, who are at the heart of efforts to attain the global education target of leaving no one behind."

 

 

Classroom Connections with Laura Purdie Salas (Giveaway!)

I'm so pleased to welcome Laura Purdie Salas back to Today's Little Ditty! After her conspicuous omission from my Classroom Connections extravaganza for National Poetry Month in 2019, I'm finally able to feature her in a Classroom Connections post this year. Of course when I interviewed her (a couple months ago), the pandemic was not yet in full lockdown mode, but I think you'll find her classroom suggestions adaptable to distance learning as well.


TODAY'S READ

Secrets of the Loon

Laura Purdie Salas, Author (rhyming text)
Chuck Dayton, Author (back matter) and Photographer

Minnesota Historical Society Press
(April 28, 2020)
ISBN: 978-1681341583

For grades K-4

Purchase online via the publisher
Purchase online at Amazon.com
Purchase online at Bookshop.org (supporting independent bookstores)


SYNOPSIS

During her first summer with her parents and brother in the northland, Moon Loon has a lot to learn. Mom and Dad teach essential lessons, like how to catch and eat fish and how to avoid becoming a snack for snapping turtles. Moon Loon also discovers her secret skills, like how to float, how to dive, and—eventually—how to fly. This is a tale of wilderness, family, and independence.


A PEEK INSIDE

Text copyright © 2020 by Laura Purdie Salas. Photographs copyright © 2020 by Chuck Dayton.
From SECRETS OF THE LOON (Minnesota Historical Society Press).

Summer wears sunshine or fog,
       soft and gray.
and skips by so quickly,
while Moon grows each day.

Eventually, Father's back
       runs out of space,
so the chicks each tuck under
       a one-wing embrace.

  

© 2020 Laura Purdie Salas. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Former teacher Laura Purdie Salas believes reading small picture books and poems can have a huge impact on your life. She has written more than 130 books for kids, including Lion of the Sky (NCTE Notable, Kirkus Best Books, and Parents Magazine Best Books of the Year), the Can Be… series (Bank Street Best Books, IRA Teachers’ Choice), and BookSpeak! (Minnesota Book Award, NCTE Notable). Laura shares inspiration and practical tips with educators about poetry, nonfiction, and more at laurasalas.com.

CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS

Why is bringing poetry into the classroom important?

Poetry in the classroom is crucial for SO many reasons. A few of my favorites are:

•    Rhyming texts help with prediction and fluency.
•    Poetry can tackle deep, emotional topics in short, unintimidating texts.
•    Poetry is great for close reading. So many important details packed into so few words!

How might your book be incorporated into an educational curriculum?

It fits perfectly into a life cycle unit. It also has great links to units on:

•    migration
•    independence
•    animal adaptations
•    food webs

Can you suggest a specific classroom exercise related to your book?

Yes! One day when you have indoor recess and the kids are antsy, go to laurasalas.com/secrets and download this sheet: https://laurasalas.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Walk-Like-a-Loon.pdf. Lead your students through walking, paddling, diving, swimming, and paddling like a loon. Talk about differences between loons and people. The loon’s feet are waaaaaay far back on its body, making walking very difficult. It’s why loons hardly spend any time at all on land. Giving students a chance to act like loons will highlight how loons’ specific body traits (heavy bones, for example) affect their movements. And for a giggle, watch the book trailer at https://youtu.be/no7aP0zg6Pw and let kids try wailing like a loon!

What is a simple, practical tip for teachers when it comes to incorporating poetry in the classroom?

Read rhyming AND non-rhyming poetry with your students. I love verse (obviously), but non-rhyming poetry is equally valuable, and it will serve as a valuable mentor as students work on writing their own poems.

Can you recount a specific instance of when poetry impacted a student or group of students in a positive way?

I can’t tell you how many times, after an author visit when I’ve written poetry with students, a teacher has expressed surprise. They will tell me “he never participates,” or “that’s the first writing she has ever shared.” One of the most special moments I recall was when a (third-grade, I think) student wrote a poem about his mom, who had passed away not long before that. He stayed behind to share the poem with me. Having a small, safe place to put overwhelming emotions—that is one of the most important gifts poetry gives us.


CONNECT WITH LAURA PURDIE SALAS

Website: laurasalas.com
Blog: laurasalas.com/blog
Twitter: @LauraPSalas
Instagram: LauraPSalas
E-letter for educators: tinyurl.com/p5q54g8
Patreon: patreon.com/LauraPurdieSalas 

Look for Laura's first fully fiction picture book from Amazon/Two Lions this August. It's called  Clover Kitty Goes to Kittygarten and is about a kitty who finds school to be too loud, too crowded, too bright—just too much!

For more about Laura Purdie Salas at Today's Little Ditty, you can read our Spotlight ON interview (featuring Water Can Be...), my Book Love review (featuring A Rock Can Be...) and browse through a smattering of other posts, including poetry and writer resources, HERE.

Please join me in thanking Laura for divulging her secrets about how poetry, and specifically Secrets of the Loon, can be used in the classroom. Many thanks also to Minnesota Historical Society Press for offering a copy to one lucky Today's Little Ditty reader! To enter, leave a comment below or send an email with the subject "Loon Giveaway" to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com by Tuesday, May 19th. The winner will be selected randomly and announced next Friday, May 22nd.

Click HERE to read more posts in the TLD Classroom Connections series.

I sure am glad this month has an extra Friday, because our padlet is chock full of wonderful poems and I need the extra week to feature as many of them as possible! Keep 'em coming! This week's daily ditties included poems by Keri Collins Lewis, Karen Eastlund, Diane Mayr, and Janet Clare Fagal. Don't forget that you can also post your poems on Twitter with the hashtag #PoemsofPresence. And if you're already posting poems on Twitter, please make sure to share 1-3 of your favorites here at some point during the month.

Speaking of favorites, what could be better than Jama Rattigan hosting the Poetry Friday roundup on National Chocolate Chip Day?!  Hello. You don't have to tell me twice. See you at Jama's Alphabet Soup! And I'm not the only one who posted about Secrets of the Loon today. Click HERE for Margaret Simon's review at Reflections on the Teche.

Lessons from the Bookshelf: My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice (Part 3)

Here we are halfway through National Poetry Month (already!) and two-thirds of the way through our in-depth look at Patrice Vecchione's newly released instructional book about writing poetry:

Purchase within the next 90 days at the Seven Stories Press website and 10%
will go to the Book Industry Charitable Fund (BINC) to support independent
bookstores during the COVID-19 crisis.

If you missed either of my previous posts about this insightful book, you can click on the following links to catch up:

          Part I—Poetry's Calling: Finding Yourself on Paper

          Part II—"If One Part Were Touched, the Whole World Would Tremble": 
          Writing Poetry from the Inside Out

Part III is comprised of 25 writing prompts (I've shared one in each of my posts thus far, with another at the end of today's post), so let's jump ahead to the next jam-packed section.

PART IV

"How Possible Might the

Impossible Be?": Getting Your 

Poems Out There

. . . some of the more practical aspects

of writing poetry, getting your poems into the world

and living the poet's life.

Part IV opens with some solid advice about success and failure.

At first, success is in the writing of poems. Questions like “Is this a good poem?” come later. That way, you learn with freedom and curiosity how to do a new thing.

Pretty straightforward, right? Makes sense. But when it comes to failure, Vecchione's advice is more counterintuitive. She encourages the reader to view failure as "what a poet is supposed to do." It is, Vecchione explains, "the truth of the writing experience. To be strong as a writer, you have to try things out and to dare." By practicing and stretching ourselves we are increasing our skill, honing our vision, developing our style, and progressing in other significant ways.

After writing a poem, she recommends giving the draft time to rest. Getting some space from the poem allows us to come back to it with fresh eyes and a reader's objectivity.

Here’s what I look for: Does the poem make something happen in my body? Does it startle or cause tears to come to the edges of my eyes? Make me angry, poem! Make me fall in love. A poem that causes me to think anew, or that reminds me of something important I’d forgotten, is the poem I want to read.

She stresses the importance of reading the poem aloud.

When I do that, at some point along the way, a buzzer in my head may go off. So, I reread the line that caused that awful noise. If it goes off again, that indicates something in the line is off. That buzzer is spot-on in informing me of when I’m being disingenuous or unclear. It informs me the poem needs more work.

Vecchione offers pointers for editing and titling poems, and even some tips about how to ask for specific, helpful feedback from trustworthy readers (family members, friends, critique partners, etc). She goes on to say, however, that some poems, no matter how hard we work on them, may never be finished. These are the "failures" mentioned earlier—the stumbling blocks that lead to new poems along the road to success.

Once we have been writing a while and become more confident with our poet self, we might decide to take things to the next level—let our poems out of our notebooks to enjoy a life in the world. This section of the book, plus some poetry resources and submission opportunities in Part V, will help you choose where to send your poems (not all journals and contests are legit!) and/or how to create and publish a chapbook or poetry manuscript.

One of the things I like best about this section is that Vecchione never comes off as glib or overly optimistic. She stresses that "rejection is as much a part of the writing process as commas and periods." When sending out poems to magazines and journals, or chapbooks and full poetry manuscripts to traditional publishers, it's important to remember that editors are critiquing your poems, not you. If your skin is not as thick as you might like, consider alternatives to traditional publishers. Vecchione offers advice and resources for those, as well. The bottom line: "This is your art form, so devise ways to share your work that fit who you are."

The last few chapters of Part IV focus on living the poet's life. Most poets cannot support themselves by writing poetry alone, but with determination and creativity, you can find your way. Vecchione offers a poetic license (literally, to photocopy and keep in your wallet) in case you might need one in an awkward or heated moment with someone who might not appreciate what you have to say. But the most important gift she offers is encouragement and confidence to do what you love and are already compelled to do.

Beyond any other reason, write poems because you are engaged and curious, because you love the surprising leaps of imagination, because you have things to say, and because the act of writing poems changes you—there’s that joy again when you unfold the piece of paper with your new poem on it, read it, find yourself and part of the world in those phrases, slip it back into the pocket of your jeans, and smile because you realize nothing’s the same as it was before.

This week's challenge . . .

For this week's challenge, I've selected "Into the Future: Take Yourself There Now" (Chapter 53) from Part III of My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice. Patrice writes:  

Is the future a place you wish you could arrive at now? I remember feeling that way. Or maybe here and now is fine. For the length of a poem, venture into that place called future, as you imagine it; peer into its unknown terrain, and see what you find.  

My student Rachel B. wrote:

The future is as blurry
as when you splash water
and try to see your reflection

And another student, Karen Amundson, wrote:

Future is inside me,
right beyond this storm of hope.

How do you see your future? Is it also just beyond a storm of hope?

You may also respond to this month's first challenge or second challenge if you prefer.

All excerpts in this post are copyright © 2020 by Patrice Vecchione, from My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry and Speaking Your Truth, used with permission by Seven Stories Press.


HOW TO PARTICIPATE

You'll find the padlet embedded below. Add your poem in response to this prompt or scroll through to read what others are contributing. By posting on the padlet, you are also granting me permission to feature your poem on Today's Little Ditty.

If you have not participated in a challenge before, please send me an email at TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com so that I can contact you, if necessary.

HOW TO POST YOUR POEM
In the lower right corner of the padlet you'll see a pink dot with a plus sign. Click on it to open a text box. I find it works best to type your title on the title line and paste the rest of your poem where it says "Write something...". Single click outside the text box when finished. This board is moderated to prevent spam. Once your poem is approved, it will appear publicly.

PROTECT YOUR COPYRIGHT
Remember to include your name as author of any work that you post!

TEACHERS, it's great when students get involved! Ditty of the Month Club challenges are wonderful opportunities to learn about working poets and authors while having fun with poetry prompts. Thank you for spreading the word! For children under 13, please read my COPPA compliance statement in the sidebar to the right.

BLOGGERS, thank you for publishing your poems on your own blogs–I love that! Please let me know about it so I can share your post. Also remember to include your poem (or a direct link to your post) on the padlet.

For best viewing, click HERE to open this padlet in a new tab.

Last week's challenge to write about a time you lost something or somebody resonated with a few, but scared off others. Perhaps the prompt was not the best choice given the state of the world right now, but I applaud those of you who responded. On the blog, I featured a Two Line Tuesday on the topic, as well as poems by Mindy Gars Dolandis and Kay Jernigan McGriff. You can read others on the padlet, including one or two new poems for the previous week's challenge. Join us next week for our end of month celebration and giveaway!

It's not too late to follow and participate in National Poetry Month projects!
 You’ll find the NPM roundup at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Join Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone for a nourishing repast of homemade bread and poetry at this week's Poetry Friday roundup.

Lessons from the Bookshelf: My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice (Part 2)

Welcome back to Lessons from the Bookshelf and our deep dive into Patrice Vecchione's newly released instructional book for teens (and older):

Purchase within the next 90 days at the Seven Stories Press website and 10%
will go to the Book Industry Charitable Fund (BINC) to support independent
bookstores during the COVID-19 crisis.

Last week I introduced you Part I: "Poetry's Calling: Finding Yourself on Paper." (If you missed it, you can catch up HERE.) This week we'll be taking a closer look at Part II.

PART II

"If One Part Were Touched, the

Whole Would Tremble": Writing

Poetry from the Inside Out

This section will give you an in-depth look

at poetry's components.

"If one part were touched, the whole would tremble" is attributed to poet William Stafford. According to Vecchione, it describes what we all should strive for before considering a poem "complete." Like a spider web that quivers when one part of its delicate fabric is disturbed, a strong poem is more than the sum of its parts. As poets, our goal should be to ensure that every single word in a poem has a relationship to every other word.

What draws so many of us to writing poetry is a love of words, and that's where this section begins, with a chapter called "Loving Words."

Is it a word’s meaning or its sound that woos you? Maybe it’s the way the word feels in your mouth when you speak it. Some words are smooth. Others are ice that won’t melt. Certain words inflame me; I want to spit them out. Some words hiss; others stammer. Some tell truths we’re not able to hear.

The next chapter explores what makes a poem a poem. Vecchione's favorite definition of poetry is "a picture made out of words," but she goes on to explain that a poem does not recreate an experience, it becomes something new—something that holds its own, where every word carries weight.

If a poem were a simple mathematical equation, it wouldn’t be 1 + 1 = 2; it would be butterfly + mountain = the first moment I saw you. A poem often takes leaps like Superman, “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” Not everything is explained but somehow the poem isn’t missing anything. That is its integrity.

After that, Part II examines the various forms poetry can take, the essential element of sound in poetry, and what we see—the shape of a poem. Vecchione gets into nitty-gritty details like stanzas, line breaks, and punctuation, but also explores the character of a poem—its voice and style. She discusses similes and metaphors (with splendid examples), and the importance of choosing specific and unpredictable sensory words over more abstract adjectives:

Abstract adjectives such as “nice,” “pretty,” and “wonderful” aren’t actually nice, pretty, or wonderful. They’re vague and, in poetry, leave too much up to the interpretation of a reader. When a poem requires a reader to read it a few times, it should be to understand the poem’s complexity, not to try to decipher its meaning because the poet hasn’t done his job.

In the final chapters of Part II, Vecchione suggests some other considerations to help readers become better poets. She encourages poem memorization, for example, personalizing your writing space, and how tools of the trade can influence what you write. She closes with "Rules You'll Love to Follow"—a handful of helpful (and somewhat surprising) recommendations, including "what you write doesn't have to make sense," "trust your imagination," "don't plan what you're going to say," "spelling, punctuation, grammar, and neatness do not matter in a first (or second) draft," and "protect your vision."

Ready to put what you've learned into practice?


This week's challenge . . .

For this week's challenge, I've selected "Lost and Found" (Chapter 37) from Part III of My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice. Patrice suggests that every time you lose something, something else is found. She describes a time when she had a garage sale to sell some of her mother's possessions several months after her passing. There was a green cloisonné jar that, from the moment the buyer walked away with it, she regretted selling. When the lost jar found its way into a poem, however, it gained more value than it had originally.


Here is this week's prompt in Patrice's own words:

Have you ever lost an object that was important to you, maybe when you too were quite young? How’d you cope with that loss? Was the item dropped or was it taken from you?

Write about a time you lost something or somebody. Start the poem in the present tense, as though it were happening right now. That will return the experience to you, giving it an immediacy that writing in the past tense won’t. But if that feels too close, try writing in the second or third person and see where that takes you. 

You also may respond to last week's challenge if you prefer.

All excerpts in this post are copyright © 2020 by Patrice Vecchione, from My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry and Speaking Your Truth, used with permission by Seven Stories Press.


HOW TO PARTICIPATE

You'll find the padlet embedded below. Add your poem in response to this prompt or scroll through to read what others are contributing. By posting on the padlet, you are also granting me permission to feature your poem on Today's Little Ditty.

If you have not participated in a challenge before, please send me an email at TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com so that I can contact you, if necessary.

HOW TO POST YOUR POEM
In the lower right corner of the padlet you'll see a pink dot with a plus sign. Click on it to open a text box. I find it works best to type your title on the title line and paste the rest of your poem where it says "Write something...". Single click outside the text box when finished. This board is moderated to prevent spam. Once your poem is approved, it will appear publicly.

PROTECT YOUR COPYRIGHT
Remember to include your name as author of any work that you post!

TEACHERS, it's great when students get involved! Ditty of the Month Club challenges are wonderful opportunities to learn about working poets and authors while having fun with poetry prompts. Thank you for spreading the word! For children under 13, please read my COPPA compliance statement in the sidebar to the right.

BLOGGERS, thank you for publishing your poems on your own blogs–I love that! Please let me know about it so I can share your post. Also remember to include your poem (or a direct link to your post) on the padlet.

For best viewing, click HERE to open this padlet in a new tab.

Last week's challenge resulted in some really lovely poems about empathy. Featured daily ditties were by Linda Mitchell, Angelique Pacheco, Fran Haley, and Margaret Simon. Kay Jernigan McGriff shares hers today at A Journey Through the Pages. All of this month's contributed poems will be featured in a wrap-up presentation on Friday, April 24th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice, courtesy of the publisher.

It's not too late to follow and participate in National Poetry Month projects!
You’ll find the NPM roundup at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

This week's Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm. Her National Poetry Month project, Roll the Dice, is well-worth a visit, as are the daily 5-10 minute writing lessons she's been recording for students.

Lessons from the Bookshelf: My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice (Part 1)

Happy National Poetry Month!

When I was deciding what I might do this year to celebrate, the thought occurred to me that maybe I should actually take this month off to focus on my own writing. Goodness knows there are always a ton of wonderful poetry projects in April vying for the attention of readers and writers, educators and students. My growing collection of books about writing poetry is collecting dust, while other more pressing items rise to the top of my to-do list. Wouldn't it be nice if I used National Poetry Month to dive into one of those?

Olga Reznik

Then the light bulb went on. 

You, my friends, can take a deep dive with me! I'm excited to introduce my new blog series, "Lessons from the Bookshelf" where I'll be taking an in-depth look at educational books about writing poetry. And for those of you thinking but what about the monthly ditty challenge?, I've got great news. For this series, I will be offering up prompts from these highly recommended books for you to try out! We'll collect the poems on a padlet and celebrate at the end of the month like we always do.


What's more, this month I have something extra special to share with you. (Seems those dusty books on my shelf will have to wait a while longer.) Patrice Vecchione, coeditor of last year's Cybils Award-winning Ink Knows No Borders, was kind enough to provide me with an advance copy of her newest instructional book about writing poetry—

Purchase within the next 90 days at the Seven Stories Press website and 10%
will go to the Book Industry Charitable Fund (BINC) to support independent
bookstores during the COVID-19 crisis.

** Register HERE for a virtual book launch on April 7th, 6:00pm Pacific Time! **

Hot off the press, this book is positively bursting at the seams with advice and valuable information about what it means to be a poet, the ins and outs of practicing one's craft, and even how to get published. Pitched toward teens inclined to pursue writing, I can assure you that adults will treasure this friendly and nurturing 172-page guide as well.

My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice opens with a personal introduction which is both confessional—

Once upon another time there was a kid who was overwhelmed by her life. She needed a way to reckon with her confusions, those knotted and gooey ones that pressed against her. . . . At school she felt out of place, as though the oddities of her home life were visible. In front of most others she was quiet. But inside her head loud bees were swarming.

and inspiring—

Writing poems is a way to uncover what most needs to be uncovered—to loosen the tongue in solitude, to make connections that can’t be made in conversation. Poems are made of questions more than answers. They can withstand sudden shifts of direction, may be full of contradictions. Poems don’t shy away from incomplete sentences. A poem of no more than three lines can defy darkness or change the wind’s direction. 

The body of the book is divided into five parts, each with multiple short chapters. Just reading the section headings below will give you a flavor of the book's encouraging manner and comprehensive treatment:

1. Poetry's Calling: Finding yourself on paper
2. "If One Part Were Touched, the Whole World Would Tremble": Writing Poetry from the Inside Out
3. Who Said You Couldn't Say That?: Twenty-Five Poetry Writing Suggestions in Twenty-One Short Chapters
4. "How Possible Might the Impossible Be?": Getting Your Poetry Out There
5. Where to Go from Here: Poetry Resources

The pages are also peppered with quotations and excerpts from famous poets and writers, functioning to deepen the reader's experience through exposure to a variety of voices.

Because this book is particularly rich with information, I've decided to focus solely on Part I in this post, Part II next week (April 10th), and Part IV the week following (April 17th). On each occasion, I will share a prompt from Part III for you to respond to if you choose. On April 24th, the last Friday of the month, we will have a wrap up celebration that includes all of the poems contributed during the month and a book giveaway for one lucky participant (selected randomly), courtesy of the publisher.

So let's get to the good stuff, shall we?

PART I

Poetry's Calling:

Finding Yourself on Paper

Here's an intimate look at the writing mind and

what writing poetry can do for us.

The first chapter of Part I, "Why Write?," explores what gets you to the page. It includes this delicious quote from poet Sara Michas-Martin:

I want to write things down to honor and see things more clearly. To find a choreography for my thoughts. To keep time from sliding away from me. I want to make a simple fruit taste like magic again. Because a Jolly Rancher is delicious, but sometimes you want to experience the actual watermelon. You want to use your teeth to bite down to the rind; you want the cold juice on your chin.

Vecchione encourages readers to find their own "why."

The moment you speak your truth in a poem, you take the first steps to becoming a writer. . . . Writers write because we have something to say, even in those moments when we don’t know exactly what it is. What compels you becomes a piece of your “why I write.”

Subsequent chapters go to describe the beginnings of poetry, the mind of the poet, what writing does for us, the essence of imagination, and the art of listening. She describes how important silence is to the poet and that there are different kinds of silence that we need to become acquainted with. She talks of truth and facts at a time in our history when such concepts are being questioned:

When writing a poem, facts enter in through the unlocked front door (as they should be able to). Truth comes in through the cracks in the door or a broken window. A poem is after truth, and since you’re its author, your truth in particular. The poem and your life experiences belong to you. This isn’t going to be your father’s poem nor the one your best friend would write. It’s yours, and isn’t that nice?

She explains how we know what we know (through our senses and intuition) and encourages us to be present, invite inspiration, and respond to our complicated world within the context of discovering who and what we are. Learning to be comfortable with our own company is the goal, but Vecchione also examines the common pitfalls so many of us encounter—procrastination, what happens if we don't write, losing our way, writer's block, and our dreaded internal critic—as we get to know our poet within.


This week's challenge . . .

For this week's challenge, I've selected "These Are the Hands" (Chapter 39) from Part 3 of My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice. It's a prompt about empathy— something we so desperately need more of in today's world. The prompt was inspired by a poem by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, titled "These are the hands that could sand a wooden bench." Gutiérrez y Muhs is a poet Patrice  has known and loved for decades, a friend who would (and did once) give her the coat off her back. Here is the prompt in her own words:

Consider writing about the place that empathy has in your own life—a time you offered compassion to another or a time it was freely given to you. Or write about sharing food with others as Gutiérrez does with the men outside Kmart who wait there each day in hopes of being hired to sand benches or dig ditches. You might begin a poem with the words “These are the hands . . .” Or explore a time you felt a connection with a stranger or a group of strangers. A way to increase our happiness, recent research says, is to talk to someone you don’t know. Could your poem be a father watching with hope, the arms that hold a baby, or a smile full of metal teeth? Might it have the piquancy of hot salsa or wrap up the essential as a tortilla does? 

All excerpts in this post are copyright © 2020 by Patrice Vecchione, from My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry and Speaking Your Truth, used with permission by Seven Stories Press.


HOW TO PARTICIPATE

You'll find the padlet embedded below. Add your poem in response to this prompt or scroll through to read what others are contributing. By posting on the padlet, you are also granting me permission to feature your poem on Today's Little Ditty.

If you have not participated in a challenge before, please send me an email at TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com so that I can contact you, if necessary.

HOW TO POST YOUR POEM
In the lower right corner of the padlet you'll see a pink dot with a plus sign. Click on it to open a text box. I find it works best to type your title on the title line and paste the rest of your poem where it says "Write something...". Single click outside the text box when finished. This board is moderated to prevent spam. Once your poem is approved, it will appear publicly.

PROTECT YOUR COPYRIGHT
Remember to include your name as author of any work that you post!

TEACHERS, it's great when students get involved! Ditty of the Month Club challenges are wonderful opportunities to learn about working poets and authors while having fun with poetry prompts. Thank you for spreading the word! For children under 13, please read my COPPA compliance statement in the sidebar to the right.

BLOGGERS, thank you for publishing your poems on your own blogs–I love that! Please let me know about it so I can share your post. Also remember to include your poem (or a direct link to your post) on the padlet.

For best viewing, click HERE to open this padlet in a new tab.

For several years now, Jama Rattigan has done us a great service by rounding up poetry projects on offer for National Poetry Month. She does such a beautiful job! Stop by the roundup at Jama's Alphabet Soup to see what's available.

As for the Poetry Friday roundup, we're sheltering in poems this week. It's going to be an active month and we'll need all the sustenance we can get! Join Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe to find a poem that shelters you.

Classroom Connections with Randi Sonenshine (Giveaway!)

Ever since 2015, when Randi Sonenshine beat me in Round 3 of Madness! Poetry and went on to the finals, I knew this day would come—and I'm delighted that it has! I can't think of a more perfect way to celebrate the arrival of spring than by introducing Randi's debut poetry picture book The Nest That Wren Built. Beautifully written, this book also boasts gorgeous illustrations by Anne Hunter, whose work I fell in love with back in 2016. Read on to find out how The Nest That Wren Built can (and should) be used in the classroom.


TODAY'S READ

The Nest That Wren Built

Randi Sonenshine, Author
Anne Hunter, Illustrator

Candlewick Press (March 10, 2020)
ISBN: 978-1536201536

For ages 4-8

Purchase at Amazon.com
Purchase at Barnes & Noble
Purchase via Indiebound.org





SYNOPSIS

The Nest That Wren Built follows a pair of wrens as they build a nest and care for their young, from the first pile of twigs, to the day the fledglings fly off into the world. The lyrical text is woven with scientific details about the nest design and materials, and a glossary and back matter provide additional facts and insights.


A PEEK INSIDE

Click on image to enlarge. 

THE NEST THAT WREN BUILT. Text copyright © 2020 by Randi Sonenshine.
Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Anne Hunter. Reproduced by permission of Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Randi Sonenshine grew up exploring the magical “swamp” and woods behind her home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, developing an early sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world. This love of nature often appears in her writing and poetry.

A former high school English teacher and college reading instructor, Randi is currently a literacy specialist and instructional coach. She lives with her husband, two sons, and a spoiled schnauzer in Northwest Georgia, and does her best writing accompanied by birdsong and a good pot of Earl Grey tea.

CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS

Why is bringing poetry into the classroom important?

Language is the most powerful tool we have, and poetry is one of the most powerful ways to use it; simply put, it’s language distilled in its purest, most potent form. Giving students lots of opportunity to read, recite, explore, discuss, respond, and write has the capacity to nurture a love of language, as well as the knowledge and skill to use it effectively. It can also foster empathy and a sense of connectedness.

How might your book be incorporated into an educational curriculum?

There is a lot of science woven into the book, particularly about the structure and function of the nest, as well as the function of each of the different nesting materials, so it would fit very well in a STEAM curriculum, even in middle school. Other science themes include growth and development (life cycle), animal traits and heredity, patterns in the natural world, and interactions between animals and humans, as well as animals and the environment.

There are also many ways it could be incorporated into the language arts classroom. I’ve used a lot of poetic sound devices, imagery, and figurative language, so it could easily be used to teach or reinforce those concepts. It also has a strong chronological structure, so it could be used to teach sequencing. Using precise language - vivid verbs, adjectives, and nouns - is another way the book could be used in a language arts classroom.

Can you suggest a specific classroom exercise related to your book?

Part to Whole Refrain Poem

This is an activity for older children, but could be done with younger children as a whole group.

After reading the book and discussing the structure, go through the first half (up until the nest is built), and have students identify and list the nouns (nesting materials) and corresponding verbs (function), using a two-column chart. To challenge more advanced students, add a middle column and list the adjectives or other descriptors for each item.

For example:

Nesting Material (noun)                              Function (verb)
Twigs                                                                cradle
Bark, twine, rootlets, pine needles             shape

Create a poem together, modeling the process

1. Have students think of something that is made up of multiple parts. This could be something in the natural world, such as a tree or a coral reef, or something that is manmade, such as a school bus or a bicycle. It could even be a person. Another option is for the teacher to choose the object based on a current area of study. 
2. Next, have the students brainstorm the parts of the object and their function, using a chart like before. For older, more advanced students, this could be an opportunity for research.
3. Together, choose a refrain to go at the end of each line. For example: the tree that grows on the playground, or the bike I got for my birthday.
4. Draft the poem, using the nouns, verbs, and refrain. For example: These are the pedals that turn the wheels on the bike I got for my birthday. (The poem does not need to rhyme, but for older students who would like the challenge, it certainly could.) 
5. Revise the poem by zooming in on the verbs, using a thesaurus if necessary to make them more precise and using alliteration and/or assonance where possible.

Have students repeat the process to create their own poems then share and celebrate!

What is a simple, practical tip for teachers when it comes to incorporating poetry in the classroom?

I think the simplest, yet most powerful way to incorporate poetry in the classroom is to have a poem of the day for the opening routine. These poems should be relatively short (or could be excerpts of longer poems), and represent multiple formats, themes, styles, etc. After reading aloud, (or listening to an online recording of the poet reading aloud), have students do a choral or echo read, and then give them a minute to jot down the words and phrases that resonated with them. Follow this by allowing them to share and briefly explain their choices. For younger students, this can be done as a whole group activity.

In addition to the many wonderful picture book poetry collections and anthologies from which to draw poems, there are some excellent online options. Here are a few of my favorites:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
https://poets.org/poems-kids
https://www.poetry4kids.com/
https://childrens.poetryarchive.org/ (has recordings of poets reading their work)
https://poetryminute.org/
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16436/16436-h/16436-h.htm

Can you recount a specific instance of when poetry impacted a student or group of students in a positive way?

There are many experiences from my 25 plus years in education, but several stand out. I was teaching ninth grade English in 1999 when the Columbine shooting happened. The next day was somber and tense. Students were experiencing such a whirlwind of emotions, and they were struggling to verbalize what they were feeling. I was, too.  Instead of moving forward with the lesson I had planned, we all sat and poured out our feelings in a free-write, and then shaped those thoughts and images into poems. Afterwards, we pulled all the desks in a circle and those who wanted to (which was everyone) shared their poems with the rest of the class. It sparked some very emotional moments and heavy discussion, but it allowed all of us to verbalize what we couldn’t otherwise, and helped us to move forward together.


CONNECT WITH RANDI SONENSHINE

Website: http://www.randisonenshine.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rsonenshine
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rsonenshine68/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/randi.sonenshine

Stay tuned for more from Randi—a little wren told me she might have some exciting news to share soon!

And here's some exciting news in the meantime...

Please join me in congratulating Randi on her wonderful debut and thanking her for offering a signed copy of The Nest That Wren Built to one lucky Today's Little Ditty reader! To enter, leave a comment below or send an email with the subject "Wren House" to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com by Tuesday, March 24th. The winner will be selected randomly and announced next Friday, March 27th.

Click HERE to read more posts in the TLD Classroom Connections series.

Lots of wonderful poems about games were added to the padlet this week! Featured ditties included poems by Kathleen Mazurowski, Bridget Magee, and Dianne Moritz. Click HERE for more information about this month's challenge or to add your poem to the collection.

What a happy surprise to discover that Michelle Kogan, our host for this week's Poetry Friday roundup, is featuring springtime poems from The Best of Today's Little Ditty 2017-2018! Don't miss her beautiful "Ode to Spring Soil" and three more poems by Diane Mayr, Mary Lee Hahn, and Margaret Simon, plus a bonus poem from Michelle called "Mother Spring."

Classroom Connections with Gayle Krause (Giveaway!)

"I believe in once-upon-a-time, I believe in happily ever after."

– Lee Bennett Hopkins, from "Storyteller (For Augusta Baker)"

In his poem "Storyteller (For Augusta Baker)" from Jumping Off Library Shelves (WordSong, 2015), Lee Bennett Hopkins writes about the powerful impact stories can have on a child's life. Whether read at home, in the classroom, or at library storytime, a good fairy tale can engage girls and boys like nothing else! Needless to say, I think Lee would approve of the poetry collection being featured in today's Classroom Connections post—Once Upon a Twisted Tale, by Gayle C. Krause.

I first "met" Gayle in 2013 when I was a newbie blogger making the Poetry Friday rounds. I remember my delight at winning a gift card for a poem I submitted to her blog The Storyteller's Scroll during National Poetry Month. Since then, her work has made a few appearances on Today's Little Ditty and in The Best of Today's Little Ditty, 2014-2015, as well!

Read on to find out more about Gayle and how her madcap collection of fractured fairy tales can be used to liven up any elementary school classroom.


TODAY'S READ

Once Upon a Twisted Tale

Gayle C. Krause, Author
Caroline O'Neal, Illustrator

Clear Fork/Spork (June 18, 2019)
ISBN: 978-1950169047

For grades 1-4

Purchase at Amazon
Purchase at Barnes & Noble
Purchase via Indiebound.org





SYNOPSIS

By the middle grades, children know the storylines of familiar fairy tales, which makes them all the funnier when they veer off in different directions. Good "fractured fairy tales" twist the child reader’s perspective on the story, showing other possibilities. From a frog, who thinks he’s Sleeping Beauty, to a cool-rappin’ fairy godmother who sends Cinderella to a Hip-Hop Ball, to a boy who waits beneath a stone bridge to fool trolls, Once Upon a Twisted Tale is a rollicking, rhyme-filled poetry collection that can be read for sheer amusement or used in a classroom to compare original tales to the twisted tales as per Language Arts requirements.


A PEEK INSIDE

ONCE UPON A TWISTED TALE

You've all heard of fairy tales,

that take place in enchanted dales,

or castles on a mountain, high,

or beanstalks climbing to the sky.

But in this book they are unique.

Just turn the page and take a peek.

These characters, right or wrong—

in stories where they don't belong.

A Frog Prince and a cinder maid.

An ogress with a lice-filled braid.

A Hip-Hop Princess at a ball,

Beast's magic mirror on a wall.

A wicked queen in snow-white mist.

Stories of the wrong one kissed.

A cookie charging through the wood,

eaten by Red Riding Hood.

Sleeping princess. Clever elf.

This book won't stay upon your shelf. 

You'll want to read one hundred times

these mixed up stories, told in rhymes.

Giant, witch, and nightingale

in "Once Upon a Twisted Tale."

 Text © 2019 Gayle C. Krause, ONCE UPON A TWISTED TALE, all rights reserved. 

Illustrations © 2019 Caroline O'Neal, ONCE UPON A TWISTED TALE, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Gayle C. Krause writes rhyming picture books, and historical fiction and fantasy novels for middle grade and young adults. Raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the oldest girl on the block, she led the younger kids in creative dramatics, wilderness expeditions through fields, and fossil hunting in the shale piles left from the heyday of mining. Those early interactions led her to a career teaching preschoolers, young adults, and, as a Master Educator, prospective elementary teachers and early childhood educators at the secondary and post-secondary levels. Gayle is most comfortable in front of students, be they four years old or forty, and loves to teach children’s literature and enhance literacy skills in young readers.

CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS

Why is bringing poetry into the classroom important?

1. TO BUILD READING, SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILLS

Children hear the rhythms and rhyme present in poems and reading fluency develops as poems are practiced and repeatedly read. Reading comprehension also results through discussions about meaning, connecting, and visualizing.

The princess acted cranky.
She hadn’t slept a wink.
She felt like she’d been sleeping
in the castle’s kitchen sink.

2. EXPLORE LANGUAGE AND VOCABULARY

Poetry often contains words that rhyme for effect. Children can learn about phonics and letter sounds by listening for and locating rhyming words. Poetry builds vocabulary.

Be ye troll or be ye trow;
tell me what you do not know.
I have a question known to none.
The answer? There is only one.
Do not look shocked at my request.
I’m quite sincere. I do not jest.

3. INSPIRE WRITING

When teachers break down poems, children learn how to follow a pattern and put words in a certain order. The simple patterns found in some poems are fun to follow and great places for children to start learning to write. Writing poetry is a transferable writing skill.

She'd fallen asleep in her cradle of ice
when a blundering prince woke her up in a trice.

Her eyes flashed open. She narrowed her sight.
She gave the prince a terrible fright.

"Excuse me, my Queen. It seems I now know,
in my confusion I've found the wrong Snow. 

4. ENCOURAGE CREATIVE THINKING

Poetry can have a positive impact on the social and emotional learning of children.

Don’t cry.                          Sister,
I’m here.                           I’ll protect you.
We’ll find the path          as we go home
together,                           hand in hand—

5. BUILD A LOVE FOR READING

Children have a natural curiosity to foster and encourage with poetry. It creates enchantment and wonder in a child’s mind. (especially if it deals with fantasy/fairytales as the subject matter.)

In this book it’s been told
of princes so bold
and maidens who hope and wait.
Of creatures who spy,
and spells gone awry,
now, you question their fairytale fate

How might your book be incorporated into an educational curriculum?

As a child, I loved fairytales. My favorite was The Twelve Dancing Princesses. I even owned a version in a Children’s Classics comic book. As a Master Educator, I taught Children’s Literature to prospective teachers at the secondary and post-secondary levels and encouraged my students to tell little-known fairytales through creative dramatics. As a children’s author, I love rhyme and the challenge of finding unique words that can be used alliteratively, while keeping a strong meter, and telling a story with no forced word, no reverse phrases, and a clever ending.

So, it wasn’t a far stretch to take the challenge of rhyming and my love of fairytales and weave them together in various poetry forms to write Once Upon a Twisted Tale. As a former teacher, I believe that this book is a treasure trove for the elementary classroom. It features a variety of poetry techniques such as: loop poetry, cleave poetry, Ghazal, haiku, couplet, and pantoum. I’ve developed a curriculum guide to accompany it, for those teachers who are interested. Contact me at info@GayleCKrause.com.

Can you suggest a specific classroom exercise related to your book?

1. Pre-reading exercises:

• What can the child decipher from the cover? 
• What do the colors and images suggest?
• Where will this story take place? 
• How many characters do you see?

2. While marketed for middle-grade children, preschool children are enamored with Caroline O’Neal’s whimsical watercolor illustrations. One three-year-old I met at a book signing loves to reread the book and make up fantastic stories for her mother through the illustrations.

© 2019 Caroline O'Neal, ONCE UPON A TWISTED TALE, all rights reserved.

What is a simple, practical tip for teachers when it comes to incorporating poetry in the classroom?

I’d suggest playing RHYME DETECTIVES.

1. Read a rhyming picture book or a poem to the class.
2. Have students clap when they hear a rhyming word.
3. Stop reading and print the rhyming pair on index cards.
4. Make a rhyme word pile.
5. When the story or poem is finished, have student volunteers rediscover the rhyming word pairs.
6. Have students create another rhyming pair from their words, making four.
7. Print the full list of rhyming words for the class.
8. Students can use these words to create an original poem.

Can you recount a specific instance of when poetry impacted a student or group of students in a positive way?

Just recently, as a guest speaker in an Early Childhood Education college class, I introduced the prospective teachers to Once Upon a Twisted Tale and offered them a simple exercise where they chose bits of colored paper from 3 different bags. One listed a fairytale character. The second offered an action. And the third offered a different fairytale character. 

I gave them time to create an “original fractured fairytale” and one of the students wrote a full rhyming text. I’m sure she will use that exercise in her own classroom.


CONNECT WITH GAYLE C. KRAUSE

Website: http://www.gayleckrause.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorGayleCKrause/
Twitter: @GeeCeeK
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/gayle_c_krause/
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/krausehousebook/

Look for Gayle's other rhyming picture book out this year, Daddy, Can You See the Moon? (Clear Fork/Spork, April 2019).

Please join me in thanking Gayle for participating in our Classroom Connections series and for offering a signed copy of Once Upon a Twisted Tale, plus the accompanying curriculum guide, to one lucky Today's Little Ditty reader! (US addresses only.)

To enter, leave a comment below or send an email with the subject "Twisted Tale" to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com by Tuesday, August 20th. In your comment, Gayle would love to hear your thoughts about the sampling of poems featured in this blog:

Tell me who the main fairytale character is and who you would like to see him/her paired with for a funny, rhyming redux. Maybe we can even come up with enough for a Twisted Tales, Volume II.

The winner will be selected randomly and announced next Friday, August 23rd.

Our padlet collection of song-lyric based poems has grown this week with new additions from Dianne Moritz, Madeleine Kuderick, Sydney O'Neill, Margaret Simon, and Mindy Gars Dolandis. I may even be getting better at guessing the songs... unless you guys are deliberately going easy on me! I haven't "officially" guessed more than a couple on the padlet, because I would love for others to play along too.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup at Wondering and Wandering includes a wonderful assortment of poems inspired by trees. While I had something else scheduled for today, if you're looking for more trees, I invite you to peruse our June 2015 wrap-up celebration of TREEHOUSE poems. Many thanks to Christie Wyman for hosting this week's roundup!