Language Arts - Volume 76, Issue 4, 1999

Uses poetry and poetic prose to remind readers of the power of poetic language. Discusses the author’s experience as a poet and her work with teachers to bring poetry into children’s lives.

Discusses the development of voice through a specific free-form poetry-writing experience. Suggests a method for teaching poetry that draws heavily on poets from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Shares evidence that this approach to teaching poetry can be the starting point for students developing writers’ voice, and suggests ways to move from poetry to other writing genres.

Discusses the efforts of a fifth-grade teacher and a visiting poet to rekindle students’ sense of poetic passion and pleasure. Describes how the authors introduced students to poems for two voices (using P. Fleischman’s "Joyful Noise"). The poetry unit culminated in a project in which students read and performed Fleischman’s poems, then wrote and performed their own poems for two voices.

Uses examples of children’s poetry to illustrate both the power of metaphor and the possibilities of poetry in the development of metaphor. Traces children’s development in creation of metaphor from kindergarten through eighth grade. Looks at early demonstration of metaphor use and the expanded use of metaphor to describe complex concepts and relationships.

Discusses research on the need for, and the characteristics of, culturally aware and responsive teachers. Outlines a model for preservice and inservice teachers that focuses upon the development of culturally relevant pedagogy in the context of a multicultural-literacy learning course. Describes how teachers who have taken the multicultural-literacy course have applied the model in their classrooms.

Reviews 31 collections of children’s poetry that help students see the world from a fresh perspective. Notes how they were used in a variety of classrooms and how children responded to them. Organizes the books in terms of: making the ordinary extraordinary; looking at relationships in new ways; new views of the world; and a fresh look at animals.

Full article is available in the print version only.