Showing posts with label Poem about Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poem about Writing. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 1

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)


Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.


Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

And now for my first poem as Little Red Riding Hood.



Students - For most days of this month, I will be using the idea grid referred to above. Today I chose to write about why Little Red Riding Hood might choose to write at all. It is interesting to consider why any of us write, and so we'll let LRRH start her own poetry notebook with thinking about herself as a writer. Many of us are inspired by friends, and she is too.

Today's poem is written in nonrhyming couplets (two lines), and you'll notice that the second line of each is a little aside, a bit of extra information (in parentheses). I could delete these lines and the poem would still make sense, but LRRH has a few extra things to say.

Thank you for joining me on this first day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

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If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 
with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Writing Together Makes Life Good


Poetry Books!
Photo by Amy LV




Students - Today's poem is dedicated to all of you...to all of my poem reading and writing friends!  Here in the United States, it is the end of the school year.  These last few weeks and days are inviting me to reflect upon the many clever, sharing poem lovers I have met all year long.  I am thankful.

And sometimes, when I feel thankful, I write.  I wish each one of you many poems and many good poem reading and writing friends.

On this bright day in May, please keep reading to find a lovely gift for all of us...


Today, on their last day of school, I could not be happier to welcome Teacher Lauren Coffey, Volunteer Teacher Patricia Nesbitt, and the fourth grade poets of McNeill Elementary School in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  It has been a joy to read these students' poems and to learn about their process.

Please sit back and enjoy this collection of beautiful, thoughtful words...


Click Full Screen Icon to Enlarge

To celebrate these young poets' work, I am offering a giveaway to a commenter on this post.  Please comment with words to these poets on today's post to be entered to win a copy of my POEMS ARE TEACHERS: HOW STUDYING POETRY STRENGTHENS WRITING IN ALL GENRES.  I will draw the name of one commenter next Thursday, May 31 and will announce the winner next Poetry Friday, June 1!  Thank you, Heinemann, for the book to share.

And now....it is Friday and I continue celebrating my new poet friends from Bowling Green, Kentucky as I also invite you to visit two places.

Over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, the magnificent 6th Grade Blog Takeover continues.  Michelle Haseltine's students are running the show over there for the whole month of May, and it has been a joy!  Please note that I will be drawing another giveaway winner of a commenter on one of this week's posts.  And I'll be drawing that winner's name tomorrow!

And this week, you can find the Poetry Friday roundup over at Margaret's place, Reflections on the Teche.  Learn all about what's happening poetry-wise in the Kidlitosphere this week and read Margaret's lovely sonnet for sandpipers too.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Poetry Friday & Falling in Love with Meter

POETRY FRIDAY IS HERE! 
WELCOME!


Two Pen Cases
Photo by Amy LV




Students -  I fell in love with a meter last week.  Yep, I did.  I was home, just reading in this book...

Frost Collection
Photo by Amy LV

...and I came across this poem, Asking for Roses, by Robert Frost.  I read it quietly.  And then I read it out loud, just listening to the rolling rhythm. I loved the story, but I really loved the meter.

Asking for Roses - in the Public Domain
(Click to Enlarge)
Photo by Amy LV

And while I was at it, I fell in love with the rhyme scheme too.  I thought it was so NEAT that the word roses ended every single one of the six stanzas.  And that there were six rhymes for the word roses, each ending the second line of each stanza.  I took some notes about Frost's rhymes.

Frost's Rhymes
(Click to Enlarge)
Photo by Amy LV

Then I decided to try my hand at Frost's lovable meter, choosing first my six-times repeated word (writing!) and its associated rhymes.  I needed seven words that rhymed...seven words that could make sense together.  I visited RhymeZone to scout out rhymes, selecting the ones you see on my notebook page below. Honestly, at first, I did not think that the words below would work.  I worried that they would not sound forced.  But I pushed on.

Possible Rhymes
(Click to Enlarge)
Photo by Amy LV

I kept trying, kept writing, kept scribbling.  Below you can see that my writing process really does require significant crossing out, something I find much more comfortable with pen on paper.  Initial drafts for me need some serious black-pen-scribbling.

Poemscribbles
(Click to Enlarge)
Photo by Amy LV

As always, I read and listened, read and listened until I liked how the poem sounded.  Then I took it to my keyboard and continued revising a word here, a word there, over the course of a week.  And I am pretty happy.  My poem's meter learned from another poem's meter.  And I learned too.

It is true that you, too, can fall in love with a poem and a meter, just as I did with Frost's Asking for Roses.  I share a poem about this on the back cover of my new READ! READ! READ! (Wordsong), illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke, and released just this past Tuesday.

Back Cover Snip of READ! READ! READ!

Read poems aloud often.  And talk about the different meters you admire with your writing friends. Experimenting with meter is a wondrous way to challenge ourselves.  Allow yourself to breathe in a meter you've never breathed in before, and you may just be surprised by the words that follow!

I am so happy to welcome author Caroline Starr Rose to my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks this month. Please stop by to read her notebook poem, to peek into her notebooks, and to enter her book giveaway! And know...I seek student notebook sharers over there...please consider sharing!

It's my pleasure to host the Poetry Friday roundup here today.  If you wish to share the link to your poetry post, please do so below at the Inlinkz Link-Up, and I will be around to comment today and throughout the weekend.  

All visitors - we welcome everyone to this poemgathering every single week.  Anyone may read.  Anyone may comment.  Anyone may link in!  Happy Poetry Week ahead!

xo,
Amy


Please share a comment below if you wish.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Celebrate Summer with FOUR Poetry Peeks Today!

We Did It!
Photo by Amy LV




Students - Life is chock full of moments to feel happy about.  One accomplishment to feel happy about is a writing piece finished and shared with friends or with readers we do not even know.  Today I am grateful to share all kinds of writing by poets and songwriters of different ages.  Today's poem is for the writers of the pieces you are about to read...and for all of you who celebrate writing with me all year long.  Thank you!

Please sit back and take great pleasure in these works...


First, I welcome First Grade Teacher Mark Kehl of Arcade Elementary in Arcade, NY and his young poet, Colton.


From Mark:

Colton had overheard his parents talk about their previous home.  He is only 8 but is writing about a house that they had for 11 years.  He is an old soul.






Welcome, now, to First Grade Teacher Amanda Urbanski and her poets from Cattaraugus - Little Valley Elementary School in Cattaraugus, NY.






A musical welcome to Music Teacher Heather Holden and Songwriter Zoe Lesika of Lindbergh Elementary in Buffalo, NY.  Zoe approached Heather with the beautiful melody she wrote which turns my "Song" from FOREST HAS A SONG into a real song.  It is beautiful, and I am so grateful to Zoe for writing it and for Heather for reaching out and sharing it.



From FOREST HAS A SONG
Illustration by Robin Gourley
(Click to enlarge)


Beautiful melody by Zoe Lesika



And a hearty welcome to Sixth Grade Teacher Helene Albrecht and her two classes of poets from  Oradell Public Schools in Oradell, NJ.  


From Helene:

During Poetry Month we began over a month long unit on poetry where students were immersed in reading and writing different kinds of poetry.  The children listened to music while writing poetry inspired by paint chip colors. They also wrote color poems by Writing the Rainbow, The Poem Farm's challenge to pick a random crayon from a box of crayons to create poems. 

I introduced my students to blackout poetry using different text. The amazing pictures that were created can be found on our Instagram @la.in.6a.  Many of the ideas for poems, such as list poems and just because poems, came from 30 Days of Poetry, a name many of us ELA teachers use to describe our poetry units.  Among others, I used the following websites as resources: Mrs. McKeown's Thirty Days of Poetry, 30 Days of Poetry, 30 Days of Poetry (II).

At the end of our Poetry Unit, we invited the parents in so that we could share our creations. The children chose one of their favorite poems from their Poetry Notebook and created a slide for our class slide shows which you can view below.







Lucky, lucky us.  Thank you to everybody who was part of these beautiful celebrations.  I celebrate and thank all of you today!   Please, kind reader...leave these writers a kind comment.

If you have not yet visited, Linda Rief has opened her gorgeous notebooks this month over at  my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks. Please visit and leave a comment by next Thursday, July 29 to be entered into a giveaway of one of Linda's books.  You can find all kinds of notebook inspiration over there!y

Heidi is hosting today's Poetry Friday by celebrating her students and their over at my juicy little universe.  Visit her warm space for this week's roundup of poetry and friendship.

Happy happy summer to all!  I am on a blogging holiday for July...and maybe longer. During this time, I will complete a writing project for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, draft a proposal with an illustrator, organize the poems already here, and make some jam!  You can still find me at The Poem Farm Facebook Page, Twitter, and Instagram, sharing old poems from the archives and other things I find along the path of summer.  Much joy!

xo,
Amy

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