There are my favorite bells in music, “The Bells of St. Geneviève”…
…and my favorite bells in film…
…and my favorite classic bell poem which contains my favorite bell word: tintinnabulation. (I so wanted to include that word in my own bell poem, but it was not to be.)
I was all over the place trying to write my bell poem this month, but my drafts kept getting closer and closer to my heart, until this memory emerged:
Carol Wilcox, at Carol’s Corner, has this week’s final Poetry Friday roundup. Let’s hold her, and all of those in the Denver area who are reeling from the recent wildfires, close in our hearts.
There are bound to be lots of bell poems around the roundup, ringing in the New Year. I can’t wait to read them all! Check out what the other Poetry Sisters came up with:
Buffy Silverman has the Christmas Eve edition of the Poetry Friday roundup. Thanks, Buffy! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and to those who don’t, Happy Solstice!
Next Friday, the Poetry Sisters will be showcasing our poems that feature bells. Do join us, please!
Photo credit: Martin LaBar, Creative Commons photo on Flickr
Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.
Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!
When I think about word study and vocabulary, I always wonder how we can expand the ways our children think about words. I want them to think about words in complex ways. I know that to really understand a word, it is not simply about a definition. The books in this week’s Text Set are books that focus on looking at a single words with depth. Each author does this in a unique way and a week of sharing books like this can help students think more deeply about words and all that they can mean.
The Quiet Book and The Loud Book! are pure joy. I love them both for so many reasons. They are fun to just read aloud for enjoyment, but there is so much to each one of these. We think we know what the words quiet and loud mean until we read these books. Then we realize that there are so many different kinds of quiet and and so many different kinds of loud. These books explore this idea in such a joyful way. I imagine once children read these books, they might think of other words in new ways!
I have loved Courage by Bernard Waber for years. I love how it gives so many scenes of courage. Now I am happy that I can pair the book with the newer I Am Courage by Susan Verde. Thinking about the different ways that two authors approach a book focused on one word will start incredible conversations. Both of these have repeated lines and both do something a bit different in exploring the word courage.
These two picture books–When You are Brave and Shy each focus on a word that can mean so much. By embedding the words in experience and story, we come to think more deeply about all that the word could mean. The illustrations in each add to the meaning which is another angle to explore.
This set of books from Laura Vaccro Seeger-Blue, Green and Red– makes for more fascinating conversation as readers think about how the same and different a color can be–as well as all that the color encompasses and symbolizes. The literal meanings as well as some metaphorical meanings of these color will be naturally explored when reading and discussing these books.
There is something about choosing a word as a goal or a reminder. Often we do this on New Year’s Day as a way to set our intentions for the coming year. My Special Word is a book that can help young readers think about words and the ways they can influence who we are–you might want to check out the whole initiative when you are on the site. Choosing a word (one that remains the same or changes daily) is a concept that is written about so well for young children in My Special Word. And the newish series from Susan Verde helps readers understand this concept of “being” as connected to a specific word. I Am Peace is one of my favorite in the series.
This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection.
Today I picked up my copy of Amanda Gorman’s new book, CALL US WHAT WE CARRY. I’ve only dipped in to browse, and I can’t wait for time to curl up on the couch and savor every single word. This sampling via The New Yorker takes my breath away.
It’s that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.
UPDATE: THE SCHEDULE IS FILLED! If you missed out this time, stay tuned for July
What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.
Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape, or form (Mr. Linky, “old school” in the comments, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.
How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you’re not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch…and learn! One thing we’re finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.
How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? You can grab the list from the sidebar here at A(nother) Year of Reading, or I’d be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address.
Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It’s like hosting a poetry party on your blog!
Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.
Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!
This week, I am focusing on a set of books that have incredible Educator Guides. I am not usually a fan of teacher guides as in the past, they have not been responsive to student needs. And I certainly am not a fan of just any teacher guide (such as those I have seen on popular teacher sites). However, recently, some brilliant scholars have created educator guides for us to use. Many of these important guides help us, as teachers, unlearn harmful assumptions that we may bring to a text. In order to share these with students in a way that does not cause harm, these guides are critical. I so appreciate the experts who are supporting us with such thoughtful information and insights.
So I purchased the hardback, the ebook and the audio versions of this The 1619 Project Born on the Water, a must-have book. It is such a critical book, not just for children but for all of us. And the guide, written by the brilliant Aeriale Johnson is a true gift. The care that she took in writing this guide is evident. It is not a guide or a book to be read in one sitting and then shared quickly with children. Instead, we have to be mindful of all that Aeriale teaches us so that we can share the book with children. I’ve read through the guide once, but plan to revisit it several times as I learn, relearn, rethink and understand my role in sharing this important book with children.
I will pretty much buy any book from here on out that Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul has written an educator guide for. I learn so much from her-in her professional writing, in her authoring of Stamped for Kids and in her educator guides. The guide accompanying Stamped for Kids, as well as the guide for Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre both offer so much as we think about how we introduce history to children. Again, so much of the history in these books is history that was absent from my learning in school, so much of this is new learning for me. I can’t trust myself to teach this history well on my own. I appreciate so much the ability to have these guides to accompany these books.
The #DisruptTexts website has a set of really strong educator guides. These guides align with the core missions of #DisruptTexts and I trust and appreciate anything that any one of the co-founders shares about books and how we might approach them. The guides span K-12 but the guide for At the Mountain’s Base was especially interesting to me. I love that they remind me (and my students) to spend lots of time with the important author’s note. Check out this guide as well as the others published by the #DisruptTexts team.
I have been adamant about knowing who wrote the Educator Guides I share. Having guide authors who I trust is critical. However, for this “Lesson Kit” for We Are Still Here, I was unable to find the author of the guide. I read through it and the reason I am including it is that it helped me navigate the huge amount of information (much new-to-me) in the book and it also includes so many important resources to extend my knowledge. There is so much here to add to our understandings-for both teachers and students.
Heartdrum Imprint is another site that offers several guides for educators. If you do not know Heartdrum, Heartdrum is a new importing of Harper Collins that highlights the voices of Native creators. Many of the books have short guides to accompany them. The guides are helpful as they often share insights into the concepts and ideas specific to the culture represented in the book. I love that they have educator guides for series books because sometimes we don’t realize how much is embedded in this type of book for transitional readers. I love JoJo Makoons and love the book even more now that I’ve read and reread the guide. The guide is a reminder that we have so much to consider with every single book we share with children.
If you want to purchase any of these books, consider purchasing them from Bookelicious. Bookelicious is an amazing online independent children’s bookstore with a brilliantly curated collection and lots of incredible tools for young readers, their teachers and their parents.
Little grey dreams holding up the hawk: a blur in the periphery. I’ve little time left. Everything’s been said. My heart is so giant this evening following old migratory patterns that would have been better left alone. Someone raised a camera to capture us both in a moment; the only gift I have to give.
Molly’s challenge for the Inklings this month was to try a poetry form that was new to us. I tried a tricube, a rondelet, and this cento. The definition of a cento (from poets.org) is “From the Latin word for “patchwork,” the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form composed entirely of lines from poems by other poets.”
I was downstairs in my “studio,” doing some stitching and catching up on episodes of The Slowdown podcast. Rather than using a concrete/old school approach (poring over books of poetry, copying down lines by hand, cutting them apart, and rearranging them into a poem), I used a digital approach (listening to the poem, copy/pasting the line I liked, and hyperlinking the poem in my list of sources).
Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met Molly’s challenge:
Michelle has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at her blog, Michelle Kogan. She’s celebrating holidays and happy poetry news along with some of her gorgeous cards and several poems!
Take note…next week I’ll put up the signup for Poetry Friday Roundup Hosts for January-June 2022! Get ready to claim your spot!
Yesterday’s Ode to Thanksgiving is perhaps a more proper ode (even though it starts off angry and critical) in that it directly addresses Autumn, and focuses narrowly on a single autumnal event: Thanksgiving.
This Ode to Autumn, on the other hand, is really only an ode because I say so in the title. Poet’s prerogative.
Here’s how the rest of the Poetry Sisters met the challenge of writing an Ode to Autumn:
A(nother) Year of Reading 