Poetry Friday

Since Easter is in April this year, I have started poetry month a little bit early. Normally National Poetry Month is the entire month of April, but since I'm going to miss out on over a week of instruction in April, I couldn't resist starting early.

Yesterday I played this performance by Taylor Mali to try to get them on my side and lure them into the world of poetry:



They absolutely loved it.

Then I also performed an "edited for content" version of his poem "What Teachers Make" today in class. At this point I can say that they've been lured even more into this intoxicating world of poetry after my treatise on why you need to recite poems that you connect with.

So many kids make the transformation from haters to lovers of poetry in this month. They're like Jack in the book Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. Jack begins his story hating poetry, moves into the understanding phase, and then eventually loves it. So many of my own students go through this same journey. This is the month I look most forward to teaching in the school year.