Suggests students can be led to listen to the sounds of poetry as they would listen to a score of music, discovering and re-discovering relationships between sound, rhythmic accents, sections, movements, and ideas. (NH)

Examines the work of four writers who have influenced the teaching of poetry writing to primary school children. Considers the merits of each, particularly in the context of arguments about "voice" and "form," and links their explicit and implicit philosophies and approaches. Supports "grace,""voice" and "form," and argues that one need not…

Seeks evaluative strategies for grading poetry that occupy an elusive middle ground between flexibility and consistency. Discusses rubrics, collections, conference/negotiation, self-evaluation, and explication. (RS)

This paper charts the emergence of community publishing and worker writer groups in England in the early 1970s. These workshops supported working class and marginalized people to express their personal experience through poetry, prose, autobiography and history, a process with significant educational, cultural, political and social implications.…

Ten years ago, when Kevin Young mounted the stage at the 1994 Furious Flower conference, he was a baby-faced newcomer to the national poetry scene. Amid elders like Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Clifton, who had just selected his book for publication in the National Poetry Series, he bore only two identifying labels: "Harvard" and "the Dark Room…

In this article, the author redefines "text" and "poem" so that attention will be focused on the reader. The text, she argues, lies inert on the page until the reader comes along and brings it to life in the act of reading, reacting, and reflecting. A poem, then, must be thought of as an event in time. It is not an object or an ideal entity. It is…

This paper describes how a few simple strategies can provide students with a variety of great writing ideas. Some of the ideas presented are: writing workshops, trading book lists, creating journals, writing poetry, and peer topic conferences.

Exchange of poems at the 2nd Annual San Quentin/Patten College poetry slam with the prisoners is reported to be an event, which was extraordinaire. It was an opportunity to understand the hidden popular culture.

An experienced secondary teacher shares some common misconceptions about literary analysis. The activities, which help the students to practice theory and read drama, poetry and fiction, are described.

Theories of English phonology regard syllable onset patterns as irrelevant to the assignment of lexical stress. This paper describes three studies that challenge this position. Study 1 tested whether stress patterns on a large sample of disyllabic English words varied as a function of word onset. The incidence of trochaic stress increased…

After a successful career as a writer for adults, Pat Mora began creating books for children. Her first picture book, "Tomas and The Library Lady" (Knopf, 1997) is a tender story of a young migrant worker who unearths new worlds when he discovers the magic a public library holds. The text, cleverly interspersed with foreign words, became a…

This somatic genealogy of Dramatism's core terms--symbolic action, attitude, identification--argues for the importance of keeping rhetoric, rhetorical theory, and rhetorical pedagogy more closely tied to bodies that generate, induce, and respond to rhetoric. It does so by examining Burke's use of Sir Richard Paget's theory that spoken language…

This article discusses published poetry books focusing on middle school students' exuberant interests and passions as explored through these topics: family and relationships, transitions and growing up, school encounters, exploring things to do, and broader perspectives and other voices. In "Love Letters," Adoff (1997a) presents a series of 20…

For Native peoples the web of home, land, and community has traditionally been the source of identity and of the sense of belonging, in and through family and culture; it is likewise often a source of knowledge and creativity. Louis's poetry struggles with the implications of the home(s) he knows, and it occasionally glimpses the possibility that…

Beginning a study of literary sense of place with books about New York City makes sense because both children and adults are likely to be familiar with the city through movies, television, and advertisements, even if they have never been there. By paying close attention to the ways in which authors and illustrators convey a sense of place in these…