Stresses the importance of using imagery when having beginning writers write poetry. Discusses additional techniques of stressing the unusual, continuation words, the five senses, and repetition of a word or phrase. (MG)

Discusses how Dave Etter's poem "Brother" involves students by focusing on the themes of guilt and the love/hate complexity of a sibling relationship. Notes that Gina Berriault's story "The Stone Boy" and Harley Elliot's poem "Brothers Together in Winter" work well in conjunction with "Brother" as a thematic…

Describes a unit of study for poetry which draws an analogy between the delivery of verbal images of poems and the visual images in rock music videos. Reports that students were able to see imagery in poems and to reflect images into meaning. (KEH)

Describes an exercise in which students learn to recognize cliches by locating them in a poem and generating them in a class discussion. Notes that by teaching students to recognize unimaginative and ineffective language in the work of other writers, they can learn to avoid it themselves. (MM)

Illustrates the literature-writing connection by describing: (1) first-graders' responses to a mini-lesson on leads based on familiar literature; (2) improvement in students' poetry-writing after exposure to books and poems about whales; and (3) a workshop introducing similes through reading and writing poetry. (MM)

Explores the nature of children's poetry. Describes an underlying mechanism activated when children engage deeply, meditate unselfconsciously, and express those meditations through the act of writing. Urges teachers to incorporate into writing instruction children's natural inclination to play. (MM)

Presents 18 writing stimulus ideas that are intended as jumping off points for student writing and are based on poems from "If I Were in Charge of the World (and other worries)" by Judith Viorst. Offers some general suggestions for using poems in the classroom. (SR)

Describes how performing Shel Silverstein's poems is an effective method to practice oral expression. Notes that although this activity was used in a fourth grade class, it could be adapted to any grade level. (MM)

Discussion of the use of poetry in the classroom highlights 15 poetry books and suggests numerous activities appropriate for grades 2 through 5 in the subject areas of African Americans, birds, color, discoveries, families, food/eating, haiku, multiculturalism, Native Americans, nature, New England, Paul Revere/biographies, seasons, trains, and…

Explains why the National Council of Teachers of English's Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines serves to improve high school literary magazines and reward the hard work of teachers and students. Uses the judging criteria of the contest to explain why the best magazines won recognition. (TB)

Presents two physics poems in the sonnet style, Electron Love and The Barn, that were part of a student's personal evaluation instrument. (JRH)

Presents five lessons designed to use art to inspire students to write. Notes that students can gain a certain focus from art but that they can also veer toward writing shapeless, rambling stories that fail to create pictures in the reader's mind. (RS)

Describes how one English teacher developed a five-day approach by which William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" was successfully introduced to a seventh-grade class. Argues that it is possible to have such young students read and enjoy Shakespeare. (HB)

Describes how a teacher of adult literacy uses group poetry writing with her students to enhance language and critical skills. (SR)

Describes strategies (including the use of multicultural reading materials) for helping culturally diverse students make personal connections with poetry and the creative process. (SR)