Describes a school library media project for teaching poetry in which fifth-grade students write and illustrate a poem and produce a poster using the PosterPrinter machine. Suggestions for additional activities are included. (EAM)

Describes an approach to teaching a literature-based first-year composition course that allows students to read poetry and understand it, which in turn helps them to become better writers. Outlines class activities and writing assignments that foster independent thinking and personal writing, finally leading to essays. (HB)

Offers 11 classroom tips from teachers for a variety of activities, including fictional movie reviews, haiku writing, questions to develop student journals, handouts, rewriting stories, and a "dirty trick" to get better research topics. (SR)

Describes a poetry group which encouraged the expression of memories and imagination among frail elderly residents of a nursing home over a period of nine months. Shows how it facilitated peer friendship formation, increased expression of affect, resulted in improved staff treatment of residents, and ended with the publication of an anthology. (SR)

Explores differences in adolescents' styles of responding to poetry and relates these differences to contrasts in the way students narrate stories of personal experience. Finds contrasts between working-class and middle-class students in styles of responding to poetry which show parallels with their contrasting styles of narrating stories of…

A teacher recounts her experiences with students who were successful telling their stories through writing and using their writing as a vehicle for expressing their emotions. Explains how helping students "find their voices" through writing can crack tough exteriors and help youth reconnect to school and themselves. (Author/MKA)

Lists best books by the American Library Association for the general reader, best young adult books, notable children's films and videos, best children's books, notable recordings for children, notable children's software and Web sites, quick picks for reluctant young adult readers, bestsellers of 1997, and literary prizes, 1997. (PEN)

Interviews two poets who teach writing to special education students in various middle and high schools around New York. Discusses expectations, specific writing exercises or poems that work well, and strategies for maintaining focus and control or engaging unengaged students. (SR)

Describes 19 children's books (published between 1196 and 1998), in categories of poetry, picture books, participation books, chapter books for older readers, and nonfiction. Discusses them in tandem with landmark books to reflect on social and historical contexts and to help teachers talk with children about the enduring images and changing…

Offers descriptions of 34 books for children and young adolescents (many of them illustrated books), in the following categories: books for the youngest readers; poems for young writers; books about the moon; books celebrating city life; books for older readers; and books of multicultural folktales. (SR)

Describes how two teachers approach poetry writing with at-risk high school students over a 12-week period, structuring activities to initiate poetry as language play, selecting model poems that are developmentally appropriate, and organizing writing assignments that encourage students to draw on their individual experiences. Discusses conducting…

Argues that poetry should be at the center of all literary training. Describes the power of poetry on literacy development using examples from (1) eighth graders who immersed themselves for months in the "Iliad"; (2) from a graduate class; and (3) from kindergarten, first-, third-, and sixth-grade classes. (SR)

Suggests that the poetry and the life of Aphra Behn illumines the dynamic of a fascinating transitional period in definitions of gender and sexuality; and that she was the true pioneer of this brave new world of sexual possibility in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. (RS)

Discusses the theoretical basis for poetry's potential for the language acquisition process. The article presents a practical plan for the progressive integration of poetry into the language classroom and concludes that the process of poetic analysis aids the formation of critical reading and thinking skills. (26 references) (CK)

Presents activities found to be useful in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes, including a game in which the teacher guesses the meaning of words in students' native tongues; an exercise in which students write predictions, such as weather forecasting, in English; a game in which students explain the meaning of selected idioms in their own…