Reading Poetry in the Middle School Levels By Paul B. Janeczko Forward by Georgia Heard Mitch Acker and Lindsay Fredericks

Summary The author gathered twenty poems that the students tend to love, and for each one, lesson ideas that help the teacher meet language arts requirements. This book was written for reading poetry in the middle grades and focuses the content of the activities around student engagement and the common core standards for English Language Arts.

Student Engagement 1. Social interactions. 2. Questions are central. 3. The students look ahead (not back at what they once thought) toward the new ideas 4. Multiple perspectives are considered.

1. Quote Accurately 2. Determine the Theme of a Story 3. Compare and Contrast 1. Determine the Meaning of the word 2. Explain 3. Describe  Key Ideas and Details  Craft and Structure

1. Analyze 2. Compare and Contrast By the end of the year Read and comprehend literature, include stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of grades 4-5 text complexity band independently and proficiently  Integration of Knowledge and Ideas  Range of Reading and Complexity of Text

Use this grid as a starting point to help layer teaching across genres

 *we don’t merely read a poem, we experience it.  *student’s should reach as the experience different poems, when they encounter unfamiliar words or expressions.  *Student’s collaboratively give and take, speak and listen, read and recite along a path to loving poetry.  * Poems become a constant companion, for a quiet moment without the intrusions of facebook, myspace, skype, youtube, and twitter.

 students are encouraged to keep writers notebooks. Teachers should keep a notebook as well, and participate in writing workshop.  encourage students to be active readers of poems, underlining parts that they like, or find puzzling, and circling words that they enjoy.  Neatness does not count, this is where students are to wonder and speculate.  Build a list as a class of “things to look for in a poem.”

Before Reading *Why I admire the Poem *Companion Poems *Special Words to Work Through First Reading *Meeting the Poem Closing Reading After the Reading *Say it Out-loud *Write About It *Issues/Themes/Topics for Discussions *Book bridges *Online Resources

 Shape Poems  The learning outcome is that each student will arrange words and phrases about a topic on the outline of its shape creating a mental picture of it.  Motivators  Think about some favorite animals, and things (footballs, apple etc) that are simple to draw.  Write as many descriptor words as you can think of about that topic  Write the descriptor words in the outline of the shape you chose.

 Poem Standards – students will explore and describe his or her thoughts or feelings using a variety of poem genres.

 Sunflower, Cherlyn. Really Writing!. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Teacher, Print.  Janeczko, Paul B.. Reading poetry in the middle grades: 20 poems and activities that meet the common core standards and cultivate a passion for poetry. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, Print.