As someone who loves to read aloud, I also enjoy listening to others read aloud. The voices of authors reading their own writing has a special quality that always leads my mind to think of a piece of literature, particularly a poem, in a new way. I recently experienced this again, listening to I have a book and CD set, Hip Hop Speaks to Children: Celebrating Poetry With a Beat. As a lover of poetry, I am a person who reads poetry e-v-e-r-y-d-a-y, often aloud, even if it's just to myself. It is absolutely delightful and insightful, hearing Eloise Greenfield's own voice, reading her poems, including children's perennial favorite, "Things" (see below).
Natalie Goldberg says, "Reading to another human being is more naked than reciting to the wall. You are more exposed, can't hide anymore. Get used to it... it's the gap between what you believed you wrote and what you really wrote. It allows you to hear yourself, mirrored back from the silent mind of the listener."
I find this to be so true, and I often use this strategy as the first step in revising with students; they bring a writing tool and their own stories and read to a partner. The writing tool allows for the writer to make changes as s/he notices the need. No matter how many times you ask students to re-read their work, nothing is as powerful as reading it aloud to someone else--with one possible exception--having someone else read your draft aloud to YOU. This really helps the writer to hear their writing as a their readers would read it. Again, only the writer can physically make the changes deemed necessary, but s/he may take suggestions from his/her reader(s). This is always another step during the revision process.
Once students publish their writing, they can read aloud to their audiences; now is the time to explore the nuances of your writing and to share exactly how you would like for it to sound in your readers' minds.
One of the quickest, most satisfying ways to practice the power of this type of work (and writing, in general) is to read and write poetry. As a genre with typically shorter pieces, it is more accessible to students than most. If I had to choose a favorite genre to teach, poetry would be at or near the tip-top of the list. I LOVE, love, l-o-v-e to teach reading/writing poetry to children; figuring our units of study to meet standards as well as the flavor of a class is always challenging and rewarding.
Children love to play with words, rhythms, and beats. Consequently, I have memorized a number of poems with my classes over the years. Using a new poem each week, we would read it for pleasure, talk about the images created by each line and by the culmination of stanzas/lines, illustrate it, and memorize the poem, usually with some movement to help us recall lines. When it was time to go to the classroom meeting area, the signal was my beginning to recite one of the poems we knew by heart. (The first poem I would teach them was Beatrice Schenk de Regniers' "Keep A Poem in Your Pocket" because it was so fitting to our reading and writing classroom community.) Over the course of a year, our repertoire became quite large.
In addition to this practice, I developed the habit of using a poem to welcome children to a new day or during transition/waiting times during the course of the day. This became another way to expose students to a wide variety of authors, simply for the pleasure of hearing them. It was through the fun of a read-aloud that one of my third grade classes fell in love with the poem, "Soup", by Carl Sandburg (see below). I always thought that the poem sounded British, so I read it aloud with an English accent. So, of course, my Hoosier students did the same--priceless. They loved it so much that they insisted it become a "poem of the week," subject to illustrating, memorizing, developing movements, etc.
In case you haven't yet discovered the pure magic of Georgia Heard's advice on reading and writing poetry, I highly recommend ALL of her work. My most favorite has to be Awakening the Heart. This little book is a veritable treasure trove of ideas for using poetry in your classroom--vibrant, fun ideas to enliven your reading and writing soul. Years ago, Heinemann Publishing created an audio tape of Georgia's speaking about poetry; she even reads aloud a few favorites, such as Naomi Shihab Nye's "Valentine for Ernest Mann". Georgia elaborates on Nye's idea that poems hide--from there, her words are inspirational and stand to be embedded in mini-lessons galore. Sadly, this tape is out of print; Georgia personally advised me to beg Heinemann to put it back into "print" as a CD or podcast. In the meantime, if you ever get the chance to see Georgia, DO IT! I have had the pleasure of working with her a number of times over the years, and she is the person that you would hope for her to be (and how many people can you say that about)!
More poetry thoughts are coming soon. In the meantime, here are some of the poems I've mentioned in this post:
Things by Eloise Greenfield
Went to the corner
Walked in the store
Bought me some candy
Ain’t got it no more
Ain’t got it no more
Went to the beach
Played on the shore
Built me a sandhouse
Ain’t got it no more
Ain’t got it no more
Went to the kitchen
Lay down on the floor
Made me a poem
Still got it
Still got it
Keep a Poem in Your Pocket
by Beatrice Schenk deRegniers
Keep a Poem in Your Pocket
And a picture in your head
And you'll never feel lonely
At night when you're in bed
The little poem will sing to you
The little picture bring to you
A dozen dreams to dance to you
At night when you're in bed
So--
Keep a picture in your pocket
And a poem in your head
And you'll never feel lonely
At night when you're in bed.
Soup
I saw a famous man eating soup.
I say he was lifting a fat broth
Into his mouth with a spoon.
His name was in the newspapers that day
Spelled out in tall black headlines
And thousands of people were talking about him.
When I saw him,
He sat bending his head over a plate
Putting soup in his mouth with a spoon.
I say he was lifting a fat broth
Into his mouth with a spoon.
His name was in the newspapers that day
Spelled out in tall black headlines
And thousands of people were talking about him.
When I saw him,
He sat bending his head over a plate
Putting soup in his mouth with a spoon.
Carl Sandburg
A Valentine for Ernest Mann
You can't order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take two"
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in reply.
So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he reinvented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of the skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we reinvent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
--Naomi Shihab Nye
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