Poetry!

We have been working on writing poetry for a little over a week. Of course we have been reading poetry all year, but now the focus is on writing poems. For the past eight years I have been drawing a lot on Regie Routman's book, Kids' Poems: Teaching First Graders to Love Writing Poetry. I love her emphasis on reading and talking about poetry by children. Other children become the mentors for my group. About half the space in this book is taken up with poetry by first graders. She includes the original drafts which include invented spelling and any reworking the author did on paper. She also has the final typed-up and illustrated version.

Since I began using this book, I have collected poetry from my own students to use with my groups. I also have the anthologies that each year's group puts together. For the anthology each student can choose one poem she/he has written and I get to choose one. Some of the students that I taught last year have discovered the anthologies I have put out and are enjoying finding their poems from last year. Students also get excited when they find a poem that an older sibling wrote in past years.