Latest Content
Step Into Poetry: Building a Poetry-Conscious Classroom

Joanne Emery has curated a fabulous list of resources and ideas to build a poetry-conscious classroom community.

Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month

Gretchen Schroeder incorporates poetry into her high school classroom as much as possible, and in April she makes a plan to go big! Gretchen shares a variety of ways to create memorable and fun experiences around poetry no matter your grade level.

Poetry Friday Stretches Into Poetry Slam

Mandy Robek shares an update to her Poetry Friday routine inspired by the professional book Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading by Chase Young, David Page, and Timothy V. Rasinski. You, too, will want to incorporate this poetry routine into your week.

Poetry Strategies for Partners and Groups

Gretchen Schroeder offers three ideas for partners or small groups to engage with poetry. Not only will they get creativity flowing, but they will also lift writers’ energy.

Three Ways to Engage Your Students in Reading and Writing Poetry This Spring

Gretchen Schroeder offers three poetry-writing activities to take the pressure off the writing process by using another poet’s structure and/or words as a starting point. You’ll be amazed by how deep and personal the resulting poems can become. Download a PDF for students to collect lines for a cento poem.

Poetry Surprises

Mandy Robek delights in the surprises that emerge as her students read, write, and share poetry.

Making Time for Poetry

Gretchen Schroeder encourages teachers to make time for the things that are important. For her, it was poetry, and she outlines how she created a weekly poetry ritual in her high school classroom that enhanced the curriculum.

Poems to Start the Year

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share poems to start the year that touch a variety of needs, from building community to connecting with colleagues to hosting parents for back-to-school night.

Age Poems

Katherine Sokolowski immerses students in poetry with mentor texts about age and time to linger in thinking about their own ages. This combination invites poetry into classrooms and gives students space to embrace the genre by writing their own age poems.

The Reluctant Marathoner: Reflecting on Student Engagement

Gretchen Schroeder uses her reluctance as a marathon runner to reflect on how to encourage more engagement in reading and writing.

Many Uses for Mentor Texts to Teach Argument Writing

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share the many targeted ways in which they use mentor texts to teach argument writing and move students away from five-paragraph themes.

Nurturing Independent Reading Lives in Middle School

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share their favorite strategies for building a classroom community of readers where everyone has several options for choosing their next book.

Poetry Resources for Remote Learning

Poetry can be the glue that holds many virtual classroom communities together. It works for quick morning meeting openings, transitions, or even a bit of laughter when energy is flagging. Cathy Mere shares her favorite poetry resources for remote learning.

Poetry and Pastiche

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills introduce their middle school students to pastiche, a technique of mimicking the craft of favorite poems and poets.

The Curious Incident of Poem in the Stream of Time

Shirl McPhillips shares a haunting poem and reflection on creativity, summer’s inspiration, and aging.

Poetry Path

Gretchen Schroeder outlines a way to involve the entire school community in engaging in poetry.

Things That Can Fly Away—A Tribute to Mary Oliver

Shirl McPhillips honors the poet Mary Oliver upon her passing, reflecting on the power of favorite poems and poets to endure in the lives of writers.

Past Midnight

Shirl McPhillips shares a poem she’s written about her grandmother Eva, and the fragments of memory that inspired it.

The Power of Similes

If you want stronger poetry from students, a good starting point might be to explore how to write a powerful simile. Gretchen Schroeder explains how she helps her high school students play with and create better similes.

Poetry Connections

Poetry writing always has the potential to spark some magic in students. Christy Rush-Levine finds this magic requires a few conditions to be in place first in her middle school classroom.

The Third (or More) Time Is the Charm

Gretchen Schroeder finds helping her students see the value in rereading poems is all about helping them pay close attention to imagery.

Pick a Poem

David Pittman delights in a student’s enthusiasm for poetry, leading him to reflect on how teachers often need to overcome their own negative history with poems to spark student love of the genre.

A Poem About Lost Friendship: Conferring with Estelle

Estelle shares a poem she has written about lost friendship with her teacher, Katherine Sokolowski. She captures the fickle nature of fifth-grade relationships among girls. Katherine connects the cadence of the writing to the style of The Crossover, and helps Estelle find possibilities for more writing.

Message from the Moon

Shirl McPhillips crafts a message from the moon about tone in poetry and school in her latest poem and companion essay.

Spoken Word Poetry

Gretchen Schroeder uses online videos as resources to teach her high school students to appreciate spoken-word poetry and write their own.

Object Poetry Lesson in Second Grade

Linda Karamatic explores poetry with her second graders. She displays poems students have written and teaches them about fresh language using a poem about a pencil sharpener.

Dabbling: Reviving a Focus on Play

Mary Lee Hahn finds a focus on play and "dabbling" renews student writers during a unit on narrative nonfiction.

News from the Interior

Shirl McPhillips shares a new poem, as well as some practical tips on moving from random observations to vivid details to poetry.

Easing into Writing Poetry

Tara Smith describes how she eases her sixth-grade students into writing poetry through careful selection and analysis of mentor poems.

Beyond the Acrostic Poem

Megan Skogstad finds the right mentor texts can help her fourth graders move beyond acrostic poems.

Choice Literacy Membership


Articles

Get full access to all Choice Literacy article content

Videos

Get full access to all Choice Literacy video content

Courses

Access Choice Literacy course curriculum and training


Membership Options

Loading...