A Potpourri of Poetry Resources curated by Carol Frow and Amy Bouch

Happy National Poetry Month! As we all know, we should be incorporating poetry into our students’ lives throughout the year, but April always has that special spotlight on poetry! Several opportunities focused on poetry are included below. We would love to hear if you have used any of these resources or any additional resources or ideas that you may have to share!

Opportunities to hear poets discuss their work:

• National Writing Project (NWP) Radio: The Story of a Poem (YouTube Playlist)

• Poets from the NWP Writers Council are interviewed about their poems, their composing processes, and writers’ craft.

• National Writing Project (NWP) Radio: The Write Time (YouTube Playlist)

• Author Ann E. Burg and Educator Amy Bouch

• Ann E. Burg has four verse novels for middle grades. Her newest book, Flooded: Requiem for Johnstown, is featured in this video. Bonus: WPCTE Vice President Amy Bouch conducts the interview!

• Author Kwame Alexander and Educator Tyler Jones

• Kwame Alexander is the author of several verse novels including the Newbery winner The Crossover. Kwame Alexander discusses his most recent book, Becoming Muhammad Ali, in this interview.

• Author Laurie Halse Anderson and Educator Rebecca Marsick

• Laurie Halse Anderson has several award-winning books. In this interview, she does briefly discuss Shout, her memoir in verse.

• Library of Congress: Poetry Spotlight: Victoria Chang and Brenda Shaughnessy

• “Poets Victoria Chang (“Obit”) and Brenda Shaughnessy (“The Octopus Museum”) discuss their poetry collections, which address issues of loss, fear and the future of the planet.”

• Poets.org Poetry Breaks

• “Poetry Breaks features short videos of internationally renowned poets reading their work, reading the work of other poets, and discussing their takes on poetry in a variety of locations.”

Opportunities for students to interact with poets and experience poetry:

• Dear Poet 2021

• Students can listen to poets reading their poems and then write them a letter!

• Poetry 180 - Students can listen to a poem each day of the school year.  There’s no analysis or interpretation.  Students can just hear poetry for pure enjoyment.

Opportunities for teachers to write poetry:

• Ethical ELA #VerseLove 

• This opportunity focuses on teachers as writers! A prompt is provided each day during the month of April. Teachers can post poems and respond to other writers.

Opportunities for teachers to find poetry lessons/resources:

• NCTE Verse

• NCTE members who sign up will receive a daily email that: Focuses on a different poet each day as identified by NCTE members; Provides resources related to that poet; Responds to the prompt, “This poet belongs in our classrooms because…”

• Teaching Poetry: Audio Recordings of Poetry and Literature from the Library of Congress - Wednesday, April 21, 4 p.m. ET

• Library of Congress experts will share two core resources for educators wishing to use audio recordings in their work with students: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature and Poetry of America

• PBS Learning Media 

• ReadWriteThink

• Poetry Foundation

• Poets.org

• Poetry Out Loud

• Common Lit

• Actively Learn

Opportunities for students to share their writing in poetry contests:

• Creative Communication

• Three opportunities each year - fall, spring, and summer

• Divisions: K-3, 4-6, and 7-9

• Lesson plans for teachers

• Book published with selected writers

• No entry fee

• Ligonier Valley Writers

• One contest in February/March

• Divisions: 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12

• Three categories per division

• Awards ceremony with winners published in a booklet

• No entry fee

• Scholastic Art and Writing Competition 

• One contest from September-December

• Division: 7-12

• Many categories but only one in poetry

• Awards ceremony and certificate

• Regional Gold Key winners move to national competition

• Entry fee but waiver available

• American Library of Poetry 

• One contest always due April 30

• Divisions: 3-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-12

• Book published with selected writers

• No entry fee

• Carl Sandburg Student Poetry Contest

• One contest due by February

• Students write in any poetry style to the theme; theme changes each year

• Divisions: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

• Winners share their work at a celebration

• No entry fee

• Appelley Student Poetry Contest

• One contest in November

• Divisions: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

• Winning poems featured on the website and may be in a published anthology

• No entry fee

• Anthology of Poetry  

• One contest in October/early November

• Accepting poetry from K-12

• Book published with selected writers

• No entry fee

• Waldman International Arts and Writing Competition

• One contest due early January

• Divisions: 6-8, 9-12

• Poetry is one way to respond to this Holocaust themed contest

• Awards ceremony

• No entry fee

Opportunities for viewing lists of verse novels:

• 30+ MG/YA Verse Novels for National Poetry Month: Engaging Reluctant Readers, Enriching Enthusiastic Readers, and Appreciating Story, Form, & Language by Lesley Roessing

• Scholastic - 15 Novels Told in Verse

• School Library Journal - Diverse Novels in Verse for National Poetry Month by Terry Hong

• Libro.fm - Novels in Verse for Tweens and Teens

• New York Public Library - Powerful Words: Novels in Verse For Teens

If you know of any additional poetry resources or lessons ideas, share them in the comments! 

"A Potpourri of Poetry Resources" was curated by WPCTE President Carol Frow and WPCTE Vice President Amy Bouch.

How Special Education Certification is Making Me a Better Teacher for All Students by Hannah Lewis

When my teaching career began, I remember the number of jobs available for highly-qualified special education teachers. I even interviewed for a job teaching middle school English at a small local school district, only to be turned down because the other candidate had both an English and a special education certification. At the time, I was resentful--I felt that I would be a good teacher for all of my students, no matter if they were receiving special education services, were gifted or talented, or were doubly-exceptional. I felt that many contemporary special education practices, including positive behavior support plans, were reminiscent of behaviorists like B. F. Skinner, dehumanized students, and did not fit nicely into my humanist pedagogy and worldview. 

Now, I’ve been teaching English for 7 years (almost entirely online). Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with pretty high numbers of students with IEPs, with disabilities ranging from relatively mild to quite severe. I’ve worked with colleagues in special education to provide individualized instruction for all of these students. This year, I decided I wanted to learn more about what special education was all about, really. I enrolled in Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s M. Ed. in Special Education with certification. While I still retain some of my misgivings about the ways in which we understand and use data, particularly in connection with students with disabilities, I’m developing a deeper understanding of the intentions behind these initiatives and I’m learning more about how all human beings think, behave, and learn. 

As an undergraduate, I majored in English and Philosophy--I didn’t decide to pursue a career in K-12 education until after I’d graduated with my B.A., and my certification program hit the highlights of educational psychology and learning theory, but I didn’t really get into the nitty-gritty of the neuroscience of learning. Don’t get me wrong, my program now is an education program, too--I’m not getting a degree in neurology or psychology by any means. However, I’m learning about the ways that our brains work. 

How does this impact my instruction? And what does it teach me about my students who don’t have disabilities, or whose disabilities aren’t related to learning? 

It turns out, a lot of my expectations for students were sometimes based on faulty, naïve thinking. For example, I often expected students to be able to manage their emotions, organize their day, and study effectively as long as they were motivated and disciplined. It turns out--and probably many of you who have worked in brick-and-mortar classrooms and interacted with students on a more frequent basis, or who have children in your families--this is an absurd belief. Students need to be taught how to study, how to prioritize tasks, how to interact appropriately with one another, and how to appropriately engage in many other behaviors that we general education teachers often just expect them to do on their own. Like academic skills like reading and writing, some students learn these skills fairly easily through imitation, or they can stumble onto their own systems with enough practice (“teach themselves”). However, none of them naturally and intuitively pick these skills up, and some may need much more practice with them than we might assume. 

I don’t know why I was surprised--my own experiences should have made this obvious fact clear to me. I have always been fairly good at the kinds of things we value in schools. In particular, processing and producing language have always come fairly easily to me (not because I’m particularly gifted, but because I read voraciously as a child and internalized language that way, a testament to the genuine benefits of reading for young people).

However, other tasks, such as learning to drive, embarrassingly, did not come naturally at all. I remember my shame at trying to accelerate in anything resembling an appropriate way--but how could I accelerate while steering and watching my mirrors all at the same time? This kind of multitasking is what active reading and studying require and, just as it was only through repetitive, ongoing direct instruction that I mastered driving, the same kind of instruction is necessary for some of our students, particularly those who struggle with academic skills and for whom effective studying is all the more necessary. 

I’ll tell just a couple more embarrassing anecdotes to illustrate the absurdity of my belief that students were “unmotivated” if they didn’t take notes on difficult selections or effectively plan their work for projects. As I mentioned, I was a great student throughout high school without really needing to put forth much effort. (Indeed, it was I who wasn’t highly motivated to try hard, if anyone!) When I reached college, I distinctly remember my anger, frustration, and irritation when things began to change. I remember my honors freshman composition class, where I continued in my K-12 habits and procrastinated on every assignment. My writing process, I believed, didn’t require planning or revision; surely, I could produce high quality work on the first try.  When I submitted my first paper for that class and got it back with a C+/B- on it, spattered with comments, my very identity was challenged! How could I, someone who hoped to become a writer, have produced less than perfection--and so much less, it seemed?

 And in my physiology class, I encountered complex texts like I hadn’t seen before, even in my higher-level high school science classes. I tried making “outlines” of the chapters to study from, but my outlines were time-consuming to produce and were useless for studying. I would write down everything I didn’t immediately understand (which was almost everything), and the result would be an outline nearly the same length as the chapter. I scraped by in that class with a B- (thanks to a generous grading curve), but I remember very little. 

Fortunately, I survived my freshman year of college and now have numerous skills, from a robust writing process to more effective study habits, to show for it. However, these experiences, coupled with my developing understanding of the  (neurotypical and non-neurotypical) adolescent brain have taught me that, in fact, every student benefits when we explicitly teach things we expect them to already know or automatically pick up. How to study, how to engage in civil collaborative discussions, how to manage anxiety, how to monitor reading comprehension, and how to revise writing are a few of the concepts I actively incorporate into my instruction for all students. 

The results have been positive, and I find that my students engage more deeply with the selections we read. Those inquiry-driven humanist discussions I wanted to hear and those creative student-produced pieces I wanted to read haven’t gone anywhere. Student work is better and student confidence is higher. In fact, even parents tell me how thankful they are that their child now knows what to do when they read something they don’t understand. 

Ultimately, special education is just education. Each child is unique, and special education focuses on students on the margins of what we consider typical functioning; however, each student’s strengths and needs inform their behavior and academic functioning.

We all know this, I think--it just took years of teaching and an advanced degree to take me from knowing to understanding. Hopefully, these experiences will resonate with some of you, save you some time and some frustration, and allow you to learn from my missteps and save you from making some of them yourselves.