Georgia Heard and Poetry

I have been lucky enough for the past 3 days to attend the Marre Reading Conference!  One of the keynote speakers was Georgia Heard and she was fabulous!

During her keynote address, Georgia Heard shared poetry and how poetry met common core standards.  We all know we should be reading, sharing and writing poetry, but sometimes we need a little reminder...a little nudge forward...and some practical ways to put it into practice.

Poetry is a natural way to be playful with language for children.  They love repeating little poems they have heard and playing with the rhythm and rhyme.  Georgia Heard reminds us of some of the ways poems are valuable.

Why Poems?

• rhythm and sound
• power of images
• appropriate uses of figures of speech
• playful attention to language
• hidden meaning
• metaphor
• simile
• personification
• alliteration

How many in that list did you count that are in the common core?  Use poetry!  You can address speaking and listening and fluency standards by making voice recordings of students reading their poems or video taping them.

She suggests that we begin with simpler, accessible poems first then build up to the exemplar poems as used in the common core.  Georgia also asks that we cover more poets that Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky!

Here are some suggestions from her for using poetry through out the day, every day:

during morning meetings
before math (poems that have some sort of math in them) or other subjects that you find poems to fit 
transitional times

I loved her idea of using poems for transitions!  I know teachers use them this way, but I guess I needed reminding.  :)  Students get to choose which poem to  memorize (student choice is important).  As the class recites the poem, they are putting things away and getting ready for the next thing.  They know that they must be done and ready by the time everyone finishes reciting.  I will leave you with a poem she gave as an example that students love for this!  In the coming weeks, I will share more of Georgia Heard's ideas and suggestions.   Be on the look out for them as she gave us some really good stuff!