Customer Reviews

Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes: Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades (Stenhouse in Practice Books)

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In the four years that I have been teaching Kinder, First and 2nd graders I have shared many poems with my students; we've memorized some, used them to learn skills to help us to become better readers, and we've collected them. Yet despite our weekly poems, I have not felt comfortable enough with my own knowledge and understanding of poetry to do much writing of poems. Fortunately a new book by poet and educator, Judith Tannenbaum, published by Stenhouse, has given me the confidence and guidance to do poetry writing with my students. In Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes, Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades, Judith shares a gift, which is her talent and expertise from many years of writing poetry and working with children. The book focuses on how we as teachers, can tap into the imaginations, creativity and observations of our children. It is an easy to follow guide, the lessons building on one another, with ideas and examples for writing group as well as individual poems. I have tried several of the lessons and one of the most important things that I have realized is that every child shines as a poet. I believe that children are naturally poetic. I highly recommend Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes and I feel that it has come at an especially crucial time. As we are more and more enveloped in a high-stakes testing hysteria I think that writing poetry with our students is one important way to keep the humanity and spark in our classrooms, in our schools and in our society as a whole.