The Miss Rumphius Effect: Poetry Makers - Lisa Westberg Peters

Favorite quote on writing/poetry?
Lisa: Guindon, the cartoonist, said: Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.

via The Miss Rumphius Effect: Poetry Makers - Lisa Westberg Peters.

This is a great quote on writing shared by Lisa Westberg Peters in her interview on The Miss Rumphius Effect. What a nice way to help students think about their purpose in writing and how we can use writing to clarify our thinking.

Lisa Westberg Peters also shares some of her poems from

Earthshake: Poems From the Ground Up

and I sure wish I knew about them back when I was teaching my earth science unit in 3rd grade! Great poetry to connect with science!

The First Thanksgiving (Hello Reader Level 3) by Garnet Jackson

Guests by Michael Dorris

Michael Dorris relates the story of Moss, a young Native American boy who is searching for his self identity while his family is struggling to forge a relationship with the Europeans who have recently come to their land. The language in this short chapter book is poetic and beautiful. While a third grader could read it, the subject matter would be a bit over his or her head - much more fitting for 4th-8th graders.
I've got sticky notes bulging from all over this book:

• Chapter 1 - Great for teaching questioning and predicting as Dorris slowly unfolds the details about Moss and his family.
• Many opportunities to read this book from a writer's perspective as Dorris uses language to describe feelings, situations, and relationships:
  • p. 25 "My thoughts seemed to bounce into each other, to play tag with me when I tried to grab them."
  • p. 38 "A thought arose from somewhere in the center of my body and spread like the circles that grown in water from the splash of a rock: this was not a game I could stop whenever I wanted to."
  • p. 60 "From somewhere deep inside me, a laugh got started and fought its way up through my nose."
• p. 77 - Second paragraph is a great example of sensory imaging, could also be a nice way to introduce a visualizing mini-lesson.

Scholastic has a nice Discussion Guide filled with questions of every type and level, as well as a Vocabulary Builder.

Encounter by Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen takes you back in time to the arrival of Christopher Columbus, but tells the story from the perspective of a Taino boy as he encounters Europeans for the first time. The rich language and beautiful illustrations (by David Shannon) make this a book to read again and again.
There are many opportunities for teaching reading strategies in this book:

• Questioning: The dream-like beginning provokes the reader to question what is happening, who the narrator is, and why his dreams are so haunting.
• Predicting: Throughout the book, as the narrator continues to worry about the European's motives, readers can predict whether his tribal leaders will heed his warnings.
• Inference: The narrator describes the Europeans as he understands them, which provides many opportunities for the reader to infer meaning.