Just in time for Poetry Month, we are proud to announce that we have officially relaunched our beloved Poetry Resource Guide! Check out our tips and strategies from renowned poet, educator, and literacy advocate Pat Mora about how to use poetry with students in various educational settings. Dive into creative ways to make poetry fun and engaging for young people, not just during Poetry Month but year-round! Read excerpts from the guide below, as well as some of our new and bestselling poetry titles based on universal themes!
Reading Poetry with Students
Make the reading of poetry part of your classroom routine and try reading a different Poem a day or the same poem every day for a week or two. Read your favorite poems or students’ favorite poems. Read poems about different subjects and celebrations. After hearing a variety of poems, students will begin to recognize what different kinds of poetry sound like and they will begin to understand what makes a poem a poem.
Helping Students Write Poetry
Tell students they can write poems about anything they want, and it is often easiest to begin by writing about something they feel strongly about or with which they are very familiar. Poems can be about a person, a place, an action, a feeling, a thing, an experience, or anything students care about. Their poems can tell about things exactly as they were or are, or they can write from their imaginations.
Poetry from Lee & Low Books
The full collection of Lee & Low poetry books can be found here. Contact [email protected] for a customized list of poetry for your classroom or library.
Identity, Individuality, and Belonging
I Remember: Poems and Pictures of Heritage, compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins
A celebration of diversity and family: fourteen poets and sixteen illustrators of diverse backgrounds share memorable childhood experiences and reflect upon their different heritages, traditions, and beliefs.
Under My Hijab, written by Hena Khan, illustrated by Aaliya Jaleel
A collection of verses that invites readers to understand and appreciate the hijab and the Muslim women who decide to wear it.
Family, Culture, and Tradition
Bookjoy Wordjoy, written by Pat Mora, illustrated by Raul Colón
A collection of poems celebrating a love of words and all the ways we use and interact with them: reading, speaking, writing, and singing.
Every Month is a New Year, written by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Susan L. Roth
A collection of original poems about New Year celebrations throughout the year and around the world focusing on a diversity of cultural, regional, and religious traditions.
Biography
Martí’s Song for Freedom/Martí y sus versos por la libertad, written by Emma Otheguy, illustrated by Beatriz Vidal
Bilingual poems explore the life of José Martí, who dedicated his life to the promotion of liberty, abolishment of slavery, political independence for Cuba, and intellectual independence from colonialism for all Latinxs. Contains excerpts from Martí’s seminal work, Versos sencillos.
Rise! From Caged Bird to Poet of the People, Maya Angelou, written by Bethany Hegedus, illustrated by Tonya Engel
The life of Maya Angelou is explored in poems that describe how she rose above a childhood of trauma and emotional pain to become one of the most inspiring voices of the twentieth century.
STEM & Geography
A Full Moon Is Rising, written by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Julia Cairns
A collection of original poems about full moon events, phenomena, celebrations, and beliefs from around the world.
Water Rolls, Water Rises/El agua rueda, el agua sube, written by Pat Mora, illustrated by Meilo So
In a collection of bilingual poems, readers learn about the movement and moods of water around the world and the ways in which water affects varied landscapes and cultures.
