O sliver of liver,

Get lost! Go away!

You tremble and quiver

O sliver of liver

You set me a shiver

And spoil my day

O sliver of liver,

Get lost! Go away!

When I taught 2nd grade, my scholars and I played with poetry almost each day. The poem, ‘O Sliver of Liver,’ was learned in one fast session–and practiced often so all the kids would have it on the tips of their tongues next time liver was served at their place. (I had youngsters who asked their mother and father to serve liver–just so they could use the poem) Poetry is fun and useful! For too many of us, we had tiny experience with poetry as junior school children and then had negative experiences with poetry as junior high and high school scholars.

Sadly, as a consequence, now that we are teachers, we eschew poetry in favour of other kinds of literature. In this post, I will be able to offer info about poetry as well as concepts for the best method to teach youngsters about poetry while also letting them enjoy poetry. There’s a wealth of poetry for youngsters available today. Fundamentally, these volumes of poetry fall into 4 classes :

1. Single Collections – Which are books of poems penned by an individual poet; for instance: Valerie Worth’s all of the Little Poems and Jack Prelutsky’s Ride a Purple Pelican.
2. General Collections – Which are books, put together by an anthologist to focus on a range of subjects. As an example, to have a look at Any Thing edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins and The Place My Words are searching for selected by Paul B. Janeczko.
3. Categorical Collections – Which are assembled by an anthologist, targeting one theme, combining the works of many various poets? Myra Cohn Livingston’s are among the best of this sort, e.g., Why Am I Grown So Cold: Poems of the Unknowable.
4. Poetry Picture Books – Which feature one poem by an individual poet, illustrated thru by one artist? For instance, Casey at the Bat, illustrated by Patricia Polacco and Nancy Willard’s The Excursion of the Ludgate Hill: Travels with Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. Before launching into a unit on poetry, the four classes mentioned above might be shown on a circular board. Youngsters might be challenged to find as many books as feasible that fit into each class. The ensuing collection will then serve members of the class across the unit of study. Just as the books mentioned above are ‘older’ books, your scholars will find many older books, too.

Poetry doesn’t ‘age’ as fast as some other kinds of literature, so your college’s library is probably going to have poetry books that have this year’s copyright date as well as ones that date back to the 1960′s – and every one of them will have potential worth for reading and enjoying.