Exploring the Value of Children's Poetry: A Connection to Language and Imagination

1. P LEASE O PEN E VERYONE’S T TERRIFYINGLY R ESPONSIVE Y AWNS TO POETRY!!

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3. What is the significance of the hand? What does the image suggest to you? Why are the roots surrounded by the color red? Why did the illustrator choose yellow, black and red? What mood is captured by art on the cover? What emotions have you felt when you have surrendered something important?

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5. VALUE OF POETRY FOR CHILDREN Encourages children to play with words Serves as a connection to the Arts Raises your consciousness of glory and grief Relationship of language and imagination Helps us understand ourselves

6. What is poetry? Who knows? “True poetry, even in its smallest shape, should have form, meter, rhythm, bound into a whole with words that so match and express its subject they seem inevitable.” Rubert Godden 1988

7. Children and Poetry Children’s enthusiasm for poetry declines as they advance in the elementary grades. Children respond more favorably to contemporary poems than to traditional ones. Children prefer poems dealing with familiar and enjoyable experiences. Children enjoy poems that tell a story or have a strong element of humor. Children prefer poems that feature rhythm and rhyme. Among the least popular poems are those that rely on heavily complex imagery or subtly implied emotions

8. Elements of Poetry Rhythm – Kennedy and Kennedy Rhyme – Isabel Wilner Repetition – Lewis Carroll Imagery – John Ciardi Shape – Brad Burg Lyric – Woody Guthrie Narrative - Rumford Limericks – Jane Yolen Concrete – Blue Lipstick Haiku - Prelutsky

9. FREE VERSE