#EveryDayinMay NatGeo Book of Animal Poetry

Due to a series of fortunate events, I was able to place an order with Follett for a stash of new fiction books to share with the readers on my 5th grade campus next year. We have many old and uninteresting books right now in our fiction collection, so I was super hyped to grab some books that these students can get excited about!

Maybe 25% of what I ordered fell into the nonfiction category, with the majority of those being graphic novels. The purpose of this order was to really amp up the way kids feel about reading. I hope they love the books I chose as much as I think they will!


One of my nonfiction prizes is the National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs that Squeak, Soar, and Roar! Not only am I positive our readers will love this book -- it's filled from cover to cover with stunning animal photography -- I'm also excited that it will get poetry into the hands of more students!

Photo Credit

Each photograph is paired with a poem from a great contemporary or classic poet. This book is just win-win, on repeat! I am eager to share it with teachers and students, and then watch as it never touches it's home in the library.

Because I'm always searching for poems to share with students, and ways to help them feel safe to try their own poetry, I thought I'd grab a poem from this book and use it as a mentor text to write my own poem - similar to how I share poetry in class.

Choosing a poem from this beautiful collection was not easy, but I thoroughly enjoyed perusing the pages as I searched for my "just right" (just write??) poem. I considered Graham Denton's What's a Caterpillar? poem, because I love how a question and response poem might sound in the hands of a child trying it out for the first time. In the end, however, I settled on Buffalo Dusk by Carl Sandburg, which instantly made me long to be back in the wilderness and also made me think of those empty halls and homes once the Senior class moves on.

Buffalo Dusk The buffaloes are gone. And those who saw the buffaloes are gone. Those who saw the buffaloes by the thousands and how they      Pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs,      Their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant      Of dusk, Those who saw the buffaloes are gone. And the buffaloes are gone. -Carl Sandburg

Youth Stampede The graduates are gone. And those who love the graduates are weeping. Those who taught the graduates each day and how they      Danced a new dream into life with their hands and hearts,      Their wide eyes open dreaming big, bright, bold lives       Of brilliance, Those who love the graduates pause and smile. And the graduates are gone. -Kelly Mogk © 2014

So after a couple rereadings of Buffalo Dusk and about ten minutes to play with my own words, that is the result. Were I working with young writers, I'd think aloud through the process and brainstorm ideas, and eventually move further and further away from this patterned writing and closer to the heart of my own voice. But it's a good exercise to begin with when you aren't sure how to get kids writing, I think.

What do you think? Do you have favorite poems to use in the classroom? For more poetry, be sure to hop on over to Random Noodling, where this week's #PoetryFriday bloghop is being hosted!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? (And a challenge!)

It's Monday! Huzzah! It's Monday and I'm sitting at home on my big comfy couch, surrounded by books.

You just gotta love a three day weekend, right?

I've been reading oodles of books lately, partially in hopes of finding the just right way to reach my new students in my new school where I feel a little like Alice and a little like Goldilocks, and a lot like Mr. Magoo.

So between the bumps and bruises of adjusting to my new school home, I read.

Recently, I've read quite a few fabulous middle grade novels, with a stack of promising reads to keep me busy for at least another month. Here's a sample of what I've read so far:

Somehow, between having students with really good taste, and some excellent timing, I've managed to read (or reread) a few delightful books by Sharon Creech throughout the month of September. Love That Dog will always remain a favorite for me -- combining poetry with dog love and a boy learning to love words? Yeah -- you got me. I hadn't planned to read it to my classes so early in the year, but they prodded me and it ended up being a perfect beginning for us. Afterwards, a student handed me Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, which I hadn't read before. I love how Creech weaves together past and present in this short but touching tale of friendship. I'll definitely be passing it along to more students!

Love That Dog * Granny Torrelli * The Great Unexpected

And finally, I picked up a copy of the recently published The Great Unexpected. Interestingly, I heard a little bit of Rosie's voice from Granny Torrelli piping through in Naomi's best friend, Lizzie. I'm curious if anyone else heard that, as well! In The Great Unexpected, Creech tosses together folk tales with a little magic realism and a lot of love to create a story that any Creech follower is sure to appreciate. I know exactly which student I'll be handing this book to first thing tomorrow morning!

Almost Home

I also just finished Joan Bauer's Almost Home, which is as heartbreaking as it is endearing. I quickly fell in love with Sugar Mae Cole, the 12-year-old main character, and her tag along puppy, Shush. Exploring themes that perfectly spark #chooseKind conversations, Bauer also employs a variety of text genres. Readers will quickly understand how important words are in Sugar's world, while seeing models of letter writing, poetry, memoirs, and more. Within minutes of book talking this new title to my students, I had kids scrambling to be the first to read it. And now it's being passed from hand to hand. Almost Home is a beautiful story that any child with family struggles can relate to, and learn from.

Starry River of the Sky

Currently, I'm splitting my time between Grace Lin's Starry River of the Sky (I'm just on page 43) and an unwieldy stack of profession development books. My husband also keeps nudging Patrick Rothfuss' Wise Man's Fear at me, and on a good day, I read maybe a page of it at a time. I loved the first book in this trilogy, The Name of the Wind, but making time for this type of epic fantasy is hard for me these days! And even with as much as I am reading these days, my to-read stack just keeps growing... I need a vacation to catch up on my reading! Does this sound familiar?



The thing I love about reading this much is how it seems to effect my students. Each Monday we sit together and set a reading goal -- they hold me to mine, and I hold them to their goals, too. And when the following Monday arrives, if anyone hasn't met their goal they are expected to know why and have a solution. If they don't have a solution, our class community of readers offers suggestions. It's powerful to watch them transform each week from this simple conversation. So for as long as my nightly reading seems to inspire them to keep chugging along, I will keep reading. I don't know how many reader role models they have in their lives, but at least they can't count on me as one.

So What Do They Really Know?

While I have all these books spinning wildly about, I feel like I need to do something to ground myself in what I'm learning through my PD books. From October 14 through November 11, I'll be reading Cris Tovani's So What Do They Really Know? and posting each week to reflect on my reading. I'd like to invite you to join me. Comment if you're interested -- I'll post details tomorrow! (Be thinking weekly posts, twitter chat opportunities, and maybe even a google hangout to chat n' learn!) What say you, readers? Do you have time to spend a minute filling out this form so we can read and share together?

I don't believe in...

Tuesday's quickwrite exercise over at Teacher's Write! Workshop had us looking at poetry! If you know me even the tiniest bit, you can imagine the inner carthweels of happiness I was doing. There are several amazing poems in the comments from Tuesday -- even if you aren't doing Kate Messner's workshop this month, they are definitely worth checking out.

The more I write, and possibly because my current WIP is so near to my heart, the more I realize that all the little (and not so little) hurts that I've "healed" from over the years aren't as gone as I believed. Writing through the hard parts is a little like letting the poison slowly be sucked from the marrow of these wounds. Perhaps finally taking on the challenge of writing this old-new story will mean some real healing can take place. It's an interesting revelation how intertwined the two are.

After reading Sara Lewis Holmes' unbelievably fun and witty poem, Credo, several of us tried out our own.

Here's my quickwrite response to an "I don't believe..." poem:

I don’t believe that kids should grow up,

unless I’m being honest,

and then I know they must, and they should,

and my heart beats a little faster and my

breath sort of stops in my throat

when I see these little grown ups

walk out the door and into their future.

I don’t believe in negative thoughts,

in fact, I don’t believe in them so much

that I watch them wink out of existence,

one. by. one.

But sometimes, in the darkest dark of night,

I worry those vanishing thoughts

are still alive somewhere,

and just might come back to haunt me.

I don’t believe in just one right way,

one black or white answer, a perfect solution

to save the day.

There are too many colors to paint, too many

notes to be sung, too many wondrous words

to settle on just one.

And I don’t believe in sitting still;

I’m a river, not a pond.

And life, well –

life is too twisty-turny,

filled with grown-up little kids, and

secret thoughts that wake your heart from sleeping,

and then,

there are all those words waiting to be written.

Sitting still just won’t do.

Slice of Life Tuesday: Summer Words & Story Blurbs

Summer feels delayed this year. Maybe it's because while other teachers were tidying up their files and locking their doors for the last time of the 2011-2012 school year, I was packing my room into boxes and moving all my many teacherly items to a new room.

Or perhaps it's because my oldest son graduated from high school this year, and we spend the week following the last day of school in a whirlwind of ceremonies and celebrations, which included a triple-helping of family gatherings. 

We rock out, even when graduating.

All of these things have me tilted slightly off-balance. It's not my normal June. There was no neat and tidy exit from school, no final day dance-off in the kitchen at home with the kids, no 48-hour sleep-a-thon signaling the beginning of a cozy month (or two) to write lazily through my days.

Instead, the boys and I have slowly crept into summer. I feel as if I have my hands out before me in the dark, worried I'll slam into something that sends me hurtling back towards no-summer-land. It's weird. So hopefully you'll pardon me for being even more addle-brained than normal.

I'm ever-thankful for Kate Messner's (free!) Teachers Write! workshop, which is helping me ease into summer. Each day there is a different writing activity to explore, and there's even a FaceBook group of over 700 members sharing writing and mumble-grumbling when the writing doesn't come so easily. And did I mention it's free?

I'm still a little behind, working on an outline for my new-old work-in-progress, but I love reading the amazing words all the other teacher-librarian-writers are sharing. It takes a whole lot of courage to put your writing out there for others to see, but the growth from this scary little act is unreal. It's hard to explain, really -- but when you think that this is what we ask our students to do on a daily basis -- share! grow! learn! take risks! -- it seems only common sense that we step out of the shadows and do the same.

So, in the spirit of sharing, here's a bit of what the Teachers Write! workshop has me working on this week. I'm mostly just throwing words on paper, trying to scratch out the details of a story that has to be told. I've written and rewritten many versions of this story through the years, collecting bits and pieces and putting them together in the only way I know how. In the past two years, it became clear to me that this is THE story. The one I have to tell, because it's been trying to get out for so long.

Anyhow -- enough blabbing. Here's a rough snippet of the setting I played with last night:

Gulf Breeze Elementary was more sand than school. It seeped into our halls, permeated the carpet, and mingled with our textbooks. The playground was a white, sandy expanse of land filled with all the normal recess necessities: swing set, parallel bars, jungle gym, kickball field and a whole lot of forest lining the farthest edges of our dusty recess paradise. For a loner like me, it was easy to get lost just beyond the thick evergreen branches at the edge of our playground. It was easy to create a world that belonged only to me. A world that was safe. From my haven in the trees, I dug in red clay until my hands were stained ochre right up to my knobby little wrists. I etched out pictures and traced words in the sand with sharp, broken twigs. Games of tag danced by, just feet from my hidden sanctuary in the shade. I listened as their words giggled past me, only to be lost in the trees, “Missed me, missed me, now ya gotta kiss me!” And I watched from afar as girls with golden hair and skin hooked one leg around a high chin-up bar and sailed round and round, spinning like pinwheels, their long hair making colorful streamers in their wake.

It's difficult sometimes to remember that I'm not seeking perfection when working on a story. I'm seeking words -- feelings, glimpses of character, the story revealing itself word by word. Throw all those words out there into the open, mix them around, and let perfection come from the creative imperfection of the process.

In Which I'm Proven Wrong, Yet Again

Remember how I promised my kids I would actively seek out publication for some of my writing? (And then threw a big hissy fit, positive it was going to kill me?)

And then got this crazy idea to write a completely new picture book manuscript, and take it through all the steps that lead to having an actual-factual book sitting in the stores? (Also: resulting in hissy fit.)

Yeah. I'm still pondering what on earth I was thinking, but it appears -- and I know this will shock you -- it's not quite as bad as I had imagined it to be...

I've followed the Face Book group Writers Support 4U! for a while now. Mostly I just lurk the posts, feeling sorry for myself -- look at all these writers writing! look at all these writers publishing their work! look at all these writers interacting!


Seriously, yo. I'm not really sure why I even joined if I just wanted to creep up on them Peeping Tom style, and not actually participate.

But last week I finally did more than hit the "like" button on a random post.

I asked about critique groups.

The response was quick and painless, and as a result I'm the newest member of a weekly Skyping writer's group and an online critique site.

The picture book has been critiqued twice on the site so far, with some really great feedback! I've got some ideas on a few changes to perk it up a bit, and both critics left me feeling hopeful about sending it out to publishers.

I also read the manuscript to my class, proving to them that I am, indeed, sticking to my word -- they had the same reaction as my own Littles, which was another plus. Laughed in all the right places, and because we so often critique each other's work, they also let me know what was strong and what needed help! What amazing little writers they are becoming!

This weekend I'll participate in my very first Skype critique group. I expect w(h)ine to be involved. (You didn't think I would give up complaining that easily, did you?)

It's good to be moving forward. New possibilities keep springing to mind. And I'm sort of falling in love with that.

What's Possible in Possibility?

Possibility. That's my one little word for 2012.

It's interesting to me how one word can wrap itself around you and take on a life of its own.

Impossible spells "I'm possible." (We love you, Audrey.)

Dwell in possibility.  (Thank you, Emily.)

LIVE with possibility.

One month ago I felt overwhelmed -- eaten up by -- possibility. The choices and chances in the coming months swirled around me, leaving me feeling lost in the fog -- of possibility.

Now I see it differently. I see the bliss and the blessing in all this possibility. I see adventure and opportunity. I see a life lived out loud. A life worth living.

I decided I needed to track down the root of this word that has become the framework of my year.

Possibility led me to possible, which led me further down the path to the Latin word posse, which means "be able." Following this still further I found that posse and potent both mean "power."

There is also the Latin verb possum (no, not opossum!), meaning "I am able," or "I can."

Follow the etymology around long enough and you'll find your way through the Latin potis (which leads to pote, meaning vessel -- how beautiful is that?) to the Sanskrit word  पति, or páti, which means "lord, master, rule, sovereign."

And what more is possibility, than to dwell in the brilliant truth that each day I get to choose what path to take. To dwell in "I can." To toss out the lists and the schedules and the must-have's and never-do's, and just get on with the business of living.

The words found in possibility are beautifully empowering. I found myself thinking of the words from Invictus by William Ernest Henley; the last stanza in particular:

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul. 

With all these delicious words wandering through my mind, I was reminded of Bob Raczka'a book Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed From a Single Word. I looked up Andrew Russ, whose work Raczka was inspired by, and found even more words to ponder.

So I decided to give it a try with possibility. After much shifting around of letters and words, I realized it's much more difficult than I thought! But here it is, and here I am, dwelling in possibility: