Launching into Poetry with “Love That Dog”

by Beth Rogers Notes from the Classroom

As a 5th grade teacher, I would always have students moan, eyeroll, and state either dramatically or smugly, “I’ve read that book,” when I would pull out Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech.

“Yes, I’m sure you have,” I would reply sweetly. “But never the way you are going to read it with me.”

An Adventure in Reading and Writing

I always tried to carve out two weeks in the spring for this text, and use it as a reading and writing experience.

As readers, we were able to infer quite a bit about our main character, Jack, and his teacher, Miss Stretchberry. We could easily select character traits and defend them with evidence from the text. We were able to think deeply about Jack and the changes we saw in him as a learner and a person.

We also got to experience poetry in multiple ways: from our own experience and Jack’s experience, and using poems as mentor texts for writing. I will tell you this: No matter if they had read the story before, or even heard it before, my students always ended up loving this experience.

How It Works: Reading

If you are not familiar with this story, it is a must read. But please, please read it this way:

When Jack first mentions a poem within the text, stop immediately and read the poem. (As a teacher, I would project the poem at the beginning of our Language Arts time, read it aloud, and then immediately go into the text to hear what Jack had to say about it.) Then process as readers what is happening in the story and the poem. I had post-its throughout my text about the poems, as well as the stopping points where I wanted students to reflect.

Surprise–Writing!

After each day that we read a new poem, my students would be tasked with using the poem as a mentor text. We would spend some time talking about the structure and meaning, and because I taught students with a wide range of abilities, I would always have scaffolds in place to make these structures were accessible for all students.

The kids loved this. We would write multiple versions using the same mentor text and they were excited to publish and share their writing. Many would ask to publish theirs on their blog pages or to hang theirs in the hallways. This excitement was contagious and carried throughout the month.

A Springboard

This text was a great springboard into exploring a variety of poetry styles. I also used A Kick In The Head, An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms  and A Poke in the I, A Collection of Concrete Poems to further our study and writing. There is a little something for everyone in these books so it is easy to bump things up for students who need a challenge.

Spring is a great time to explore Haiku as well. Take a walk, notice some things in nature, and write! The structure is a good way to talk about word choice as well. (It doesn’t hurt to review syllables either!) There are many examples of haiku out there. I stuck to making them about nature but you can do what works for your students!

There are so many resources out there to explore poetry with your students in April. Check out 30 ways to celebrate, the Poetry Foundation, Scholastic Poetry Resources, and listen to ordinary Americans reading poetry at the Favorite Poem Project. (Be sure to preview first.)

I hope that you will dive in and explore this month–there is so much to discover. You’ll be amazed what you find.

beth Beth Rogers (@bethann1468) has taught in the elementary setting for the past 11 years. During this time, she earned her Master’s in Educational Technology from Michigan State University. This year, she is in a new position: Instructional Technologist K-12. This gives her the unique opportunity to work with teachers and students, district wide, to incorporate technology into their teaching and learning, in ways that engage, enhance, and extend the learning. She has already already begun to work with multiple classrooms to engage students in blogging, and to help teachers understand the power of this platform. At home, she lives with her husband, sons, and an anxiety-ridden German Shepherd who requires inordinate amounts of time and attention.

Books to Bust Your Reading Slump

by Bethany Bratney Book Reviews Notes from the Classroom


Surprising librarian fact: many people assume that I love every book that I try to read. I wish that were the case. In fact, somewhat regularly, I find myself in the midst of a reading slump, reading several books in a row with which I just don’t connect.

Reading slumps can be deadly. They kill your desire to read, making you feel that any other pursuit might be more fun or productive.

But with time and practice, I have found a few techniques that can help me to break out of a reading slump. I find they also work pretty well on reluctant readers, who themselves may be in the middle of an epic, life-long reading slump that they now consider the status quo. Here are some slump-busters to try with your students (or yourself):

1. Try a book in a new format, preferably one that reads quickly.

Verse novels are becoming more common and have been quite popular with my students. The sheer amount of white space on any given page, combined with text that addresses topics in a more direct way, makes verse novels fast paced. This appeals to all kinds of readers.

One excellent verse novel that has been very popular with students across reading levels is The Crossover, by Kwame Alexander. It’s a coming-of-age verse novel that involves sibling rivalry, parental relationships, school drama, and grief. The main character, Josh and his twin, Jacob, are talented basketball players, so there are some excellent basketball scenes that could be read out of context. It’s also quick, engaging, and touching. I don’t think I’ve ever had a student dislike it.

 2. Go back to a topic or genre that you’ve been neglecting.

I found myself caught in a mini-slump last year, during a period of heavy realistic fiction and professional reading. I didn’t necessarily dislike these, but I needed to refresh myself with something I hadn’t tried in a while.

Enter Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire. This fantasy novella is filled with tremendous characters, fascinating backstory, and heaps of whimsy. I had been so caught up in big, heavy doses of reality that this little fantasy novel was a breath of fresh air.

Don’t get me wrong here: trying something totally new that you’ve never tried before is not a good strategy for sloughing off a slump. But returning to something that I had been missing was just what I needed to get back on my reading game.

3. Choose something funny.

It’s only been a few years since I realized that sometimes my slumps are not really about reading at all.

There have been many times in my life when the book that I was reading hit a little too close to home. I enjoy books about social movements, but sometimes the issues in my books pile on to the issues in real life, and that brings me down. I find that I’m not eager to get back to my book because it’s upsetting me or making me anxious.

This is the moment for a funny book. The playful tone in The Upside of Unrequited, by Becky Albertalli, really gave me a boost. The characters are all people I wish I knew in real life, and I found myself rooting for them. There is a sense of hopefulness imbued in the story, and the main character, Molly, has a charming, slightly self-deprecating voice that made me snort-laugh on at least one occasion. A funny book may not solve the world’s problems, but this one reinvigorated my spirit and fed my inner reader a hearty portion of comfort food.

4. Pick something that everyone else has LOVED

There is a risk of ending up with something that disappoints because it’s been over-hyped. Yet it can be very satisfying to pick up a book that everyone’s been talking about, and then to become part of the conversation.

Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere has been weaving its way through my high school (and the country) since the fall. It’s an adult novel, but the inclusion of five teenage main characters grappling with familial and community expectations has made it of great interest to my students.

In the end, even the most avid reader is bound to hit a slump occasionally. I’d love to know about readers’ favorite books that have helped them break out of a reading rut!

pic of meBethany Bratney (@nhslibrarylady) is a National Board Certified School Librarian at Novi High School and was the recipient of the 2015 Michigan School Librarian of the Year Award.  She reviews YA materials for School Library Connection magazine and for the LIBRES review group.  She is an active member of the Oakland Schools Library Media Leadership Consortium as well as the Michigan Association of Media in Education.  She received her BA in English from Michigan State University and her Masters of Library & Information Science from Wayne State University.  Bethany is strangely fond of zombies in almost all forms of media, a fact which tends to surprise the people that know her.  She has two children below age five, and is grateful at the end of any day that involves the use of fewer than four baby wipes.

Lit Circles Unleashed

by Mike Ziegler Notes from the Classroom


Ironically, I often find that by the time Reading Month rolls around in my classroom, the kids who most need to engage more deeply (and more often) with good books are the ones starting to burn out. I’ve got a pretty good independent reading game going on in my classroom–tons of graphic novels, crazy variety (thanks to room sharing with fellow blogger Hattie Maguire), a wonderful librarian (also a blogger!) who book talks whenever we’re looking for some new titles, and lots and lots of encouragement.

Yet I can always sense the slow death of reading growth in some of my students this time of year. Their resolve and eagerness are withering and turning to dust just as the first buds are pushing up through the thawing earth.

It’s a bummer.

Lit Circles without Required Texts

This burnout is why I gave up a whole-class text this unit, and replaced it with some unusual lit circles. Last year, we blew things wide open and made the lit circles for the unit completely free choice, as long as everyone in the group got hold of the same book. It worked nicely, but it felt like a disconnected activity while we were otherwise neck-deep in a very challenging narrative-journalism unit.

So this year I decided to point the kids at the genre we were focused on, but completely abandon the notion of common titles. Even within a lit circle.

In the past, John Krakauer’s excellent Into the Wild was our central mentor text for the unit. While it certainly spoke to some of our students, it definitely left others out in the cold (with apologies to Chris McCandless).

So this time, aside from the requirement to stick to the genre, the options were wide open: Other Krakauer titles (he’s truly an excellent writer), Freakanomics, Picking Cotton, explorations of unsolved crimes. The list went on and on.

And yes, in many of my groups there were students reading several different titles while still conversing together.

Freedom Opens Up Rich Discussions

Was this crazy?

Maybe. But . . . it kinda worked. The conversations between students reading the same title were definitely more detail-oriented. But with a bit of guidance, it turns out my kids were fairly good at (and interested in) having more meta-level conversations about the genre itself.

What is there in common between a book about a false imprisonment, and another about pop culture? Not much content-wise, but tons when it comes to narrative-journalism structure.

The kids spent their lit circle time talking about structural elements of the text: the way one book interposed a lot of primary sources in exploring its subject matter, while another seemed almost entirely subjective in its take on the subject matter (Ben Mezrich of Bringing Down the House fame is known for that almost-novelistic style).

Some of the conversations were clumsier: Did your author use levity? Mine didn’t. And: Did you find a lot of anecdotes? Because that’s all my author seems to use. And so on.

But the conversations could be rich. They compared whether setting mattered to their book. They compared how much bias there was in the authors’ characterizations of real humans. Sometimes they just compared favorite parts or frustrations. It was lovely.

Students Were Reading

They were all reading–at their own paces, but all of them arriving to their meetings having advanced through their chosen book and ready to share.

There’s definitely no perfect solution to the problem of reader burnout this time of year. Part of it is about school burnout more than any animosity toward reading itself.

When the unit and time allow, though, you can certainly inspire your page turners to stick it out for a few more chapters, using the power of student choice.

Michael ZieglerMichael Ziegler (@ZigThinks) is a Content Area Leader and teacher at Novi High School.  This is his 15th year in the classroom. He teaches 11th Grade English and IB Theory of Knowledge. He also coaches JV Girls Soccer and has spent time as a Creative Writing Club sponsor, Poetry Slam team coach, AdvancEd Chair, and Boys JV Soccer Coach. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, majoring in English, and earned his Masters in Administration from Michigan State University.