Birds of a Feather
By Sandy Meagher

Online Extra: Parent Book Recommendations April 2007

A unit on birds was made all the more exciting thanks to a visit to the Delaware Valley Raptor Center.

Poetry abounds in our classrooms and this pleases me. Our library is always on the lookout for resources for teachers to use and for poetry all children will enjoy.

Professional poetry
Recently there were three professional books that I recommended to many teachers. The first is Poetry Aloud Here! Sharing Poetry With Children in the Library by Sylvia M.Vardell (American Library Association, 2006, ISBN: 0-838-90916-7). This book is chock-full of practical ways to include poetry in the library and throughout the school. What I also found extremely helpful were lists of personal websites of children's poets as well as the activities that paired nonfiction and poetry, classic and contemporary poems, and fiction and poetry. This wonderful resource also featured an excellent bibliography of current poetry for children.

A book that especially speaks to teachers and librarians with students in grades four through eight is Using Poetry in the Classroom by Ross M. Gurkhardt (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN: 1-578-86339-2). It also includes effective strategies for teaching poetry with classroom-tested examples.

The third book on my professional list is Reading and Writing Poetic Forms by the Benchmark Education Company (www.benchmarkeducation.com). This is a basic instruction book that gives examples and explanations for the most common poetic forms, a clear explanation and top-notch activities. Our classroom teachers love to see what's new and incorporate it into their curriculum.

Finding the perfect book
An "A-ha!" moment, as I refer to exciting teaching moments, occurred recently. Beth Johnson, our outstanding fourth-grade teacher, Nicole Curtis, art teacher extraordinaire, Joe Theobold, expert technology teacher and I coordinated one of these moments that included poetry and so much more. It all started when Beth told me about her idea to study birds in her science curriculum. The four of us then got together and brainstormed.

The Delaware Valley Raptor Center is located not far from our school. Beth contacted the center and asked about the types of birds there and if students would be permitted to take photographs. The director, Jan Streeter, was so helpful and encouraged us to come visit. Our principal, Mrs. Rickard, agreed to finance a school day trip. To get this all introduced to the students I found the perfect book – Arrowhawk by Lola M. Schaefer (Henry Holt, 2004, ISBN: 0-805-06371-4). This powerful book is about a wounded hawk and the students were mesmerized when I read it to them before the project began. They then began to research the following birds: the Bald Eagle, Golden Eagle, Great Horned Owl, Barred Owl, Saw Whet Owl, Broad-Winged Hawk, Red-Tailed Hawk, American Kestrel and Osprey.

Resources from the library were print encyclopedias, animal encyclopedias, books and websites. Excellent book sources were Hawk Highway in the Sky: Watching Raptor Migration by Caroline Arnold (Gulliver Green, 1997, ISBN: 0-152-00040-2), The Bald Eagle Returns by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent (Clarion, 2000, ISBN:0-395-91416-7) and Those Excellent Eagles by Jan Lee Wicker (Pineapple Press, 2006, ISBN: 1-561-64355-6).

The print encyclopedias we used were The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Birds of the World by David Alderton (Lorenz Books, 2005, ISBN: 0-754-81499-8) and Raptors of the World by James Ferguson-Lees (Houghton Mifflin, 2001, ISBN: 0-618-12762-3).

Let's go birding!
Students spent several class periods taking notes and sharing information about their bird of choice. Mr. Theobold has a wonderful classroom set of digital cameras. He showed the students how to use the cameras and load pictures onto their lab computers. Mrs. Curtis then discussed with the students what to look for when taking pictures at the raptor center so that eventually they would be able to draw illustrations of the birds from their photos. Their finished illustrations would then be assembled into a book.

Parents, teachers and students arrived at the raptor center on a gray, cloudy, damp day but oh, were the kids' spirits bright! Armed with their notebooks, sketchpads, cameras and enthusiasm, they began.

Now, that's not the end of the story. The students are working on this project long term until school closes in June. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Curtis again shot for the stars and wrote for and received a grant to help the class publish their book. It will include their own illustrations, photographs, research and free verse poems. We cannot wait to see the results!

Inspiring young poets
Working with middle grade students always challenges us to find books and projects that inspire and that also have hope. A very special book that does just this is Seeing the Blue Between: Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets, compiled by Paul B. Janeczko (Candlewick Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-763-60881-5). Readers of all ages will certainly be motivated to think about writing because each poet gives an introduction of two pages about how, why, when, etc. they write poetry. After showing this to one of the middle grade teachers, we came up with the idea of a poetry discussion group. Students read about the poet's lives, style of poetry, analyzed their poem and then discussed this with their group. It was amazing how students then became interested in reading different poets and finding books of their poetry.

In conjunction with this, our discussion group used the book Dream Makers: Young People Share Their Hopes and Aspirations, selected and illustrated by Neil Waldman (Boyds Mills Press, 2003, ISBN: 1-590-78178-4). Forty-two pieces of writing by young people are included. The book is a tribute to the Children's Aid Society, which provides a wide range of programs and services that offer children the opportunities to become happy, healthy and successful adults. Other entries by children can be visited at www.childrensaidsociety.org/dreammakers

There is so much to discuss, think and write about poetry when using these wonderful books. I hope you have found some new inspirations and ideas to share; there are so many around us. We just have to keep listening, reading, writing and striving to make it all work.

Online Extra: Parent Book Recommendations April 2007

Sandy Meagher is the Library Department Chairperson and School Librarian in the Wayne Highlands School District, Honesdale, PA.

April, 2007, Vol.37, No.7