Literacy Resources

Just a little something to start you off!

With thanks to Daniel Nestor for sharing.  What do teachers make? by Taylor Mali

The Children’s Poetry Archive – jam packed full of poems and poets but don’t neglect The Poetry Archive itself.  I love Langston Hughes’ poetry and have used it with Yr 6 pupils.  I particularly like the tours that they offer by poets and writers around the poems.  Each writer has identified some from the site and listed them with reasons for their choices.  What a fantastic model that would be.  To create a class set of poems digitally and then children produce their own tour of their favourite.  You could use JogThe Web to set up a tour of the poems.

The Poetry Zone – I particularly like the film of Roger Steven’s poem Words on the Home page.  This would be a great model to use with children.  The Teacher Zone is also full of great ideas and resources.

Michael Rosen – if you scroll right down the very long page you will come to a Poem called Words are Ours written by Michael for The National Year of Reading.  That’s two poems about words.  Maybe Words could be a theme for a unit of work on poetry.  But I think one of the best things on his site is him reading/reciting his poems from Hypnotiser which is now out of print.  Perfect for enjoyment and studying how to recite a poem.

Poetry Class – a site that is brimming with poems and ideas for teaching.  It hasn’t been updated to take into account the Renewed Framework but the ideas are still great.  The Poetry lesson section is a rich resource of ideas.

How to make a Poetry Friendly Classroom – Michael Rosen again as Children’s Laureate.  Watch the videos to help make a poetry friendly classroom.  These would also be good for supporting professional development meetings.  Which of these do you do in your classroom?

National Poetry Day October 8th 2009 – a website to bookmark so that you are ready for the event this year.  There are always lots of suggestions and ideas in the run-up to the day.

Poetry Resource Review on Teachers TV

And if you like reading poetry, how about a poem a day?

Other resources which linked to poetry:

Pie Corbett’s JumpStart! Poetry Writing book and a generic teaching sequence for a poetry unit of work

What are your favourite resources?

And to celebrate the new year her is another fantastic resource from Pie Corbett: Jumpstart! Poetry  Games and Activities for ages 7 – 12.

If you click on the open book icon in the image of the book you can see for yourself what is in this book.  I particularly like the section that Pie calls strengthening the imagination.  Teachers frequently come across children who have a limited imagination and this sections helps to try and understand why this might be and what we can do to support children in this area. 

Every KS2 teacher should have a copy of this book!