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All the Small Poems
This book by Valerie Worth is a great collection of short poems about plants, animals and everyday objects from a naive perspective. It’s perfect to use in the classroom as a visualization exercise as it has fantastic adjectives or can be used to help teach inference skills by having students guess what the poem is about without giving them the title.
Amber Lyons
The Cremation of Sam McGee
First, I love anything by Shel Silverstein! His books are so fun. But my favourite book of poetry is “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” a poem by Robert Service about a prospector in the Yukon. For the Service poem, I like to tie in a chalk pastel or oil pastel art project and link it to the Grade 7 social studies curriculum.
Raylene Kennedy
Ain’t Burned All the Bright
This book by Jason Reynolds is just full of so much hope and is a reminder of the power of a breath.
Tracy Evans
the sun and her flowers
The poem Broken English in the sun and her flowers by Rupi Kaur does a beautiful job of telling the true story of the immigrant experience. I’ve had students who related to it and told me it reminded them of their own parents. I’ve also had students who learned from it what it’s like to be a new Canadian. It’s also a great poem to teach motif. I’ve done it with a few classes, and they always have really great, thoughtful responses.
Miya Abe
Love That Dog
This book by Sharon Creech is written in free verse from the point of view of a student who thinks writing poetry is dumb. As the book goes on, the student learns how to express himself through poetry and finds himself writing more and more and enjoying it. He writes to his teacher, but you only see his side of the conversation. Some of his entries are responses to poems his teacher has shared with the class, and those poems are all printed at the back of the book. The sequel Hate That Cat is a good one to follow up with. Because they’re from the student’s point of view, and because the student doesn’t see the point of poetry at first, it’s very relatable to students. I read this last year with my Grade 4 students.
Jennifer Rodgers Samayoa
Teacher recommendations gathered through Facebook
