Books » Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes » Teacher Reports
In the four years that I have been teaching Kinder, First and 2nd graders I have shared many poems with my students. We memorized some, used them to learn skills to help us to become better readers and we collected them. Yet despite our weekly poems, I have not felt comfortable enough with my own knowledge and understanding of poetry to do much writing of poems.Fortunately a new book by poet and educator, Judith Tannenbaum, published by Stenhouse, has given me the confidence and guidance to do poetry writing with my students. In Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes: Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades, Judith shares a gift, which is her talent and expertise from many years of writing poetry and working with children. The book focuses on how we as teachers can tap into the imaginations, creativity and observations of our children. It is an easy to follow guide, the lessons building on one another, with ideas and examples for writing group as well as individual poems. I have tried several of the lessons and one of the most important things that I have realized is that every child shines as a poet. I believe that children are naturally poetic.
I highly recommend Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes and I feel that it has come at an especially crucial time. As we are more and more enveloped in a high-stakes testing hysteria, I think that writing poetry with our students is one important way to keep the humanity and spark in our classrooms, in our schools, and in our society as a whole.
After reading this book I was inspired to use some of the ideas that Judith suggests, but I did not feel shuttled into a lockstep approach that ignores differences among children. I found that the approach here provides expertise and direction but leaves plenty of room for individual adaptation and innovation. I’m impressed with the author’s responses to children. They are responses that honor children’s thinking and respect them as individuals. Judith never comes across as superior to children. She clearly has the expertise to share with children but provides opportunity for children to bring their own expertise to the writing… This teacher/poet knows how to bring out the best in children.