HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 19

Happy National Poetry Month!

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Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

April 6 - 8am on a Sunday

April 7 - Her Real Name is Orla Lola Bruin

April 8 - My Neighborhood

April 9 - Mushroom Hunters

April 10 - From Coat to Cloak

April 11 - Speaking of Coats

April 12 - Forgiveness is a Gift

April 13 - Here

April 14 - Running Home

April 15 - Nan's Apple Pie

April 16 - I Ask Nan How to Make Apple Pie

April 17 - untitled haiku

April 18 - The Right Thing to Do

And now for today!

Students - Last night I woke around 3:30am and wondered about what Lou's favorite book might be. I love Charlotte's Web, and perhaps this is why it came to mind for Lou. As I kept thinking I realized that she has a different reason to like this book. A spider and a pig are unlikely friends just as a girl and a wolf who ate her grandmother are unlikely friends. In books, we see ourselves and through books, we come to understand the world in different ways. If we love a certain book, it is good and right to read it again and again.

If you are wondering why the last two lines  of this free verse poem are so short, it is because short lines cause a reader to slow down. White space in a poem does that, and there is a lot of white space at the ends of these two lines.

In case you were wondering, I did reread the description of Zuckerman's barn to find the exact words milk pails and grain sacks.

Thank you for joining me on this twentieth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

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NaPoWriMo Poem #18 - Stories Matter

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Earlier this week, School Library Journal published a list of the top 100 Children's Novels.  And at many up-to-the-minute blogs, such as A Year of Reading, you can see this list and get cracking on your own reading or share the list with your students and encourage them to add to their own "life list" of classic books.  Students might even highlight and keep track of the books they've read in their writer's notebooks.  Librarians may wish to pull and display these books too, introducing children to new and old favorites.

On this list, Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White, comes out at number one.  Often, I have thought that the greatest compliment would be to have the last line of Charlotte's Web written on one's tombstone:

"It is not often that someone comes along 
who is a true friend and a good writer.  
Charlotte was both."

I read Charlotte's Web to our children when our eldest was five and our youngest was two.  Telling this to a friend years later, she said, "I could not read that book to my children.  It is too sad."

I thought and replied, "But someday your own mother, their grandmother, will die.  Grieving Charlotte in a safe story-place will prepare your children for that true and real-life sadness."

Books teach.  Books heal.  And tears borne through books are beautiful tears, proof of the mighty power of words.

Tomorrow begins TV Turn-Off Week, April 19-25, 2010.  Children in America spend several hours each day attached to screens.  Throughout the upcoming week, each daily (NaPoWriMo) poem will focus on something to do besides watching television. 

Teachers, please feel free to use these poems to help your students find alternative ways to spend their after-school hours this week.  And if they do...I welcome them to comment (through you!) here. 

(Please click on COMMENTS below to share a thought.)