Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades: 20 Poems and Activities That Meet the Common Core Standards and Cultivate a Pass ion for Poetry

Excellent resource- easy to use! I’m impressed with the depth of knowledge, it really gets the students thinking on a deeper level.

My team and I recently discovered "Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades" by Paul Janeczko, and we have each purchased our own copy. This is a terrific resource for the busy classroom teacher who is searching for material that can be covered in a few classroom lessons, unlike a novel. Janeczko has organized this book into several very useful formats. He has organized the lessons and activities by the Common Core Standards for Reading Literature, where the teacher can choose the Standards key idea and find paired texts that give students practice with the specific standard. Janeczko has also organized all of the poems into a table of literary elements and devices. You can quickly scan for poems to help develop a particular skill. The lesson plans are extremely well-thought out, leading both the teacher and the students to a deep understanding of literature.

I like the format of the lessons and I really appreciate the link to the new core curriculum standards. I also like that some of the poems are linked so that they can be compared and contrasted. As someone who has taught poetry for many years, I do think the selections could be a little different, but that is a matter of personal preference. It is a wonderful place to start and then you can just switch out poems as you get more experience and preferences for what you are trying to teach in class.

This is a great book for supplementing a unit on poetry. The common core standards are clearly stated which saves time when you are writing a poetry unit. Each poem is matched with a type of figurative language and in many instances you have the opportunity to compare and contrast poems. The close reading activities are very helpful and allow students to connect and use higher order thinking skills to gain a full awareness of each poem. This book is a valuable resource and students will gain a better appreciation of poetry and their own world views. It's a must have!

This is a great resource. I've bought so many teacher books that turn out to be all theory and nothing practical. However this book is very practical. I'm not a big fan of teaching poetry, because I'm unsure of how to teach it well. This books makes me feel confident about teaching poetry. It also has kinda made me like poetry. I will definitely be incorporating more poetry in my class.

This is an excellent resource with quality poems and activities, which assisted me in my poetry sessions. I was able to use these poems/activities with my other genres: fiction and nonfiction. Sometimes, educators purchase a book and use only a small section; this book isn't going to gather dust on your shelf.

I fell in love with the pages I was able to view online and I now love this entire book. The poems are high quality poetry. If we are teaching kids, shouldn't we want to expose them to 'good' poetry/literature whenever possible? I think so. The matrix was a great resource to finding what poems could be used to teach which standards. The graphic organizers set students for success. I am excited to use this book in my classroom this year!

If I were going to write a book about teaching poetry to middle school students, this would be exactly what I would want to write. It has a great selection of poems with lessons that are practical, flexible, and standards-based. I also like how the poems connect with each other for comparison reading and writing. This could be a base text for teaching poetry throughout the school year. I love it.

Excellent poetry resource for middle school. Very interesting poems and great lesson ideas with each. The number one feature of this resource is how the author makes connections among the given poems. Well worth the money!