NPM Spring Cleaning Day 26, Miscellaneous

 

I've been told it's never a good idea to have a file or a drawer or a box marked "Miscellaneous." It just becomes a place to dump things so you don't have to organize properly. You know, like when you're moving, and you've reached the point in the process where you hate all your possessions and want to just take them all to the dumpster. Instead of doing that (because you know you'll regret it), you put everything left into a box marked "Miscellaneous." I have done that many times, and I also have a folder in my email account called "Miscellaneous" and a desktop folder on my computer with the same non-helpful name. 

And now, a Miscellaneous blog post! That's because there are some tabs still open that don't fit readily into any of the other posts I've published or planned. But I don't want to close them without writing about them so that I can find them later. 

So here goes.

Jama's posts are always amazing, but this one, I just couldn't close. The tab's been open for ten months! I'm warning you; if you open it the same thing will happen to you. Here it is, if you dare: Strawberries: A Taste of Something Wild and Sweet.

 

Until I read this post from Amy Ludwig VanDerwater in May of 2019, I had never thought of this way of teaching about line breaks. Take a poem and reproduce it on a sheet or on the screen. Work with kids to break it up into lines. If it rhymes, it's easy. The rhyme generally is at the end of the line. But what if it doesn't? It's your choice where you break the line, but some choices are definitely more effective than others.

 

This post, a pdf by Tabatha Yeatts of poems about peace, has been open even longer, since April of 2019. It's so great, all ready to print out and make into a booklet. 

 

This is a presentation from Heidi Mordhorst on helping very young children write poetry. Do I even teach very young children? I do not. But this is so good, I just can't close it! 

Ross Gay wrote this poem, "A Small Needful Fact," about Eric Garner. You should definitely read it.

 

In September of 2020, Karen Edmisten posted this Emily Dickinson poem, and somehow it was so perfect for September of 2020 that I just kept it open on my desktop from then on, eternally. Amen. (But not any more. Closed, closed, closed!)

 

See that, six more tabs, getting closed! It's a National Poetry Month miracle! 

 

This is the ninth year of the Progressive Poem! See the schedule below to find where to go for today's line and to see who's participating this year.

April 1 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
2 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
3 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
4 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
5 Irene Latham at Live your Poem
6 Jan Godown Annino at BookseedStudio
7 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
8 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
10 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
11 Buffy Silverman
12 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
13 Jone Rush MacCulloch
14 Susan Bruck at Soul Blossom Living
15 Wendy Taleo at Tales in eLearning
16 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
17 Tricia Stohr Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
18 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
19 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
21 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
22 Ruth Hersey at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town
23 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
24 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
25 Shari Daniels at Islands of my Soul
26 Tim Gels at Yet There is Method at https://timgels.com
27 Rebecca Newman
28 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
29 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wondering
30 Michelle Kogan at More Art 4 All

 

 

   

And here's a roundup of some of the amazing, creative projects going on during NPM this year.