Presents a collection of poetry covering a wide range of subjects, themes, and emotions.

A poem can explain the inexplicable and express the unexpressed. This is how reading poetry enhances understanding and writing poetry helps students say things that they could not say in any other way. And it's why David Hanauer believes that poetry deserves to play a central role in classroom literacy programs. In Poetry and the Meaning of Life, David explains how teachers can use poems to help students understand and express important thoughts, feelings, and experiences. He does this by discussing theories of reading and writing and relating these to vignettes that demonstrate how real teachers in real classrooms have used poetry to put these theories into practice -- with emergent and beginning readers, with mature readers, and with English language learners. The book concludes with a clarion call to teachers to use the transformative power of poetry to encourage their students to search out the meaning in their own lives.

Play provides young children with the opportunity to express their ideas, symbolize, and test their knowledge of the world. It provides the basis for inquiry in literacy, science, social studies, mathematics, art, music, and movement. Through play, young children become active learners engaged in explorations about themselves, their community, and their personal-social world. An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children offers the theoretical framework for understanding the origins of an early childhood play-based curriculum and how young children learn and understand concepts in a social and physical environment. Distinguished author Olivia N. Saracho then explores how play fits into various curriculum areas in order to help teachers develop their early childhood curriculum using developmentally and culturally appropriate practice. Through this integrated approach, young children are able to actively engage in meaningful and functional experiences in their natural context. Special Features Include: Vignettes of children’s conversations and actions in the classroom Suggestions for activities and classroom materials Practical examples and guidelines End-of-chapter summaries to enhance and extend the reader’s understanding of young children By presenting appropriate theoretical practices for designing and implementing a play-based curriculum, An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children offers pre-service teachers the foundational knowledge about the field, about the work that practitioners do with young children, and how to best assume a teacher’s role effectively.

The ethnically diverse scope, broad chronological coverage, and mix of biographical, critical, historical, political, and cultural entries make this the most useful and exciting poetry reference of its kind for students today. American poetry springs up out of all walks of life; its poems are "maternal as well as paternal...stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine," as Walt Whitman wrote, adding "Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion." Written for high school and undergraduate students, this two-volume encyclopedia covers U.S. poetry from the Colonial era to the present, offering full treatments of hundreds of key poets of the American canon. What sets this reference apart is that it also discusses events, movements, schools, and poetic approaches, placing poets in their social, historical, political, cultural, and critical contexts and showing how their works mirror the eras in which they were written. Readers will learn about surrealism, ekphrastic poetry, pastoral elegy, the Black Mountain poets, and "language" poetry. There are long and rich entries on modernism and postmodernism as well as entries related to the formal and technical dimensions of American poetry. Particular attention is paid to women poets and poets from various ethnic groups. Poets such as Amiri Baraka, Nathaniel Mackey, Natasha Trethewey, and Tracy Smith are featured. The encyclopedia also contains entries on a wide selection of Latino and Native American poets and substantial coverage of the avant-garde and experimental movements and provides sidebars that illuminate key points.

This essential text provides ideas for trainees and teachers to extend both their own teaching and their pupils’ learning in primary English through creative approaches and enrichment strategies to promote best practice and outstanding teaching. The book is accessible to all levels of experience and combines theory with practice throughout, delivering the required subject knowledge while encouraging innovative approaches that demand critical reflection. It looks closely at how young children learn to read and write and how practitioners can enable this development through creative ideas. The book begins with an exploration of the development of speaking and listening skills which form the foundation of successful literacy. Chapters then cover all the key elements of the new curriculum including word reading, reading comprehension, transcription and composition, plus additional material on drama and reading for pleasure. Throughout the book there is a clear progression from KS1 to KS2 and a focus on creativity as a vital ingredient in successful English teaching.

Poetry – From Reading to Writing covers the process of writing poetry, from reading poems through to writing them. It is intended particularly for teachers at key stage 2 level, but other teachers will also find it valuable. It is clearly and accessibly written and jargon-free. In providing a wealth of practical ideas and activities preparing for the writing of poems, the book also stresses the use of talk, improvised drama and the reading and performance of poems. The author, who has published four collections of poetry, uses his own work and the work of others to explore how creative readings of poems can spark a child’s imagination and lead to original writing. Pupils are encouraged throughout the book to explore different forms of poetry, including: Rhyming and non-rhyming poems Riddles Short poems Haiku, tanka, renga Poems from stories Free verse Narrative poems Poems drawing on current affairs and history This book can be used by both pupils and teachers, and contains motivating tasks and tips to build pupils’ confidence in poetry writing. Explicit links are made throughout to the latest primary framework for literacy, making this an invaluable resource for all practising and trainee teachers who wish to teach poetry in the classroom in a creative and enjoyable way.

"Wise old Vergil says in one of his Georgics, 'Praise large farms, stick to small ones,'" Robert Frost said. "Twenty acres are just about enough." Frost started out as a school teacher living the rural life of a would-be farmer, and later turned to farming full time when he bought a place of his own. After a sojourn in England where his first two books were published to critical acclaim, he returned to New England, acquired a new farm and became a rustic for much of the rest of his life. Frost claimed that all of his poetry was farm poetry. His deep admiration for Virgil's Georgics, or poems of rural life, inspired the creation of his own New England "georgics," his answer to the haughty 20th-century modernism that seemed certain to define the future of Western poetry. Like the "West-Running Brook" in his poem of the same name, Frost's poetry can be seen as an embodiment of contrariness.

Lightning provides: 32 books with 3 levels of differentiation per book; whole texts that provide NLS genre coverage; linked themes across fiction, non-fiction and the wider curriculum; focussed teaching support for each book including comprehension and writing activities; and a teaching and practice CD that provides opportunities for ICT.