Whispering in the Wind: A Guide to Deeper Reading and Writing Through Poetry

Your students (and maybe even you) might cringe at the word poetry. For many, poetry feels like finding the hidden meaning the poet worked so hard to hide from the reader. If poetry confuses your students, they're likely to avoid it altogether. In , master educator Linda Rief provides a cure for poetry agony. She introduces "Heart Books," a project inspired by the Heart Maps of Georgia Heard. Linda has used Heart Books throughout her teaching career to help students read more poetry, connect with it, and see how they, too, could write poetically. Linda explains how to create and use Heart Books in any classroom by: How do you squeeze one more unit into your curriculum? This is not a book about teaching a standalone poetry unit. Instead, you'll learn how to use transition times for this learning-all those in-between times throughout the year, such as right before a new unit, and leading up to, or returning from, vacations or holidays. Linda believes this is work worth doing in any classroom because "poetry is what 'whispers in the wind,' guiding us toward deeper reading and a heightened awareness of what makes compelling writing."