Falling Down The Page

Falling Down The Page

Edited By: Georgia Heard

Genre: Poetry

Grade Level: Elementary School

Year Published: 2008

Summary

This book is a collection of poems. It chronicles an entire school year, starting with the end of the summer/start of school and going all the way to the end of the school year/start of summer. The poem has a huge variety of authors, and the distinguishing part of the book is that the layout is much different than a standard book. The poems start at the top of a skinny page, and go down in different patterns, depending on the poem. It certainly adds a bit of aesthetic quality to the book, and fits the style of the book. 

About the Editor

Georgia Heard attended COlumbia UNiversity, where she obtained her M.F.A in poetry writing. She is one of the founding members of the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project. She presently travels around the country teaching about writing and poetry to various colleges and schools. Heard is also the author of many professional texts that teach about writing and poetry, and has been the author and editor for many children's books. She currently resides in Singer Island, Florida with her husband and kids.

Source: http://www.georgiaheard.com/index.htm 

How to Use it

This book can be used to launch a unit on Poetry in a primary classroom! 

Pre-Reading: I feel that this book would be a great introduction to poetry. Whether you introduced it in the fall or the spring, I would do the following before reading the book. Since the first poem in the book ("Goodbyes") is about the end of summer, I would have students talk with a partner about some of the things that they say goodbye to at the end of the summer. Volunteers would then share their answers, and then the teacher could make a class list on chart paper entitled Saying Goodbye to Summer. 

Post-Reading: This book would obviously not be read in one sitting. I would start off by reading the first few poems, and after you read them, have students tell you what they notice about poems. What makes poems different from picture books? In particular, what does the first poem, "Goodbyes," make the students feel. I would then do a Visualization activity with the students, where they would read the poem again, and draw a picture that they saw in their head when they heard the words of the poem. I have done this with my first grade class, and I have shown the worksheet here. 

Name: _______________________

Today we read the poem ______________________________

This is what I visualized when I heard the poem (Mental Picture):

What do I Think?

I loved this book! I thought it was great that it went through the whole year, and the layout of the book was excellent. I think that it is so important that kids have an appreciation of poetry, and this book provides poems that they can really relate to. I will use this book this year as I am teaching poetry, and I think that it is a great asset to any primary classroom.