Give Them Poetry!: A Guide for Sharing Poetry with Children K-8 (review)

Based on the poetry for children class that Sloan has taught to graduate students at Queen's College for more than twenty years, this small book is a gem that every teacher of children's literature and every teacher of children should read. Although the subtitle indicates that the book is a guide for sharing poetry with children, the book is also well-suited for use as a text for college-level children's literature classes.

The students who attend Sloan's course are similar to the students many of us teach. For the most part they do not read or enjoy poetry, and they arrive in class with the baggage of many negative experiences, including forced memorization and endless analysis. As one of my own students said, "The teacher would ask everyone in the class what the poem meant, and then he'd tell us what it really meant, and make us all feel stupid."

Florian's introduction, written in humorous verse, sets the tone. "Are you afraid of poetry? Have you been attacked by a terror dactyl?" He concludes with praise for Professor Sloan, "For years I've seen her motivate, captivate, elucidate, levitate, celebrate, and not to mention, educate her students. She's got the write stuff."

Sloan draws on the work of theorists, poets, and other teachers of poetry, including Northrop Frye, Leland Jacobs, Eve Merriam, Karla Kuskin, Paul Janeczko, and Georgia Heard. The title comes from Leland Jacobs, who told his classes, "Poetry will make children take an interest in words. Without that interest, they'll never care much about reading and writing." As Sloan writes in her introduction, "Just how to give children poetry so that they are turned on rather than turned off by it is the subject of much of this book"(2).

Sloan has organized the book into five chapters. Chapter 1, "Poetry and Literacy," makes a strong case for the importance of poetry to the development of literacy in children. Sloan quotes Northrop Frye, who argues that, "Poetry should be at the center of all literary fraining, and literary prose forms the periphery," beginning with nursery rhymes such as "this little pig went to market" (5). Although Sloan admits that there is little in the way of research studies to back this claim, she offers several anecdotal examples. Indeed, the importance placed on phonemic awareness by the Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read (2000) would appear to validate the importance of introducing children early on to the sounds and rhythms of words, and the enjoyment of language play, although little mention is made of poetry in the report. Too often, too, poetry is slighted in children's literature classes. Casual conversations with colleagues have revealed that few make time for poetry.

Chapter 2, "The Poetry Class" provides an overview of the class. Sloan's philosophy is to "learn by doing." Students read widely in children's poetry anthologies, noticing the kinds of poems included and their arrangement within the book. A selected list of outstanding anthologies is included. The students explore a wide range of poetry, including classics and new poems, traditional rhymes, jingles, and riddles, popular verse, multicultural and award-winning, and humorous poetry. The students create personal anthologies, conduct an author study (an example is given), and learn about various poetic forms through an inductive process of observation and inquiry. A short list of excellent books about poetry and the use of poetry with children is included.

Chapter 3, "Writer's Workshop," concentrates on the writing process and includes examples of various poetic forms, as well as samples of writing from college students, children, and Sloan herself. The students begin by writing riddles, following Mallarmé's injunction to describe "not the thing, but the effect it produces"(31). Time for writing, often in small groups or with partners, is provided during almost every class session.

Chapter 4, "Poetry Applied," discusses the results...