From MeL Minute: Celebrate Poetry Month

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From Christine Schneider, Mel Education Specialist -

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it” - Confucius

MeL is here to help share the beauty of poetry this April!  As you prepare for National Poetry Month, consider using the following resources found in MeL databases:
Britannica School (Elementary, Middle, High): Once again we had some resource packs pulled together for you and your students to use!  Please click into one of the levels of Britannica FIRST, and then click on one of the following resource packs:
 eBooks: A general search for “poetry” within the main eBooks collection yields over 6,500 hits!  The following are some books that might be of specific interest (Remember to click on eBooksFIRST, then any of the following links):
  • Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott.  This is a collection of fairy tales and poetry that Alcott first put together for Ellen, the daughter of American essayist and Transcendentalist thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson.
  • Guppies to Puppies : Reading, Writing, and Reciting Poems About Pets by Freese and Westberg. With colorful illustrations and informative text, children will learn how to read, write and recite a variety of poems about pets.
  • Rainbow Soup : Adventures in Poetry by Cleary and Layton. From the author of the best-selling Words Are CATegorical™ series, this playful poetry collection includes limericks, puns, palindromes, and more.
  • Poetry  by Strachan and Terry. Quickly equips readers with the strategies to understand and deepen their engagement with individual poems.
NoveList K-8+: This database provides guidance as to which books you will want to check out at your local library.  By conducting a general search for “poetry”, there are over 5,000 hits in the Books category! Also, when you see the search results, click on the tab “Lists & Articles”; the first item is an article from Judy Freeman titled “Desperate Librarians . . . A Few Ideas to share with Children, Fall 2016, Every Month is Poetry Month”.  She recommends some recent fiction and nonfiction picture books to get you and your students fired up about poetry.

Research in Context: (Grades 6+). It includes a topic page about poetry, and many related resources that include reference, news and magazine articles, biographies, audio files, and even a couple creative works. And an additional bonus - this database is integrated with Google Drive/Classroom and Microsoft OneNote.

InfoTrac Student: Middle and High School students will have fun with this one. Have them do a basic search for “poetry”.  From the results page, scroll down to the bottom right of the screen and use the Topic Finder. Using either the Wheel or Tile look, students will visually see many subtopics of poetry. 
  
MeL databases are available to Michigan residents or Michigan library access only.

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