Welcome, Poetry Friday bloggers and fans. I’m excited to host Poetry Friday this week because it’s a special day. The third graders at Northfield Elementary, where I am poet-in-residence each spring, have their poetry celebration this afternoon! Thanks to everyone who has been following this residency and reading the kids’ poems. I have a few […]
Northfield Elementary
Thursday, 13 June 2019
Thursday, 13 June 2019
It’s the Northfield Elementary Poetry Celebration this week! I’m looking forward to seeing the third grade poets. This is their chance to show off all of their hard work during the residency. The poems I share with you here are first drafts. Tomorrow is my first opportunity to see the revised poems. The students will […]
Monday, 18 June 2018
It’s time to say goodbye to Northfield Elementary, friends. Last week was our poetry celebration and tomorrow is the last day of school. Our third grade poets wrote list poems based on a model from Naomi Shihab Nye, odes to their favorite places, and retold fairy tales. At the celebration, I get to see the […]
Wednesday, 30 May 2018
The Northfield Elementary poets have been working hard on their list poems. Today, our lists of juicy words take us inside a desk and a pencil box, explore a beautiful garden, and dig down into the earth. The mentor text for my list poem workshop is Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Words in My Pillow” from the […]
Thursday, 1 June 2017
Happy Poetry Friday! I’m saying goodbye to Northfield Elementary School this week. For the past month, I’ve been conducting a poetry residency with the school’s third grade. At the bottom of this post, I’m sharing a gallery of some of the poetry displays. The kids outdid themselves this year! Our final workshop was on persona […]
Thursday, 1 June 2017
Today is the poetry open house at Northfield Elementary, where I’ve been in residence for the past month. I haven’t seen the third grade poets since our revision day. It’s always exciting to read their poems again and see how they have developed. Let’s look more closely at persona poems. When we’re creating a character, […]
Tuesday, 30 May 2017
June is almost here! This week, the Northfield 3rd Grade poets, their teachers, and families, will be celebrating poetry at our annual open house. It’s a great time to recognize how hard the students have worked on their poems. I’ve shared the poets’ haiku and food poems. Today, I am posting the third graders’ […]
Friday, 19 May 2017
It’s Poetry Friday! Welcome back to Northfield Elementary, where the third grade poets are using their five senses to write about food. When I’m working with young writers on food poems, I want to guide them away from catch-all words: delicious, yummy, tasty, good, disgusting. Pizza and ice cream are both delicious, but they don’t […]
Monday, 16 May 2016
Hello, Readers! After my new middle grade novel launched in mid-April, I took a month off from blogging. In that month, I’ve visited schools and bookstores in Albuquerque, New Mexico, New York City, and Baltimore. Now I’m back in my own neighborhood, teaching at Northfield Elementary. I’ve been poet in residence with the Northfield third […]
Laura Shovan is the author of the award-winning middle grade novel, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary. Her second book, Takedown, is a Junior Library Guild and PJ Our Way selection. Look for A Place at the Table, co-written with Saadia Faruqi, in 2020. Laura is a poet-in-the-schools Maryland.
