Poetry, Judith Viorst and Photostory

This post brings together several good things : Judith Viorst's poetry, Laura Candler's website, a teacher Radene Girola's great lesson plan using the poem as a "mentor text", and Photostory...

Judith Viorst - author of the much loved, often quoted Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, is also a poet sensitive to the world of children and their feelings - here is a short poem called Thank you note (from back when children wrote thank you letters!) at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/thank-you-note/

I wanted small pierced earrings (gold).
You gave me slippers (gray).
My Mother said she would scold
Unless I wrote to say
How much I liked them.

Not much.


Judith also wrote the poem "If I were in charge of the world..." available at
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/if-i-were-in-charge-of-the-world/

Laura Candler has a useful teachers' resources website with a poetry page (April is Poetry Month in the USA so there is a lot of poetry promotion going on at the moment).
She shares a teacher's lesson which uses Judith's "If I were in charge of the world" poem as a "mentor text" to inspire students to write their own version and once they have written it they produce it as a Photostory.

For Radene Girola's lesson plan go to http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/poetry.php and scroll to the bottom of the page.

PhotoStory Poem - If I Were in Charge of the World
PhotoStory Poem Lesson Plan

I've mentioned before about Photostory which is wonderful - easy to use, lots of fun and free. Check it out if you don't know it - such an effective presentation tool for students - a blend of text, visuals, narrative, "animation", music...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/PhotoStory/default.mspx