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Mentor Text Lessons: Published Poetry
forty-seven lessons created by teachers who've attend our NNWP workshops |
 When students write poetry alongside their teachers, both teacher and student learn more about how the writing process is different for every individual child. Our Piñon Poetry Festival celebrates this simple but true notion.
Even if you cannot come to Northern Nevada to attend our poetry festival, we encourage you to sit down and write poetry alongside your students.
The lessons on this page celebrate our appreciation of poetry here in Northern Nevada. |
| How did this page of lessons come about? Since the 1990's our Northern Nevada Writing Project has sponsored annual poetry events for students and teachers in Nevada. In 2001, when we launched the WritingFix website, we began posting many of the demonstration lessons from past workshops, and we began posting new lessons that were being created by our NNWP Teacher Consultants and teachers taking our inservice classes. This page began taking shape as our "poetry collection" in 2002.
At WritingFix, we use all of Ralph Fletcher's books. Many share advice from the actual writer, presented in such a way that students in third grade and up can easily understand and attempt. Fletcher does an amazing job with sharing the wisdom he's gained about the writing process in a way that students can easily respond to. Fletcher's book, Poetry Matters: Writing a Poem from the Inside Out, will not only inspire you as teacher planning lessons, but it will also inspire your students to find the poetry hidden in their souls and backpacks and closets. We have given away this little treasure of a book at many of our workshops, including the Piñon Poetry Festival.
What is the Piñon Poetry Festival? Each spring, the Northern Nevada Writing Project continues to celebrate the power of poetry by sponsoring this annual festival. Each year's festival is dedicated to the memory of Bill Abrams, who was friend to the NNWP, an inspiration to its teachers, and a lover of language. You can learn more about Bill just below.
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Great advice from a favorite author in Northern Nevada!
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| Teachers attend our popular Piñon Poetry Festival with two of their students in tow, and together they write poetry inspired from demonstration lessons presented by NNWP Teacher Consultants. Teachers return to their classrooms with lessons, mentor texts, published samples, and student helpers who can assist them when they teach the lessons to the rest of their students.
We hope all teachers accessing this page enjoy and use the forty-nine poetry lessons we have published on this page. Most of all, we hope our little page of poetry resources inspires you to craft an original writing lesson that you're proud to share with your students!
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Eleven Lessons Featured at the NNWP's Piñon Poetry Festival, 2006-2011 |
 Our Piñon Poetry Festival is Dedicated to Bill Abrams' Memory
the following information about Bill was shared by Joan Taylor, former Director of the Northern Nevada Writing Project
Bill Abrams was a leader of teachers and a poet for over 20 years. From the 1970s to the late 1990s, he was committed to the students and teachers in Nevada. Bill had tremendous faith in the power of teachers working collaboratively with one another and spent much time on projects to draw teachers together to share ideas and celebrate their own and their students’ learning. Although he was an ardent fan of all teachers, he had a special love for English/language arts teachers; and he had an amazing knack for getting them involved in far-flung and engaging projects. Many of us are still working on those projects today, almost 15 years after he left us.
He was a poet and long-time member of Ash Canyon Poetry Society. He would often entertain us with his poems during Northern Nevada Writing Project Summer Institutes. He founded the Northern Nevada Piñon Poetry Festival when it became apparent that the Book-Out and the Nevada Young Writers publications were so overflowing with poetry that we perhaps needed an additional event and publication just for the poetry selections.
Bill suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for most of the years he worked with us. He joked and laughed about the annoyances of the debilitating disease and negotiated the difficulties of his disability with uncommon courage and grace. He inspired us to do our best and to see the finest in one another. We found it most fitting when noted poet, Sean Griffin, announced in 1998 that the Northern Nevada Piñon Poetry Festival would be renamed the Bill Abrams Piñon Poetry Festival.
Click here to open and read one of Bill's poems.
Dennis Black, friend of the NNWP, painted our Festival Mural. |
 Each spring, 30 teachers register for the NNWP's Piñon Poetry Festival in Northern Nevada. These teachers attend the festival with two of their students, and all three write poetry together to one or two of the poetry lessons featured at WritingFix. When teachers return to school, they are encouraged to teach the poetry lessons from the festival with their whole class, using the two students who accompanied them as helpers.
Here, the NNWP's own Bonnie Vogler attends the festival with two of her students in 2007. |
The Piñon Poetry Festival has been an annual event in Northern Nevada since the 1990's. In 2006, as our WritingFix resource website was gaining popularity with a national and international audience, we decided to begin posting the festival's demonstration lessons on this page for anyone to access and use with their student writers. Below, you can find all our featured poetry lessons we've posted since 2006. If our festival's poetry lessons don't provide poetic inspiration to you, be sure to look lower on the page where we share a variety of lessons by Northern Nevada teachers that--even though never shared at our feastival--are great lessons for students of all ages, K-12.
March 22, 2011: This Year's Poetry Festival Lessons |
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NNWP Consultant Rob Stone will be presenting this lesson!
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Coming to our 2011 Festival:
Quest-item Poetry
Mentor Text:
"I've Gotta Name"
sung by Jim Croce
NNWP Consultant Corbett Harrison will be presenting this lesson!
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Festival Poetry Lessons: 2006-2010 |
From our 2010 Festival:
The Color of Love
Mentor Text:
I Love You the Purplest
by Barbara M. Joosse
Focus Trait: Word Choice
Support Trait: Organization
Lesson inspired by: Karen McGee, NNWP Consultant since 1985
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From our 2010 Festival:
Emotions & Colorful Days
Mentor Text:
My Many Colored Days
by Dr. Seuss
Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Word Choice
Prompt inspired by: Sharon Berry, Northern Nevada elementary teacher
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From our 2009 Festival:
What If... Poems
Mentor Text:
What If...
by Regina J. Williams
Focus Trait: Word Choice
Support Trait: Idea Development
Lesson inspired by: Amanda Bodenstein, NNWP Consultant since 2002
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From our 2009 Festival:
Haiku Riddles
Mentor Text:
If Not for the Cat
by Jack Prelutsky
Focus Trait: Word Choice
Support Trait: Idea Development
Prompt inspired by: Heather Clark, NNWP Consultant since 2004
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From our 2008 Festival:
So Much Depends Upon...
Mentor Text:
Love That Dog
by Sharon Creech
Focus Trait: Voice
Support Trait: Word Choice
Prompt inspired by: Dena Harrison, NNWP Consultant since 2001
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From our 2008 Festival:
Poems of Apology
Mentor Texts:
This is Just to Say...
by Joyce Sidman
Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency
Support Trait: Idea Development
Lesson inspired by: Todd Hermann, NNWP Consultant since 1998
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From our 2007 Festival:
Between Repeated Lines
Mentor Text:
Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers
by Mary Ann Hoberman
Focus Trait: Idea Development
Support Trait: Organization
Lesson inspired by: Kim Polson, NNWP Consultant since 2004
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From our 2007 Festival:
Ballads about Family
Mentor Text:
Family Reunion
by Mary Quattlebaum
Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency
Support Trait: Word Choice
Lesson inspired by: Heather Clark, NNWP Consultant since 2004
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From our 2006 Festival:
School Song Parodies
Mentor Text:
Take Me Out of the Bathtub and other Silly Dilly Songs by Alan Katz
Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency
Support Trait: Idea Development
NNWP Lesson Author: Tara Robertson, NNWP Consultant since 2002
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Picture books can inspire great poetry from your students! Each year in Northern Nevada, we host a variety of teacher workshops that we call "Make and Take" workshops; at each class's conclusion, all participants have created a new lesson they're willing to share with the other participants as well as share with their students. Some of our participants' lessons really shine as powerful exemplars of well-designed instruction. The very best of those lessons--with the contributing teacher's permission--become part of the WritingFix collection.
Below, you will find poetry lessons created over the years by teachers who were inspired by picture books from their classroom bookshelves.
Ten Original Poetry Lessons Proposed by Teachers Using Picture Books as Mentor Texts: |
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Lesson:
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Lesson:
Hubris
at the Bat
Mentor Text:
Casey at the Bat, original poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, Illustrations by Christopher Bing |
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Chapter books can inspire great poetry from your students! Each year in Northern Nevada, we host a variety of teacher workshops that we call "Make and Take" workshops; at each class's conclusion, all participants have created a new lesson they're willing to share with the other participants as well as share with their students. Some of our participants' lessons really shine as powerful exemplars of well-designed instruction. The very best of those lessons--with the contributing teacher's permission--become part of the WritingFix collection.
Below, you will find poetry lessons created over the years by teachers who were inspired by favorite chapter books and short stories from their classroom bookshelves.
Six Original Poetry Lessons Proposed by Teachers Using Chapter Books and Short Stories as Mentor Texts: |
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Mentor Text:
Lord of the Flies
by William Golding
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Mentor Text:
Crank
by Ellen Hopkins
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Mentor Text:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Mentor Text:
"Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates
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Song lyrics can inspire great poetry from your students! Each year in Northern Nevada, we host a variety of teacher workshops that we call "Make and Take" workshops; at each class's conclusion, all participants have created a new lesson they're willing to share with the other participants as well as share with their students. Some of our participants' lessons really shine as powerful exemplars of well-designed instruction. The very best of those lessons--with the contributing teacher's permission--become part of the WritingFix collection.
Below, you will find poetry lessons created over the years by teachers who were inspired by favorite song lyrics from their classroom iPods and music players.
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Classic poetry can inspire great poetry from your students! Each year in Northern Nevada, we host a variety of teacher workshops that we call "Make and Take" workshops; at each class's conclusion, all participants have created a new lesson they're willing to share with the other participants as well as share with their students. Some of our participants' lessons really shine as powerful exemplars of well-designed instruction. The very best of those lessons--with the contributing teacher's permission--become part of the WritingFix collection.
Below, you will find poetry lessons created over the years by teachers who were inspired by favorite classic poems from their classroom anthologies.
Ten Original Poetry Lessons Proposed by Teachers Using Classic Poetry as Mentor Texts: |
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© Copyright 2015 - WritingFix- All Rights Reserved.
Please, share the resources you find on these pages freely with fellow educators, but please leave any page citations on handouts intact, and please give authorship credit to the cited teachers who created these wonderful lessons and resources. Thanks in advance for honoring other educators' intellectual property.
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