Describes how writing with specifics can transform poetry, helping to create vivid pictures in the reader's mind. Offers three of the author's own poems that illustrate the judicious use of detail. (SR)

Talks about the "writing from the heart" practiced in one sixth-grade classroom by students and teacher, for many different purposes. Describes instructional approaches that encourage such writing. (SR)

Describes a series of activities to help middle school students develop an artist's vision and then convey that vision through poetry. Describes how lessons progress from looking at concrete objects to observations of settings and characters, gradually adding memory and imagination to direct observation, and finishing with revision. Notes that…

Describes how one teacher worked with a learning-disabled sixth grader, who benefited from the opportunity to write about what he knew and cared about. (SR)

Argues that children are as deep as the ocean, with secret places inside of them waiting to be opened. Notes that it is powerful for students to learn they can make sense of the world through words, and describes inviting them into poetry as they read poetry, create poetry packets, and write and revise poems. (SR)

Describes how the author used writers' notebooks with her students (grades 6-8), all Chinese immigrants, to find and express their memories and dreams, to find meaning in their experiences of change and loss; develop voice and a sense of audience; develop fluency in English; and find a growing sense of control over their new language and their new…