Poetry highlights in honor of National Poetry Month!
Poet of the Day: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater


Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is a nature-lover, a collector, and a maker. She is a writer of poems, books, and essays. And Amy is also teacher. She always has been—on her blog and video channel, during her author visits, through her professional books—but now she is back in the classroom full time, teaching fourth-grade language arts. Lucky students!
This poet belongs in our classrooms because . . .
Amy’s poems are accessible to young readers and those who are new to reading poetry. Because her poems are layered with depth and emotion, they are easy to understand, but not merely simple. You can tell that Amy’s poems come from her heart and from her experiences—they are authentic and child-oriented.
A Poem by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater









"Thank You Notes" from Write! Write! Write! (Wordsong, 2020)—a 2021 NCTE Notable Poetry Book and a 2021 selection for the Notables Award, chosen by the Children's Literature Assembly of NCTE.


Teaching Connections
Keep a notebook along with your students. Either use Amy’s blog Sharing Our Notebooks for inspiration, or work through her 72 Notebooking Lessons on YouTube, listed in this Google doc.
 
If you are teaching remotely, or if the poetry collection in your classroom library is still a work in progress, or if you just want to mix it up occasionally, let students use the "Find a Poem" section of her kid-friendly, ad-free website to choose a poem, practice reading it aloud, and perform it for the class.
 
Become a better overall writing teacher by using the strategies in her professional book, Poems Are Teachers. Through poetry, practice finding ideas, choosing perspective and point of view, structuring texts, playing with language, crafting beginnings and endings, and selecting titles.

Selected Works by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
Poetry Books: 
Forest Has a Song
Read! Read! Read!
Dreaming of You
With My Hands
Write! Write! Write!
If This Bird Had Pockets (Spring 2021)
 
Picture Books:
Every Day Birds
That Missing Feeling
 
Professional Books:
Poetry: Big Thoughts in Small Packages (co-authored with Lucy Calkins and Stephanie Parsons)
Poems Are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres
 
Blogs and Online Resources:
Special Thanks to Today's Curator



Mary Lee Hahn is a teacher-poet who practices her crafts in Central Ohio.