The Emergence of Color: A Photo Essay

On Saturday, October 29, 2011 a major snow storm dropped a foot of snow. As the trees were still heavy with leaves, the weight of the snow and the winds caused many limbs and whole trees to snap, taking with them many, many wires. I watched the storm rise up, caught some of it through the lens, as well as the aftermath. The story that emerged was one of color.

I. The Storm 

Snow Falling (Ringwood, NJ)

Snow Falling II (Ringwood, NJ)

Snow Falling III (Ringwood, NJ)

Snow Falling IV (Ringwood, NJ)

II. The Days Following the Storm

\\\\

Impression (Ringwood, NJ)

In Flight (Ringwood, NJ)

Into Fog (Ringwood, NJ)

Briar (Warwick, NY)

Color Rising (Ringwood, NJ)

Autumn (Ringwood, NJ)

Vertical (West Milford, NJ)

Self Importance and the Sea

I've Been to Sea Before (M.A. Reilly, on linen, 2/2011)

Whenever self importance starts creeping into my locutions, I know it's time to head to the sea.

It's a powerful reminder of my very, very small place in this world.  I spent part of August just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean. I visited there most mornings early enough to watch the sun color the water, sand, sky; chat with a few of the local fishermen, and returned once late enough to watch the moon rise.When I go to the sea, I often recall Kate Chopin's The Awakening. There she tells us:

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."

I read that novel on a day when the high school where I taught English was closed due to blizzard-like snow, a snow that fell heavy through the day, with fierce winds shifting the landscape from known to not. I was 28. And perhaps that's what I appreciate about the sea as well: the bigness of it reinforces all I cannot see while looking.  I lived in the country then, dried my clothes on a line strung between two trees and counted myself blessed when $14.97 remained in my savings by the end of the summer--the very first one that I had not worked. I lived on so little then.

I go to the sea to balance the trappings of acquisition.  Now there is a clutter to my life that I am working through, ridding myself of things a little at a time. Two years ago Rob and I cut up each and every credit card we had acquired and now we live within our means.  The experience and practice at this has allowed me to see all of the stuff I have acquired that frankly, I simply do not need.  It's a bit embarrassing when I take stock of all the unnecessary things with which I filled my life and compare that with how most on this planet live.

I wonder about the relationship between acquisition and self importance.

I go to the sea to feel. I go to hold momentarily the juxtaposition of faith and sound; mass and grace.  I think of this as I stare out the window and see that today it is snowing--a sea of white. Late October and the whiteness is falling, foregrounding the spaces between trees, still heavy with leaves, allowing me to notice distance in ways I simply would not see without the falling snow.

Nature shifts our sight.  Everywhere there are reminders that how I see, come to name and know shifts alongside the slant of landscape.

10.29.11, M.A. Reilly

10.29.11, M.A. Reilly

It's Best Not To Confuse

Ambiguity (2008)

I was recently reminded that when district leadership works feverishly on small, inconsequential control issues it does so in order to avoid having to address systemic issues related to leadership, organization, practices and policy.  This person said, "It gives the illusion of getting tough, when getting smart was actually needed." It made me pause and consider the inherent danger in confusing one thing with another. Then Will Richardson posted, Easier vs Better and again I thought about the dichotomies it might be best to uncouple.

With that in mind, here's a list of things it is best not to confuse:

1. technician with teacher
2. standardization with excellence
3. testing with achievement
4. manager with principal-teacher
5. authority with leadership
6. compliance with agreement
7. method (any really) with innovation
8. scripted instruction with teaching
9. National Standards with individual standards
10. professional development with professional learning
11. pacing with depth
12. assigning with occasioning
13. measurement with outcome
14. data with story
15. technology with technique
16. attending meetings with distributed leadership
17. 'best' practices with experience
18. test preparation with curriculum
19. efficiency with excellence
20. explicit content with ways of knowing
21. mission statement with vision
22. schooling with learning
23. being busy with solving problems
24. production with value
25. control with self organization
26. grading with response
27. mandates with choice
28. telling & directing with empathy 
29. content learning with disciplinary knowledge
30. answering with agency
31. student with learner

Feel free to add to the list...

Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment: Day 1

Paterson Falls (2011)

Today I completed the first day of a five-day seminar based on Reuven Feuerstein's work presented by Dr. Joyce Swofford and Jan Burnett from Southeastern Center for the Enhancement of Learning (SCEL). I am keeping track of my learning as I work through the assessment tasks.  Today we worked through several pages of Organization of Dots.  It was surprising how much my thinking and learning dispositions were revealed as I worked.

From here.

Like Rain Falling

1. Seeing one shape helps me to see the other.
2. Isolating a shape (the square) allows me to see the possibility of other shapes.
3. Clean surfaces allow me to see better. Too many lines clutter.
4. A light touch with the pencil works better than a heavy hand (erasing).
5. I wonder which pattern isn’t easily noticeable to me and how I might begin to be aware of the holes in how I see.
6. Two close dots allow me to know that they cannot be part of the figure.
7. Color and emphasis (bolded) helps me to see patterns.
8. I recall images I have made as I study the dots. For example, when finding parallel lines I thought about the image to the right.
9. I tend to resituate what I see in a given environment geometrically, without a lot of conscious thought (if any). For example, in the room we are in the auditorium curtains resemble a series of parallel lines.
10. Checking with others matter. This leads to discussion in which clarification occurs.
11. Attention to detail and precision matters. It seems helpful to practice this from the start so that when complexity increases, drawing careful lines is more habit than thought.
12. Do you need to check the model?
13. Errors lead to revision and to new learning.
14. In a field of the same shapes, actually drawing lines become important. Is this connected to elimination?
15. I am not afraid of making errors.
16. I complete all aspects of the task even when I don't actually need to do so as I have already figured out the answer. Thinking about why I do this has me recalling much of the homework I did in elementary school and how simply knowing a term never satisfied the assignment.  Rather I filled notebooks with terms, underlined (using a ruler) and defined in complete sentences.
17. Checking responses with peers is helpful, especially as the tasks increase in difficulty.
18. Color dots no longer signal anything related to the task and I quickly stop attending to color. Flexible strategies are important.
19. Strategies emerge alongside context. (Finding parallel lines simplify the task when figures are overlayed.)
20. If…then hypothetical structure underlies the find the error task. Reminds me of algebraic thinking (Solving for x).
21. As complexity increases, checking the pattern happens more often.
22. I find myself relying on inner speech (sub-vocalizing) as I work through worksheet E.
23. As complexity increases and fatigue sets in, I can hear myself begin to doubt whether I will be able to finish the task. As I complete more tasks, my confidence is restored. I recall Karen saying something similar earlier on.
24. Fatigue matters in ways I had not known: capacity to help others, attention to detail and precision.
25. I can see how so much of what we are doing would be beneficial to learners insomuch as it would help them to name and strengthen cognitive strategies/dispositions. 
26. I have long believed that intelligence is learnable.  Interesting to see, feel, and experience it in action.

An Anatomy of a Learning Walk

Images from Learning Walk taken with 60 HS students on Friday, 10/21/11, beginning at the Staten Island Ferry, South Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Zuccotti Park, Wall Street, and back across the ferry.

At the Station

Approaching

The East Side

Midtown

Towards Manhattan

Like Rain Falling

Clouds Gathering

The Group

OWS

Chanting

The Photographer

Serfdom

Wall Street

Trinity Church

South Street Seaport

Liberty

The Narrows

Learning Walk, II

On Friday, October 21, 2011, sixty students, five teachers and I went to Manhattan via the Staten Island Ferry and took a walk along the East River to the Brooklyn Bridge, crossed it and came back to Manhattan and then some of us made our way to Zuccotti Park and then down Wall Street where we met up with the whole group at South Street Seaport, before walking back to the ferry. Along the way there was a lot of talk among students and teachers, noticings, and much photography. This is the third learning walk I have taken this year with teachers and students in Manhattan.  During the next few weeks I will be gathering impressions from both groups about the learning that is occurring and will post what I learn here, along with images and other products that students composed.

Map of Learning Walk for 10.21.11, 4.65 miles.

Critical Literacy: I Am Not Moving

If you teach critical literacy, this film made by Occupy Wall Street makes for rich conversation and deconstruction.  Thanks to @irasocol for tweeting it out.



Would love to know what you and your students think.

I live over here - A DIY App & a Process Heading Your Way

Want to be inspired? Wondering what happens when collaboration happens at the production level?

from here.

Check out the iPhone app that @HeidiSiwak @ianchia (from Being Prudence) and the sixth graders in Class 62 at Dundas Central Public School are producing. You can read about the project here: I live over here - a DIY app.

What is equally exciting though is that the processes that Heidi, her students and Ian are inventing and learning may well inform an app that you and I can make use of with our students.  Ian explains:

Our hope is that we all learn from each other, and potentially create an extension of this app so that we can open the system up to other classrooms around the world from 3rd graders upwards to middle school and high school students. We can imagine an app that allows many classrooms to create their own content, and download the contributions from other classes of children and youth from around the world. Ideally - the app would have a body of creative-commons licenced curriculum behind it for many grade levels, so that we can open up participation for learners of multiple ages.

Keeping Things Whole: How Do you Open to New Possibilities?

Suburbia (M.A. Reilly, 2011)

Yesterday in a quick Twitter exchange with Pam Moran (@pammoran) she commented on the importance of administrators developing voice. I thought about what that might mean as well as what might inhibit one from developing a voice.  At this same time I was reading and stumbled upon "Keeping Things Whole," that American poet, Mark Strand (1980) wrote.

Keeping Things Whole

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk I part the air

and always

the air moves in 

to fill the spaces

where my body's been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Here's a visual interpretation of the poem:




So I am curious as to how you open yourself to (k)new possibilities?  What does opening yourself to possibility mean given the work you perform, the life you compose, the art you become?

I move/
to keep things whole.

How about you?


Work Cited:
Strand, M. (1980). Selected poems. New York: Atheneum.

Easy Video: 4 Ways to Make Video in the Classroom

In this post I take a look at easy video makers.

First video was made using Xtranormal.


Sample
by: MaryAnnReilly2



Here is the one-minute video I made on Stupeflix.

 


This 30-second video, Fogbound, was made using Animoto. Again, images were imported from my Flickr account and I selected music from the Animoto site.


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

This film I made in a tenth grade classroom last fall.  I made the images first, using newspaper and white and black gesso.  The idea was to demonstrate to the high school students that story can begin with image.  I tore newspaper and spilled the gesso, creating a series of images that I then photographed.  I imported the images into my MacBook and began to think about a poem that might accompany the images. Using iMovie I began to assembled the images and based on what I was seeing I started to write a poem.  I worked back and forth between the images and the poem I was writing.  As I worked I a started to think about the value of writing.  I completed th epoem and thought about how the words might be connected to the images. I then recorded the poem (using GarageBand) and used it as the background for the iMovie. The finished product took about 40 minutes to complete.

Out Walking: "For Every Walk is a Sort of Crusade"

Last Tuesday, I participated in a learning walk with 40 high school students and three other teachers.  The walk began and ended in Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan (NYC). 

Here is a map of the walk that I made at the site, MapMyWalk.

Map route of Learning Walk taken in Washington Heights (NYC).

Why Learning Walks?

It is a bit difficult to properly explain why simply walking, sauntering--needs to be a key method to occasion learning.  At a time when busy busy busy and faster faster faster seems to be the mode of work, slowing down to make enough empty space in which to learn may seem frivolous, unnecessary. I want to suggest it may be the most necessary action we make.  For so long we have mistakenly privileged being well educated with knowing explicit knowledge. The very way we structure secondary schools as content based courses and increasingly are restructuring elementary schools into dedicated periods to study "subjects" reinforces the notion of explicit knowledge being prized. 

Now to be sure, I am not suggesting that knowing explicit information is not important.  But I do want to stress that it is hopelessly incomplete and inside the 'school' day there needs to be large blocks of time for tacit learning.  Learning walks privilege the opportunity for both explicit and tacit knowing. For example, during the Washington Heights walk, students had the choice of using flip cameras and/or their own phones to document what they were noticing.  For example, towards the end of the walk, we were heading up Broadway and at 178th Street we met a man selling flavored ices.  He pushed a handmade cart in which he had a dozen or so bottles of flavor each in its own spot on the perimeter of the cart.  In the center of the cart was a block of ice he had covered. The students were fascinated and as the majority of them spoke Spanish, they were able to order their ices and talk with the man as his primary language seemed to be Spanish. I am uncertain as to how many, if any, of the students had previously seen ices made from an actual block of ice and a bit of muscle, but it was certainly a different experience than one might have ordering a slushy at a fast food place.  Many of the students documented the encounter.

During the next few weeks, most of the students will also take learning walks across the Brooklyn Bridge and through the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.  They previously took a learning walk through lower Manhattan via the Staten Island Ferry. On that trip we happened past Liberty Park and students were able to talk with protesters and police.  What students make of these experiences is impossible to know.  Yet, what is known is that these experiences will inform their knowing and may well become codified and shared in classes and in via their expressions.

Henry David Thoreau knew the value of walking.  In his seminal text, Walking, he wrote:

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who
understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks--who had a
genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING, which word is beautifully derived
"from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and
asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy
Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a
Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their
walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they
who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some,
however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home,
which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular
home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of
successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be
the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is
no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while
sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the
first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is
a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth
and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

I think both definitions work well. One outcome sought via the learning walks is to help students (and ourselves) experience a world that may be less than familiar and in doing so be at home everywhere.  The second is to create the occasion where experiential ways of knowing happen and allow for a different type of community to emerge.  In this manner, the learning walk is a type of crusade: a joining together.

Here are a few images I made during the walk. 

'A Link in the Chain of Speech Communion'

Yesterday, my rather humble blog passed the mark of 20,000 visitors from 123 countries. A year ago I began the blog and truth be told, I am a bit amazed at the numbers as it had not occurred to me that a blog could or would attract such 'global' readership. 

Depending on your experience with social media, the power of blogging may be difficult to know, appreciate, and value.  I've noticed a lot of posts with titles such as: Why I Blog, Why Blogging Matters, Why Teachers Should Blog and so on and decided to weigh in on the matter.  I began blogging in earnest a couple months after meeting Will Richardson. I had started the blog in December of 2009 and made just one post which was generated in response to an assignment--something I would not recommend be done.  In 2009, the idea of blogging didn't mean anything to me, as I was uninitiated. I was taught the technical aspects of establishing a blog which were nothing more then point and click. Whereas I knew a fair amount about writing in a 1.0 world, what I knew did not necessarily help me to understand some key attributes of blogging: largely that it is social and rhizomatic.  The assignment once done only served to undermine my confidence.  I had nothing to say and I was saying it (not as eloquently as John Cage) and felt I had 'failed' blogging.  So when Will showed a screen shot of his blog to a group of us, I was pretty intrigued by a graphic displayed on it that showed the globe filled with lots and lots of red dots. Each dot indicated a visitor to the blog and frankly Will's globe was mostly red. 

I connected that day to a shift in understanding about how communication happens via blogs.  Although I had written a fair amount prior to blogging, my writing tended to be academic and published rather exclusively in professional journals that were juried. Some of those journals enjoyed significant readership.  In many ways though the academic writing world seemed based on a communication model much like Saussure theorized at the turn of the last century.  It was a linear transmission model. I wrote a text, some peers reviewed the text, the text was accepted for publication (with or without revision), a final version was submitted, the text was published and made available for others to read.  A concern with Saussure's communication model is that it assumed that a listener's comprehension mirrored the speaker's and so given that belief, the unidirectional representation seemed complete. Oddly, many academic journals seem built upon a similar mindset as dialogue is not facilitated. 

Blogging assumes a rather different model of communication: more akin to Mikhail Bakhtin's (1986) notion of dialogue as a "link in the chain of speech communion" (76) rather than an encoder-decoder model. A year later, I am understanding that blog posts are rhizomatic in ways print publication simply cannot be.  After meeting Will, I began to 'follow' him on Twitter, to read his posts, and to follow the hyperlinks within those posts to other posts. It was dizzying. In doing so I found other blogs I enjoyed reading, agreed and/or quarreled with, and after a bit of time found myself responding in print. Even when I did not post a response, I often followed the 'conversation'. At the same time, in part because of what I was reading, I became aware of a need to communicate my understanding of and concerns with the Common Core Standards. In many ways I had been entering that dialogue without writing and so in late August I found I had a lot to say and began doing so via the blog, beginning with the post, Nomadic Reading in a Standards-Based World.

Blogging is not simply about 'writing' and to think of it as a writing task is to make a mistake. Rather, blogging is about entering into a chain of speech communion, of which you are a link.  Depending on how you enter and re-enter, the chain often appears quite different and what you link/unlink shifts.  It would have been difficult, if not impossible for me to understand this without blogging and as I write this I am confident that there is much more that I don't realize from the place I am standing.

The only advice I offer today is to not assign blogging as a task for students to complete. Initiate learners by reading, listening and viewing blogs and leave the choice to commit to writing a blog to the individual. 

Poetry Books for Grades 3 - 5

from Gathering the Sun. Illustrated by Simon Silva.

Ada, Alma Flor. 1994.  Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet in Spanish and English. Illustrated by Simon Silva. NY: HarperTrophy.      

Adedjouma, Davida, (Ed.). 1996. The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children. Illustrated by Gregory Christie. New York: Lee & Low.    

Adoff, Arnold. 2000. Touch the Poem. Illustrated by Lisa Desimini. NY The Blue Sky Press.  

Alarcón, Francisco X. 2005. Laughing Tomatoes: And Other Spring Poems/Jitomates risuenos: y otros poemas de primavera. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.  

  -----------------------. 2005. From the Bellybutton of the Moon and Other Summer Poems / Del Ombligo de la Luna: Y Otros Poemas de Verano. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.      

-----------------------. 2005. Angels Ride Bikes: And Other Fall Poems / Los Angeles Andan en bicicleta: Y Otros Poemas de Otoño. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.      

-----------------------. 2005. Iguanas in the Snow: And Other Winter Poems / Iguanas en la Nieve Y Otros Poemas de Invierno. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.       

-----------------------. 2005. Poems to Dream Together/Poemas para soñar juntos. Illustrated by Paula Barragan. NY: Lee & Low.    

Argueta, Jorge. 2010. Arroz con leche/Rice Pudding: In poema para cocinar/A Cooking Poem. Illustrated by Fernando Vilela. Toronto: Groundwood.    

------------------. 2006. Talking with Mother Earth/ Hablando con Madre Tierra: Poems/poemas. Illustrated by Lucia Angela Perez. Toronto: Groundwood.   

------------------. 2003. Trees are Hanging from the Sky. Illustrated by Rafael Yockteng. Toronto: Groundwood.      

-----------------. 2001. A Movie in My Pillow/Una película en mi almohada. Illustrated by Elizabeth Gómez. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.

Belting, Natalie. 2006. Spirit Dancing: Poems Based on Traditional American Indian Songs and Stories. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. NY: Milk & Cookie Press.   

Bernier-Grand, Carmen T. 2004. César: !Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! Illustrated by David Diaz. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish.      

Bierhorst, John (Translator). 1994. On the Road of Stars: Native American Night Poems and Sleep Charms. Illustrated by Judy Pedersen. NY: Macmillan.    

Bouchard, David. 2003. The Elders are Watching. Paintings by Roy Henry Vickers (First Nations). Vancouver, BC: Raincoast Books.  

Brand, Dionne. 2006. Earth Magic. Illustrated by Eugenue Fernandes.  NY: Kids Can Press.  

Brenner, Barbara. 1994. The Earth is Painted Green: A Garden of Poems About Our Planet. Illustrated by S.D. Schindler. New York: Scholastic.   

Brooks, Gwendolyn. 2007. Bronzeville Boys and Girls. Illustrated by Faith Ringgold. NY: Amistad.    

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki). 1998. The Earth Under Sky Bear’s Feet. Illustrated by Thomas Locker. NY: Putnam Juvenile.    

Carroll, Lewis. 2007. Jabberwocky. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Hyperion.   

Cline-Ransome, Lisa. 2001. Quilt Alphabet. Illustrated by James Ransome. NY: Holiday House.    

Clinton, Catherine (Ed.).1998.  I, Too, Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry. Illustrated by Stephen Alcorn. Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin.    

Cole, William. 1981. Poem Stew. Illustrated by Karen Ann Weinhaus. NY: HarperTrophy.      

Dotlich, Rebecca Kai. 1998. Lemonade Sun and Other Summer Poems. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.  

Esbensen, Barbara Juster. 2003. Swing Around the Sun. Illustrated by Cheng-Khee Chee, Janice Lee Porter, Mary GrandPre, and Stephen Grammell. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books/Lerner.    

Fletcher, Ralph. 2007. Moving Day. Illustrated by Jennifer Emery. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong.   

Florian, Doug. 2007. Comet, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.

from Dear Hot Dog by Mordicai Gerstein.

Gerstein, Mordicai. 2011. Dear Hot Dog. NY: Abrams Books for Young Readers.  

Giovanni, Nikki. 2008. Hip Hop Speaks to Children with CD: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat. Illustrated by Alicia Vergel de Dios, Damian Ward, Kristen Balouch, Jeremy Tugeau, Michele Noiset. Naperville,IL: Sourcebook.  

Graves, Donald. 1996. Baseball, Snakes and Summer Squash: Poems About Growing Up. Illustrated by Paul Birling. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.    

Gray, Rita (Compiler). 2010. One Big Rain: Poems for a Rainy Day. Illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke. Cambridge, MA: Charlesbridge.    

Greenfield, Eloise. 2006. When The Horses Ride By: Children in the Time of War. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. NY: Lee & Low.   

--------------------. 1993. Nathaniel Talking. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. NY: Writers & Readers.   

--------------------. 1991. Under the Sunday Tree. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. NY: HarperCollins.  

from When Horses Ride By: Children in the Time of War. Illustrations by Jan Gilchrist.

Grimes, Nikki. 2006. Thanks a Million. Illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera. NY: Greenwillow.      

---------------. 2001. Danitra Brown Leaves Town. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. NY: Amistad.     

---------------. 1998. A Dime a Dozen. Illustrated by Angelo. NY: Dell.    

Gunning, Monica. 2004. America, My New Home: Poems. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.    

---------------------.1999. Not a Copper Penny in Me House: Poems from the Caribbean. Illustrated by  Frané Lessac. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.         

Hallworth, Grace. 2011. Down by the River: Afro-Caribbean Rhymes, Games and Songs for Children. Illustrated by Caroline Binch. London: Frances Lincoln Books.     

Heard, Georgia (Ed.). 2009. Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems. NY: Roaring Brook Press.    

-----------------. 1997. Creatures of Earth, Sea, and Sky: Poems. Illustrated by Jennifer Owings Dewey. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.    

Herrera, Juan Felipe. 1998. Laughing Out Loud, Fly: Poems in English and Spanish. Illustrated by Karen Barbour. NY: Joana Colter Books.         

High, Linda Oatman. 2001. A Humble Life: Plain Poems. Illustrated by Bill Farnsworth. NY: Candlewick.    

Ho, Minfong.1996. Maples in the Mist: Children’s Poems from the Tang Dynasty. Illustrated by Jean & Mou-sien Tseng. NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.    

hooks, bell. 2004. Skin Again. Illustrated by Chris Raschka. NY: Jump at the Sun.       

Hopkins, Lee Bennett (Ed.). 2007. Behind the Museum Door: Poems to Celebrate the Wonders of Museums. Illustrated by Stacey Dressen McQueen. NY: Harry N. Abrams Books.   

Issa. 2007. today and today: haiku by Issa. Illustrated by G. Brian Karas. NY: Scholastic.      

Iyengar, Malathi Michelle. 2009. Tan to Tamarind. Illustrated by Jamel Akib. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.   

From Tan to Tamarind. Illustration by Jamel Akib.

Jones, Lessie Little. 2000. Children of Long Ago. Illustrations by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. NY: Lee & Low.    

Lee, Claudia M. (Ed.). 2002. Messengers of Rain and Other Poems from Latin America. Illustrated by Tafael Yockteng Toronto, Groundwood Books.     

Maher, Ramona. 2004. Alice Yazzie's Year. Illustrated by Shonto Begay (Diné). San Francisco, CA: Tricycle Press. 

Mak, Kim. 2001. My Chinatown: One Year in Poems. NY: Harper’s.       

Medina, Jane. 1999. My Name is Jorge On Both Sides of the the River. Illustrated by Fabrico Vanden Broeck. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.     

Medina, Tony. 2002. Love to Lanston. Illustrated by R Gregory Christie. NY: Lee & Low.       

Miller, Kate. 2007. Poems in Black and White. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong.   

Mora, Pat. 2006. Confetti: Poemas para ninos/Poems for Children. Illustrated by Enrique O. Sanchez. NY: Lee & Low.    

-----------. 2004. Love to Mama: A Tribute to Mothers. Illustrated by Paula S. Barragan. NY: Lee & Low.  

----------------. 2001. Listen to the Desert/Oye al desierto. Illustrated by Francisco X. Mora. New York: Clarion.   

from Blues Journey. Illustrated by Christopher Myers

 Myers, Walter Dean. 2009. Looking Like Me. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Egmont.  

----------------------. 2008. Jazz. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Holiday House.  

----------------------. 2003. Blues Journey. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Holiday House.  

----------------------. 1997. Harlem. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Scholastic. 

Nishimoto, Keisuke. 1998. Haiku Picturebook for Children. Illustrated by Kozo Shimizu. Heian International.   

Nelson, Marilyn. 2009. Sweethearts of Rhythm. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. NY: Dial.   

Norman, Lissette. 2006. My Feet are Laughing. Illustrated by Frank Morrison. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.    

Nye, Naomi Shihab. 2000. Come with Me: Poems for a Journey. Illustrated by Dan Yaccarino. New York: Greenwillow.    

Olaleye, Isaac. 1995. The Distant Talking Drum: Poems from Nigeria. Illustrated by Frané Lessac. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong. 

From Red Sings from the Rooftop. Illustrated by Pamela Zagaremski

 Rochelle, Belinda. 2000. Words with Wings: A Treasury of African-American Poetry and Art.  NY: Amistad.   

Rosen, Michael J. 2009. The Cuckoo's Haiku and Other Birding Poems. Illustrated by Stan Fellows. Cambridge, MA Candlewick. 

Schaefer, Lola M. 2006. An Island Grows. Illustrated by Cathie Felstead. NY: Greenwillow Books. 

Shange, Ntozake. 2009. We Troubled the Water. Illustrated by Rod Brown. NY: Amistad.    

Sidman, Joyce. 2011. Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature. Illustrated by Beth Krommes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.       

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-----------------. 2007. This Is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness. Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 

-----------------.2006. Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. Illustrated by Beth Krommes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.  

-----------------. 2005. Song of the Waterboatman and Other Pond Poems. Illustrated by Beckie Prange. San Diego, CA: Houghton Mifflin.   

 Siebert, Diane. 2006. Tour America: Through Poems and Art. Illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson. Gosau, Switzerland: Seastar.      

Singer, Marilyn. 2002. Footprints on the Roof: Poems about the Earth. Illustrated by Meilo So. Borzoi Books. 

 Smith, Charles R. Jr. 2002. Perfect Harmony: A Musical Journey with The Boys Choir of Harlem. NY: Jump at the Sun.   

-----------------------. 2000. Rimshots: Basketball Pix, Shots and Rhythms. NY: Puffin.    

Soto, Gary. 2003. Neighborhood Odes. Illustrated by David Diaz. NY: Sandpiper.    

Tadjo, Veronique, (ed.). 2004. Talking Drums: A Selection of Poems from Africa south of the Sahara. NY: Bloomsbury.      

Thomas, Joyce Carol. 2008. The Blacker the Berry. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. NY: Amistad.     

-------------------------. 1998. I Have Heard of a Land. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. NY: Joanna Cotler Books.    

------------------------. 1993. Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. NY: HarperCollins.      

Updike, John. 1999. A Child's Calendar. Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. NY: Holiday House.

From Animal Poems. Illustrated by Steve Jenkins.

Walker, Alice, 2007. Why War is Never a Good Idea. Illustrated by Stefano Vitale. NY: HarperCollins.  Weatherford, Carole Boston. 2006. Dear Mr. Rosenwald. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. NY: Scholastic.   

 ---------------------------------. 2001. Sidewalk Chalk: Poems of the City. Illustrated by Dimitrea Tokumbo. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.       

Winnick, Karen B. 2011. A Year Goes Round: Poems for Twelve Months. Honesdale, PA: Wordson/Boyds Mills Press.    

Wong, Janet, S. 2007. Yoga Poems. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. NY: Margaret E. McElkderry Books.   -----------------. 2000. Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. NY: Margaret E. McElkderry Books.     

Woodson, Jacqueline. 2003. Locomotion. NY: Speak.   

Worth, Valerie. 2007. Animal Poems. Illustrated by Steve Jenkins. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.     

Yolen, J. (ed.). 1997. Once Upon Ice and Other Frozen Poems. Photographs by Jason Stemple. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.   

Zimmer, Tracie Vaughn. 2009. Steady Hands: Poems About Work. Illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy. NY: Clarion Books.