Thanks to everyone who replied. Here's a HIT for my original inquiry:
Short summary: I need to decide how large of a poetry collection is
appropriate and would appreciate input from other Elementary librarians on
how large of a collection they have (relative to their overall Dewey
holdings).
Responses:
The Anchorage School District has invested heavily in poetry collections.
One resource that I recommend for your consideration in collection
development of this interest is "Poetry in literature for youth by Angela
Leeper. I found it to be invaluable.
I've been in the same elem library for over 25 years now. My poetry didn't
move either - and I kept purchasing new suggested titles (a few a year).
Three years ago a new, young teacher said I didn't have any good poetry. I
objected - but then realized that most of that collection was shabby - or
old and the new (would be borrowed) ones blended in and weren't borrowed. I
weeded everything shabby. then I weeded collections that I was keeping
because they had good poems in them (wow, I was late in realizing the
Internet would provide those). What was left is being borrowed - by
students and by teachers.
I'm still not happy with how Dewey handles poetry for Elem students. The
numbers just don't make sense. I've tried several different ways of
organizing - and must standardize before I retire! However, I'm still
thinking about that.
The average age of my entire collection is 1991. There are 211 items in the
800s with 153 of them in the 810s. That means that out of the 800 section
72% is in poetry. The average age of the 800 section is 1990. I'm not sure
I will be of much help then since my collection is out of date.
Every year in April (National Poetry Month) , I take a majority of the
poetry books and have each student in every grade from 2nd through 7th,
memorize a poem. I let them browse, then choose a poem that's at least 6
lines (we are not eager readers here). They make one copy for themselves
and one for me and then next week we start with reciting. The younger they
are the better they do, but I had two fifth graders this year who were
finally keen and enthusiastic because they could remember their successes
from the previous 2 years. (I've stopped using Silverstein because too often
the pictures are necessary to understand the humor/purpose of the poem).
With older grades I also study the different kinds of poetry and have them
write their own. Somehow this year, poetry is in the curriculum and I was
told to purchase a fair number of poetry books, mostly anthologies and some
Prelutsky. And that anthology that Caroline Kennedy chose, as if that's a
major selling point. If they are "stories in rhyme" I feature them
especially in April with the little kids.
Some of the older anthologies, from the 50s through the 70s, are not
attractive to the students of today. My father memorized lengthy poems, but
that was half a century ago. These days kids just need to be surrounded by
them and Child's Garden of Verses doesn't have to look dusty!! Since it is
summer, I don't have access to tell you how many poetry books we have but
it's a fairly large number. I'm sorry they don't get used more, but at
least they are available!
My suggestion would be to weed the older anthologies and any from before
1980. And make sure "stories in rhyme" is a subject in your on-line
catalog. Very useful for the teachers!
If you have a computerized system, you could do a collection analysis and
that would indicate if you need to add to poetry or not. It would also
indicate the age of the collection (poetry) and which are the oldest. I hope
this helps. When I got to my school the poetry section was rather small. My
first school had a large section that was used all the time. Currently, our
section is not used a lot but we do have some good selections.
I'm all about simplifying my library while still teaching information
location skills. Because books stores, and even some public libraries, are
getting away from Dewey, I have stopped being a slave to it. Consequently,
poetry collections are all placed in 811. That way, I can teach my students
the 100 groups and a few specific numbers (811, 92, 796, 398.2, etc.) and be
done with it. I have one, 4' long shelf packed with poetry. I also have a
display rack that holds about a dozen books with a display sign that reads
"Picture Poems" through which I rotate the visually appealing poetry books
from the E section (like Casey at the Bat and The Spider and the Fly). To
increase my students interest in poetry, I often use a poem as a lesson
introduction/warm-up - like Kipling's "Six Honest Serving Men" when teaching
the 5W's and an H questions and newsapaper articles. They frequently ask
where I got the poem, giving me an opportunity to show them all the 'cool
stuff' in the 800's.
Poetry is a hard sell in elementary school, and as in most things, it needs
a cheerleader teacher who is passionate about teaching her brood about its
pleasures. It's a lot more difficult if you are the only one suggesting it;
but if you decide to champion this, you could read a different poem each
visit, or encourage young poets to read their poems aloud, etc. Begin with
humor, then seasons and holidays, and then follow your heart.
Our collection of about 10,000 has less than one shelf's worth of different
books, and it's enough for us. I would certainly first consider poetry with
artwork (a.k.a. some picture books) that engages more of the senses.
perhaps first standardize the labeling so that it a browsable collection-
all my poetry is 811 by author.
Why isn't your poetry circulating to kids? Are you reading aloud poetry in
every class? are you helping them to memorize short and fun poems? who is
your favorite poet? perhaps an author's study. Do you give them time to
write their own? What do you do to celebrate poetry month?
Are your poetry books all ratty old collections from the 1960's? Weed away.
Do you have an abundance of Kristine O'Connel George, Doug Florian, Nikki
Grimes, Marilyn Singer...? Have you read aloud Once I ate a Pie or selected
a few fun ones for the kinders out of Here is a Little Poem edited by Jane
Yolen?
Lane Young
lyoung@nscds.org
Lower School Librarian and Technology Coordinator
North Shore Country Day School
Winnetka, IL
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