CMIS Evaluation Primary Focus

Joy Cowley and Gavin Bishop’s delightful Snake and Lizard is this year’s winner of the prestigious New Zealand Post Book of the Year prize and Junior Fiction Award.

Snake and Lizard is highly recommended on this year’s Primary Focus list.

Excellent articles about Cowley and Bishop are available on the New Zealand Book Council website.

The winners for the 2008 New Zealand Post Book Awards were announced at an awards ceremony on Wednesday 21 May at the Wellington Town Hall.

View the press release, the judges’ report and the 2008 winning titles.

Composing poetry [DET teachers only] can be one of the most exciting and personally rewarding forms of creative writing. By writing poems [DET teachers only], students learn how to tap into their feelings, as well as their five senses. But learning to write poetry can be a daunting task for most children as students often mistakenly equate poetry with rhyme. The studying of poetry should be one of exploration and initial poetry study should focus on meaning and playing with words. Focusing on poetry in this way allow students to express themselves and delve deeply into their own creativity.  

How to write poems by Wes Magee is a useful resource for teachers for teaching young writers to express themselves creatively and explore poetry craft elements. Designed to assist children write poems, this book contains basic tips on getting started and gives examples of types of poems and their special features. 

One common approach when challenging young people to write poetry is to focus on themes such as colours, seasons, the weather or the natural elements and introduce poetry forms as students write on these themes. The Elements in poetry series of four books comprising of Air, Earth, Fire and Water brings together a mix of poetical works related to each of the elements. The poems in these books are short and contain a variety of different forms, styles and structures.

By reading a variety of poems by a range of writers including their peers in read alouds, independent reading and group sharing, students will begin to play with poetic ideas and forms.

Students also enjoy seeing their by-line, and publishing their work brings out their best efforts. Teachers can create a class anthology that includes at least one poem by each student and is available for borrowing at the school library. Other teachers may publish poems in less traditional ways, such as on classroom bulletin boards or in common spaces around the school. There are also web sites that provide opportunities for electronic forms of publishing young poets’ works.

  Whilst recognising the value of Drama as an art form, Drama Learning Connections in Primary Schools takes an indepth look at the range of approaches to the study of Drama.

It is divided into two major sections:

• Section 1: Drama in Learning Contexts explores how Drama can be integrated in the overall curriculum and individual classroom learning programs.
• Section 2: Drama Building Blocks for Learning focuses on the creative processes of drama – key elements and drama forms.

The text is supported by: Activity boxes which provide descriptions of drama activities with notes; Concept boxes which include guidelines, procedures, diagrams or images to reinforce points in the text; From the classroom boxes which provide brief accounts of  drama use with primary school students; and Story and Script Boxes which contain summaries or partial/full text of a story or script.

The late Colin Thiele, award winning author of a number of well-known Australian classics including Sun on the Stubble and Storm Boy passed away in September 2006 at the age of 85.  Before he died he wrote Miss Bilby, which was published in December last year. 

The major theme of this new picture book is the conservation of endangered animals like the bilby. Written in rhyming verse, it tells of gentle, shy Miss Bilby facing attacks from feral animals like foxes. The descriptive langauge, beautiful full-page illustrations and strong environmental message will appeal to primary aged students.

The next Colin Thiele book, Billy Bilby’s barbecue will be released in May 2008.

For more resources on Threatened Species, visit the CMIS Threatened Species Theme page and find resource lists, local projects and websites on this topic.