In honor of National Poetry Month, the NCTE Children’s Poetry Awards Committee is sponsoring a special event to support teachers in using poetry to meet a wide variety of education goals. Join award-winning poets Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong as they lead several authors in a webinar providing educators at all levels with ideas for engaging teachers and students in poetry.
Participants will learn
- how to guide students in gathering and analyzing a wide range of research, including authentic voices, historical and scientific facts, and personal narratives, to deepen their understanding of complex issues;
- how to support students as they evaluate sources, construct logical conclusions, and integrate research into their own writing; and
- how to explore the use of the texts, “wonderfuzz (fussy things they wonder),” and “thimblethoughts (tiny random facts that have personal meaning in their lives)” as inquiry tools to foster student curiosity, personal connections, and critical thinking while enhancing communication skills.
Vardell is a former co-chair of the NCTE Children’s Poetry Awards Committee. Wong is the 2021 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children winner and a former member of the NCTE Children’s Poetry Awards Committee. Both are seasoned presenters, poets, and publishers who bring a wealth of energy and experience to every event they lead. They and the featured author poets will provide a fun and practical experience for preK–12 teachers, as well as higher education educators, who are looking to deepen their practice through the use of poetry texts.
Authors Chris Baron, Renée M. LaTulippe, Padma Venkatraman, and Allan Wolf will join Vardell and Wong for this event.
Join us Thursday, April 24, 7:00–8:00 p.m. ET.
REGISTER HERE
This event is free for all NCTE members. Not yet a member? Join today!
Certificates of completion will be available for attendees after the event, by request. Please contact profdev@ncte.org with any questions.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Sylvia M. Vardell is professor emerita in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University, where she taught graduate courses in children’s and young adult literature for more than twenty years. Vardell has published extensively, including five books on literature for children, as well as more than twenty-five book chapters and a hundred journal articles. Learn more about Sylvia at SylviaVardell.com.
Janet Wong is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former lawyer. She has written more than forty books for children on a wide variety of subjects, including chess (Alex and the Wednesday Chess Club) and yoga (Twist: Yoga Poems). She is the 2021 winner of the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, a lifetime achievement award that is one of the highest honors a children’s poet can receive. Learn more about Janet at Janet-Wong.com.
Together, Vardell & Wong are the creative forces behind Pomelo Books, a publisher whose anthologies feature the work of more than 250 poets. Their most recent book is Clara’s Kooky Compendium of Thimblethoughts and Wonderfuzz, a journal-style book containing poems by seventy-plus poets that details a week in the life of Clara, her classmates, and her family. Learn more at PomeloBooks.com.
Chris Baron is the award-winning author of novels for young (and young at heart) readers including All of Me, an NCTE Notable Book; The Magical Imperfect, a Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable Book and a SLJ Best Book of 2021; The Gray, a ProjectLIT 2023–2024 Selection; Spark from Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan; and The Secret of the Dragon Gems, a middle grades novel co-authored with Rajani LaRocca from Little Bee Books. Baron is also editor of On All Other Nights: A Middle Grade Passover Anthology from Abrams, and Lantern Tree (City Works Press), winner of the San Diego Book Award for Poetry. He is a professor of English at San Diego City College and the director of the writing center. He grew up in New York City, but he completed his MFA in poetry in 1998 at SDSU. He lives in San Diego with his family.
Renée M. LaTulippe is a poet and author, a former teacher of English and theater, and the founder of the Lyrical Language Lab online writing course for kidlit writers. Her publications include the forthcoming MG poetry collection Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics!, the poem picture book The Crab Ballet, poems in numerous anthologies, and a series of decodable readers. Discover more at www.reneelatulippe.com.
Padma Venkatraman is the author of The Bridge Home, Born Behind Bars, A Time to Dance, Island’s End and Climbing the Stairs. Her books have sold over ¼ million copies, received over 20 starred reviews, and won numerous awards: Walter Dean Myers Award, South Asia Book Award, Golden Kite, ALA Notable, etc. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Magazine and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. “An exquisite novel in verse by one of my favorite poets,” says Newbery honor winner Margarita Engle about Venkatraman’s upcoming novel, Safe Harbor, which School Library Journal called a “must read” in a starred review. Inspired by Venkatraman’s doctorate in oceanography, Safe Harbor features a girl who rescues a stranded seal. When she’s not writing, Venkatraman loves teaching and sharing her love for reading, writing and science. Visit her website to download free teacher and writer resources and arrange an event via her speaking agency, The Author Village.
Allan Wolf’s many picture books, poetry collections, and young adult novels celebrate his love of research, history, science, and poetry. He is a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, two-time winner of the North Carolina Young Adult Book Award, and recipient of New York’s Bankstreet College Claudia Lewis Award for Poetry. Wolf’s YA novel in verse, The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic, was included on Booklist’s 50 Best YA Books of All Time. He has three books coming in 2025, all from Candlewick Press: a poetry collection, The Gift of the Broken Teacup: Poems of Mindfulness, Meditation, and Me; a prose novel, Junius Leak and the Spiraling Vortex of Doom; and a graphic novel, The Vanishing of Lake Peigneur. Wolf lives in Asheville, NC, and Roanoke, VA. See more at www.allanwolf.com