Programs for Teachers:

Practical Poetry
- See how writing poetry can be used to activate and assess prior knowledge, increase comprehension through summarizing and retelling, strengthen literacy skills all while addressing English/language arts, math, science and social studies standards. Keynote presentations, in-service and half/all day intensives.

• -Writing across the curriculum.
  
• -Using poetry as a vehicle for learning in all content areas
  
• -Available for all grades, program will be customized to meet teacher needs
  
• -Practical Poetry
  
• -Contact Information
  

Outspoken: Improving Communication Skills through Poetry Performance
- Learning to speak with clarity and conviction gives students an authentic reason to write and strengthens literacy skills. Keynote presentations, in-service and half/all day intensives either with Sara alone or with her co-author, Michael Salinger.

• - Addresses English/Language Arts Standards
  
• -Available for teachers of grades four and above
  
• -Strengthens writing by linking activities to oral presentation skills.
  
• -Outspoken, book and DVD
  
• -Contact Information
  

Poetry Blast: Want to jump start your school's writing program? Plan a custom-designed day incorporating a half-day teacher workshop, teaching of a master class with students for teachers to observe and/or student assemblies where Sara can model performance poetry and get students excited about the written and spoken word. Poetry is powerful language and can get students of all ages and abilities excited about writing.

Multi-day residencies and parent/community events are also a possibility. Click here for a list of Sara's books for students and here for her professional books.

Nothing like an author visit to pump energy into your literacy program. Please review my guidelines for How to Make an Author Visit a Successful Learning Experience. I visit many schools every year where the kids, the teachers and I all have great fun learning with and through our poetry. My forever and always, every time goal in speaking with students is to inspire them to want to read and express themselves through writing and speaking clearly.

Poetry and poetry performance is a proven path to improved literacy and can help with:

• Word knowledge
  
• Reading fluency
  
• Comprehension
  
• Writing
  
• Speaking proficiency

Elementary Schools - I prefer to split the student body into primary and intermediate groups for two assemblies and then we can follow that with a couple of writing sessions. In the assembly I am performing my own work, weaving in lessons on visual and figurative language, inference and the importance of specific vocabulary.

Middle Schools - The day will depend in part on the size of your student body. Often I do three assembly presentations, one for each grade, and one writing workshop. If the population of the school is not too large (over 300 or so) I can see all the kids in one assembly. In the assemblies I am performing my own work (see above) with an increased emphasis on the importance of self-exploration and expression.

High Schools - Again, large assemblies are fine. At this age level, it is important that the kids see me in assembly prior to the writing workshop. Some of the students may have writing to share with me when I come. We can structure the writing time to fit the needs of the students, including a student performance and/or Poetry Slam.

Colleges - I have presented to creative writing classes, teacher education classes, psychology classes and done college convocation presentations. I'll be glad to talk about how we can meet the needs of your students.

In writing workshops, I would work with a group of 30 - 40 students in a group process to build a poem and then have the students complete the poems individually. Our concentration is on using specific language, organizing our thoughts and expressing ourselves clearly and concisely. Again, these workshops are geared to the ages and abilities of the students.

In performance workshops, I like to work with 30 students or less. We are working on developing our oral presentation skills: voice projection, movement, inflection. All of these skills will help students improve not only their speaking abilities, but also their reading and writing skills as they learn to put words in motion.

I charge a fee for the day plus expenses (air and ground travel, meals, lodging). I also offer my poetry books for sale at a discount to schools (15%) so that they can resell the books to their students, teachers and community members for profit. Schools may order the books for their book sales at any time in advance of my visit and may return any unsold books the day I visit your school. In many schools, the profits from the book sale are used to help pay my fee.

Please give me a call @ (440) 255-1124 or contact me at the E-mail link below, if you are interested in scheduling something, if you would like me to supply references, if I can answer any further questions or if you would like to discuss the specific needs of your teachers and students. Hope we can get together...