In the past, when I had shared this book with students, I read it to them, but this year, I wanted to try something different.
We started in our morning-meeting-style greeting circle. I introduced the book and read the first three entries. I then passed the book to my left and each student read an entry. It was more powerful than I expected to hear the different students giving voice to Jack. The students that had to read the part about the blue car, blue car, spattered with mud, did an incredible job. The book traveled our circle almost twice. As we approached the end, I asked for the book and read the last entry.
The conversations after this experience showed my how powerful it had been, for all of us.
The next week, the students watched the Readers' Theatre production with Sharon, Walter Dean Myers, Avi, and Sarah Weeks.
The following two weeks were all about writing poetry like Jack.
Here are some of my fifth graders poems inspired by the poems in Love That Dog, along with some other poems they found on their own.
Other poets that inspired my students or
that they chose to emulate:
