Recommended Reading

Teaching With Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach
Edited by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner
Jossey-Bass, 2003
ISBN: 0787969702

This is a rich collection of poems that have inspired teachers to keep the joy of teaching and learning alive! The editors asked teachers across the country to submit their favorite poems and to describe what the poems meant to them. Thousands of teachers responded with poems that were especially meaningful to them in specific ways. The editors note that, "teachers face excessive demands on their time, heightened and manic pressure to raise test scores, and a sense of loneliness that comes from working in a profession that provides little time or opportunity to work with other adults. Yet if schools are to be places that promote academic, social, and personal development for students, everything hinges on the presence of intelligent, passionate, caring teachers. . .We all need educators who each every day can teach with fire. This book celebrates teachers who know this and have discovered that poetry can help keep their heart in the work and fire in their soul." The book concludes with an essay, " Tending the Fire: The Utility of Poetry in a Teacher's Life," that highlights the many practical ways teachers use poetry in their life and work.

Give youself or a colleague a special gift to keep close at hand!

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This information is provided by:
Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Special Education
P O Box 47200
Olympia, WA 98504-7200
(360) 725-6088
Fax (360)586-1631
E-mail: dgill@ospi.wednet.edu