sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Bushfire and some big thank yous

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How wonderful are teachers? And how awesome are young readers when they come together in a reading community lead by those teachers?

This display, at the brand new library at Clyde Primary in Victoria,  is the result of a term’s work reading Bushfire, and diving deeply into the story, the events it portrays, and the topic of natural disasters.

When teacher Nikki Elston  emailed to ask if the students could write to me, I said yes, but when I received those letters I was blown away by the enthusiasm of the students and their thoughtful questions and responses.

This is the kind of thing that makes an author’s heart sing – knowing that their book, in the hands of passionate educators, can really make a difference.

Thanks Nikki,  thanks to your colleagues and, of course, a massive thank you to the year six students who wrote to me. I will treasure those letters for a very long time.

Teaching Poetry in 2024? Right Way Down has teaching notes

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Exciting news for teachers – and for me! Fremantle Press has produced Teaching Notes for Right Way Down, now available for free on their website here.

In case you missed  my earlier posts about this book, Right Way Down  is an anthology of  contemporary poetry for primary aged readers, suitable for classroom use and for private reading. It is coedited by Rebecca M. Newman and myself, illustrated by Briony Stewart, published by Fremantle Press in collaboration with Alphabet Soup Books, and including poetry on all kinds of topics and in a range of forms, from some amazing poets.

So, if you are thinking about how to include more poetry in your classroom this year (and  why wouldn’t you?) check out the teaching notes now and mark February 27 in your diary for the relapse of the book (of course you can pre-order it now to ensure you get your copy!).

And, if you are looking for a complementary book, and even more poetry and poetry teaching ideas, my PETAA publication Teaching Poetry for Pleasure and Purpose is still available, and includes lesson ideas, resources and poems for every primary year group.

But wait – there’s more! Because if you are looking for someone to visit your school and inspire your students about the fun and magic of reading and writing poetry – I’m your girl. I can also run Professional Learning for you and your colleagues.  I love poetry so much I made it the topic of my doctoral studies which kind of sort of makes me a doctor of poetry and means I LOVE to talk about poetry.

 

Cheering for the Challenge Winners

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This year I was privileged to play a small role in the Premier’s Reading Challenge WA – as a Challenge Cheersquad member. My job was to cheer on the readers across the state who did an amazing job of reading for pleasure – with more than 360 000 books read and logged in 16 weeks.

Yesterday I attended a ceremony at Parliament House where prizes were given to the readers in each age group who read the most books, as well as to four readers who were randomly drawn (a lovely initiative because while quantity is wonderful, simply participating is equally wonderful), and then also to the schools in different enrolment categories who had the greatest participation.

What I loved about yesterday’s event was the joy in the room from everyone from the young readers, to the educators, members of the challenge staff, politicians, including the Premier and the Minister for Education, and other MPs who came along because a child from their electorate was there. A real recognition that reading matters – and, specifically, that reading for pleasure matters. It was also lovely to join fellow cheersquad members, Chenee Marapodi , who did an awesome job as event MC, and Norman Jorgensen.

You can see some lovely official photos on the Premier’s Facebook post about the event. 

And if you are not sure why I am SO excited about the Challenge being back in WA, not only do I love reading and seeing children read, but as an educator I know  that there is evidence backed research  evidence that Reading for Pleasure is more significant than a raft of other factors in a child’s educational success. That is reading for pleasure leads to better outcomes not only in literacy, but across all subjects (yes, even science and maths). And, of course, not only does reading make you smarter, but it makes you nicer – ie it builds emotional regulation, empathy and more.

So, the Premier’s Reading Challenge is not just about counting books, and feel good moments like yesterday’s – it is an investment in the future of our young people, and thus in our whole society.

Teacher Tuesday: World Poetry Day

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It’s Teacher and it’s also World Poetry Day. A whole day just to celebrate poetry!

So, here’s a poem from me that you can use in your classroom, or just listen to for your self:

And here it is written down so you can see the patterns, and perhaps use as a mentor text:

Milkshake

by Sally Murphy

The sea’s been churning icecream

Though it’s too salty to eat

It’s been rolling rolling rolling

In an icy wintry beat.

 

The sea’s been frothing milkshakes

Though they’re briny to the taste

It’s been mixing mixing mixing

With a hustle and a haste

 

The sea’s been blending smoothies

Though they’re not for you or me

It’s been churning churning churning

In a chilly stormy spree

 

The sea’s now washing dishes

With a bubble and a slosh

See it scrubbing scrubbing scrubbing

In its busy midday wash.

(copyright Sally Murphy, 2016)

 

World Poetry Day is a wonderful day to think about poetry – but also to think about entering the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards.  You can do this as a whole class activity or you might make it optional. Either way, what a wonderful, authentic way to help your young poets have their work read by a published poet (the judges are both established poets) and, of course, the chance to win a prize.

If you’d like hints or tips on ways to to write poetry for the awards or any other time, you’ll find lots here on my website, but feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Have a wonderful World Poetry Day!

Teacher Tuesday: The Kid Under the Tree

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It’s Teacher Tuesday where I usually offer an activity or lesson idea that you can use in your classroom. But this week it isn’t either of those I’m offering: just a little anecdote and a bit of a plea.

Last week I shared, among other things, this poem, written during a writing workshop as an example of a sad poem.


Then, later in the week I was lucky enough to be part of the Harvey Literary Festival where I spoke to children in years 3 and 4 from three different schools. Partly because it was semi local I found myself speaking more about my own childhood, growing up in Collie.

Later I read the opening pages of Pearl Verses the World and, as always, turned the book so show the beautiful illustrations. I pointed to Pearl, in her group of one under a tree. And, as I did so, I noticed the book on the ground next to her. And felt a little jolt of recognition.

“See that –”  I said to the group. “Pearl is just like me. I was that girl. The one who sat under a tree with a book.”

And I went on to briefly explain what I meant. So many many days in school I found the play ground a challenging beast. We were let out for a snack and a play – but playing required people to play with. I did have friends (and some of those friends are still in my life) but I also found relationships really challenging – I did not understand how to just join a game if I hadn’t been specifically invited, or if my friend was (shock, horror) playing with someone else. And there were a lot of times that I felt I had no friends.

So, I learnt very early that a book was the solution. I would find a spot – under the weeping willow in the playground was my favourite – and I would open that book and I would read. That way no one would know I was lonely, but also, I felt less lonely, because I loved reading, and I connected with the characters in the books.

Later I learnt that the library could also be a safe place, and I added this to the ways to avoid looking and feeling alone. It’s only many many years later that I realise my social awkwardness and feeling of not belonging, of not understanding the rules of friendships was (is!) part of my neurodivergence. As an adult I’ve learnt other coping strategies, and built social skills, but I am still often awkward or nervous in situations where I feel like I don’t know the rules.

So, why am I sharing this on Teacher Tuesday?  Because of the way one child responded to this story.

This child listened, then put up their hand:
“So,” they said. “Would you say books were your lifeline?”

And I realised two things – one, that this kid was very very perceptive and perhaps knew better than me the point of what I was saying. And two, I was one kid under a tree, but these kids are in every playground, every school. Under a tree with a book, in the library, bouncing a ball on their own. And sometimes we see them and know that this child is lonely – but sometimes we don’t. Because a kid reading a book could indeed be just engrossed in the a really good story. But if they’re on their own, rather than reading alongside friends, there is a good chance that they, like me, are clutching a lifeline.

So, my Teacher Tuesday plea is that, in amongst the million other wonderful things you do as a teacher, please watch out for the kid under the tree. Do what you can to nurture them, to include them, to show them that they do belong. Stop in the playground and ask them about the book – or recommend another one for next. Even better, ask them about that book in the classroom, where another reader may hear and connect. Gently check in that the child is okay. Pearl is under that tree because the things happening in her life are really big – and she needs some space to process, even though, at the same time, she feels lonely.

You don’t have to be the total solution for that child, but you can take the opportunity to be part of it, by joing themunder that tree – which isn’t such a bad thing to do. 

Teacher Tuesday: Writing ‘Sad’ Poems Using Toppling and Pearl Verses the World as Mentor Texts

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Hello and welcome to Teacher Tuesday. My goal is to post here every Tuesday with classroom ideas for Australian teachers (and teachers further abroad) but last week I didn’t post because it was one of the busiest weeks of my work year. It was the first week of semester at Curtin university where I work, and I also spent part of the week running writing masterclasses for the Literature Centre in their Talented Young Writers Program.

One of the most delightful things about being a writer is getting to meet and share young readers and writers and ,hopefully ,inspire them on their way to becoming master writers, or just better writers, so I thought this week I would share a version of what I did as part of those sessions last week. I found a really beautiful way to finish each of these extended writing workshops.

During the day we  examined the basic tools of a poet: things like simile, metaphor, and onomatopoeia as well as more nuanced tools such as using rhythm and pace even when you’re writing free verse, or layering meaning and connecting with character and place in poetic form. Then at the end of each day I that I wanted to bring all that together and I asked the students to make me cry. What I mean by this is I asked them to write a sad poem.

So what I’m sharing here today is a shortened form of that exercise. Firstly, as I said, we’d covered a lot of poetic techniques before I asked them to do this so if you were doing this in your classroom I would suggest that you would really need to unpack the mentor texts I’m going to suggest or that you already have been working a lot with poetry and therefore are confident that your students will connect either with the mentor texts or with your instructions but I also think this is an exercise that can stand alone.

This exercise is suitable for upper primary right through to secondary and it’s also suitable for adult writers. Firstly, startPearl Verses the World with actually sharing some examples of sad poetry. The two examples that I’m recommending are firstly from Pearl Verses the World the scene that goes from page 44 to page 49. If you don’t know the book this is a really intense piece of news that Pearl is receiving and it also is quite sad. When you read that text to your readers you can emphasise the way that there’s not a lot of mention of crying, there is use of repetition and other poetic techniques, but there’s also touches of humour in the lead up to that news being delivered as well as a sense of foreboding that, although it’s humorous, something’s about to happen.

Next, read the second text – from Toppling. Again in this scene John is receiving bad news – you can see there’s a theme here. The pages for this exercise are page 59 to page 63 .

If students haven’t read the rest of the either of these texts I would suggest that you decide exactly where to start and finish, but if they’ve already read the book in class, those are the pages that I recommend. You could do this exercise using other sad poems or sad text extracts you’re more familiar with. I recommend using more than one mentor text to encourage students to look at the differences as well as the similarities.

After you’ve read both passages and you’ve discussed them, the next thing is that you want your students to write. The prompt that I gave to the young these writers was that I wanted them to write me a sad poem and make me cry, and I felt quite confident with doing that because I knew that these students would get what I was talking about having worked directly with me for several hours. I then gave them a choice of two topics:
1. Write a poem about something sad.
2. Write a poem about someone receiving bad news.

I have chosen these because these particular scenes from my two books are both a combination of something quite sad but also in both cases the child in the book is receiving bad news.

Giving young writers a choice that if they actually don’t want to explore something really terrible, the bad news could be a bit flippant. It could be for example someone being told that the Dockers had lost a football game, but I would encourage them to really explore emotion.

One danger in asking children to write a sad poem is that they may just write using lots of ‘sad’ words – crying, tears, sorrow, I feel sad, I was sad and so on. So I really believe in modelling writing either before they write or while they write. As s an educator as well as an author when I ask writers to do an activity I usually also do the same activity on a whiteboard so that they can see my process but also so they have an extra model. I don’t make that example a perfect example, instead I write it on the spot.

I thought I might share with you these three examples (pictured – click on them to make them larger) which are three different sad poems that I wrote on three different days For context I did also afterwards share some of the back story on the frangipani poem because I felt that the missing piece of that puzzle was that why I was so sad wasn’t just about the tree – it was also that that tree marked the burial spot of my previous dog. And the Mundy poem is about David Mundy’s last game. I started by thin

king that I’d write something a bit light hearted by calling it Mundy Mourning with a play on words but actually it ended up bringing me back to what happened at his last game. I surprised myself because I knew I’d feel sad because I’m a Dockers fan. I knew I might cry but when the game finished I cried so much that I almost needed help to leave and that was because it made me think about the fact that my sister who passed away a few years ago loved Mundy as a football player, would have loved to have been there. She would have been cheering and clapping and maybe crying a little bit to see him leave. But she wasn’t there and so when I cried I cried for his last game and then I cried with grief for my sister.

So I’m sharing these poems as examples but I’m happy for you to use one or more of them as mentor texts although I don’t know whether they stand alone without either a tiny bit of backstory or with those other richer texts that

 

I’ve recommended in Toppling or Pearl Verses the World. They are actually unedited examples of what I wrote on the spot .

SO after the mentor texts and examples simply hand the task over and ask students to write. You can see there is not a lot of structure because I like to trust writers to take the exercise in their own direction, but I also roam and help where needed, especially in a mixed ability group, where more scaffolding might be needed by some students. You know your students, and the amount of support they need, best.

Lastly, if you don’t know about the amazing work of the The Literature Centre in Fremantle, formerly called the Children’s Literature centre or just called the Lit Centre, their Young Writers Programs  run from Year 6 all the way through the year 12, some of the most amazing writing offerings for young writers that I’m aware of ,and well worth taking your young writers along to if you have the opportunity.

Thanks for reading, thanks for teaching our next generation, and I would love to hear if this exercise is useful for you. Maybe you could use it to inspire some of your students to enter the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Contest, which is now open to entries – details here.

 

See you next Tuesday.

sallymurphy.com.au