New poetry curriculum helps students nail core standards and raise test scores
Recorded Books K-12, leading publisher of K-12 education curriculum and a division of Recorded Books, LLC, the world’s largest independent producer of audiobooks, announces today the release of The Poetry Jam, a new poetry curriculum developed for real teachers, by real teachers to make a difference in the education of high school students.
Created by Alan Sitomer, an award-winning teacher and author of several ALA award-winning young adult novels, and Michael Cirelli, teacher, poet and executive director of Urban Word NYC, the Poetry Jam is a collection of poetry featuring everything from hip-hop to Shakespeare and Tupac Shakur to Tennyson, accompanied by standards-based curriculum and cutting-edge multimedia projects.
“Poetry has reinvented, reinvigorated and reintroduced itself to a new generation of young people in a way that is vibrant, exciting and indisputably electric,” said Sitomer. “Teachers need the right tools to reach their students, and that is why we created the Poetry Jam. It puts the power back in the hands of the teachers and shows them how to fuel these young minds.”
Sitomer and Cirelli developed the Poetry Jam to provide teachers with the tools necessary to engage and excite students about poetry. Each Poetry Jam comes with:
• One Poetry Jam Teacher’s Guide
• 30 Poetry Anthology books for students
• 14 other titles from celebrated poets
• One Composition JamBox – a collection of multimedia standards-based projects for the classroom
A supplemental library kit with 17 additional titles is available for school libraries.
“We are proud of this curriculum because it engages the work of the masters, while also reflecting the diversity of a changing American demographic – one that is multicultural and technologically gifted,” said Cirelli. “Our lessons engage critical literacy through inquiry-based reading and writing exercises. Never boring, it makes some of the most difficult poets accessible, while utilizing all of the tools available to the 21st century classroom.”
The Poetry Jam is the latest addition to the The Alan Sitomer BookJam series. Each BookJam comes with a class set of three engaging young adult books with teacher materials that take a student-centric approach to learning. The materials are standards-based and geared toward achieving core curriculum objectives through traditional and 21st century digital literacy lesson plans.
To find out more about the Poetry Jam, please visit http://thebookjam.com/main/content/poetry-jam. For more information about Alan Sitomer, please visit http://www.alanlawrencesitomer.com/. To learn more about Michael Cirelli and the Urban Word NYC, go to http://www.urbanwordnyc.org/uwnyc/.
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About Recorded Books
Recorded Books, a Haights Cross Communications company, produces and distributes unabridged audiobooks and other audio products for schools and libraries, in CD, cassette and Playaway format. Over 9,000 titles are available for children, young adults, and adults, narrated by professional, award-winning actors. Recorded Books also publishes and distributes curriculum products, including Dr. Janet Allen’s Plugged-in to Reading (www.pluggedintoreading.com), Plugged-in to Nonfiction, and The Alan Sitomer BookJam (www.thebookjam.com). For more information, visit www.recordedbooks.com. For media inquiries, contact Christy Oberley of Dittoe Public Relations at (317) 202-2280 XT.16 or christy@dittoepr.com.
About Haights Cross Communications
Founded in 1997 and based in White Plains, NY, Haights Cross Communications is a premier educational and library publisher dedicated to creating the finest books, audio products, periodicals, software and online services, serving the following markets: K-12 supplemental education, public library and school publishing, audiobooks, and medical continuing-education publishing. Haights Cross companies include Triumph Learning (New York, NY) and Recorded Books (Prince Frederick, MD). For more information, visit www.haightscross.com.
