Shel Silverstein wrote a vast collection of poems comprised in his book Where the Sidewalk Ends. There is no main plot line for the whole book, only that there are many different poems to read. The book’s Lexile reading level is classified as NP, or non-prose. It has this classification simply because the book is comprised mainly of poems, and most of the text in the book is never in complete sentences. This book is a childhood classic for many students, so I feel like it has great benefits when added to the classroom setting. In my classroom, we could read one poem at the beginning of each day. Students could analyze that poem to figure out what type of poem it is and what its meaning might be. This would be something we could enjoy doing throughout the school year! From this, students could also practice writing their own poems in their writing journals.
