In this fresh new edition, Georgia Heard offers updated strategies, lessons, mentor texts, and examples from both professional and student writers that resonate with today’s kids. An impactful complement to any SEL program, Awakening the Heart’s lessons and exercises empower students to connect with their emotions, identities, and the world around them.

Awakening the Heart, Second Edition provides practical strategies for:

creating an inclusive and supportive poetry environment

helping students read poetry to understand its meaning

helping students get started writing poetry with accessible prompts

teaching poetry, craft tools, and techniques.

An entire section of the book is dedicated to poetry prompts, lessons, and exercises you can incorporate into short writing sessions, even when poetry isn’t a main focus of your curriculum.

“We need poetry now more than ever,” Georgia writes. “It is the doorway into literacy for so many children and a pathway to knowing how we feel, learning about who we are, and connecting with others and the larger world.”